Players with nationalities you didnt expect based on their name

[pucksakes666]

Johnny Oduya I thought he was American for years

 

[George Lebay]

Always thought Wendel Clark was a french canadian.

 

[troyerlaw]

Didn’t know Joel Armia was Finnish. Figured Canadian or American

 

[Pyrophorus]

Paul Tetsuhiko Kariya

Born in North Vancouver.

 

[Jmo89]

Bjugstad

 

[BlueDream]

In my mind I never think of Robert Hagg to be Swedish.

 

[ref19]

I never understood how is Niskanen not a Finn.

Ekblad I routinely think of as a Swede.

Lot of Scandinavians in Minnesota

 

[hypereconomist]

Leo Komarov. With a name like that, I was expecting him to be from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus or somewhere in that part of the Eastern Bloc instead of the Baltic region (Estonia and Finland).

 

[Dempsey]

Henrik Borgstrom is Finnish.

 

[Based Anime Fan]

Well i should.be more specific. Lot of french New Brunswicker with that last name

All of them from Shediac too.

 

[Realgud]

Ryan O'Marra the best Japanese player?

Torey Krug the best lithuanian goalie of all time?

 

[Rexor]

Jacob Trouba sounded like Czech to me but he's American.

"Trouba" stands for "oven" or "moron" in Czech.

Fun fact. Zajac in Russian means bunny.

In Slovak too. Czech version would be "zajíc".

 

[ThrowDemTongs]

Born in North Vancouver.

So he's Iranian

 

[jetsforever]

Don't you ever read his forename? Because Jake is almost as anglo as you can be named.

Could have been short for Jakob or something
I'm not saying it's logical, just that that one seems to get me

 

[jetsforever]

Bjugstad

Yeah he's a good one too, forgot about him

 

[jetsforever]

Didn’t know Joel Armia was Finnish. Figured Canadian or American

When he left Winnipeg they stopped pronouncing "jole" and switched to "yo-el".

 

[ponder719]

Anders Lee and Mark Streit need to trade nationalities stat.

It always kind of throws me that Sean Couturier was born in Phoenix (yes, I know why, and I know he considers himself Canadian.)

Byfuglien, though, there is no nationality I would expect based on his last name, so literally any one would be a surprise.

And it's way too obvious, even being called out in the first post, but there's no way this team isn't the Alex Galchenyuk All-Stars.

 

[Artorius Horus T]

It would be a lot easier if NA would adopt every european letter
that's how you recognize from which country you are, or get the general idea
- with most cases anyways

 

[GrkFlyersFan]

Christopher Gibson

 

[sdf]

Fun fact. Zajac in Russian means bunny.

Hare, and pronunciation different

 

[ES]

I'll add Douglas Murray from Sweden aka crankshaft.

When I first found out that he was born in Sweden I thought more like he's son of Canadian hockey player who was just playing in Sweden at that time.

 

[Reality Czech]

Shocking that a guy with a very American name would be in fact American.

Guess you've never heard of Erik Karlsson. He's from Sweden. You're welcome.

 

[Kibe]

Leo Komarov. With a name like that, I was expecting him to be from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus or somewhere in that part of the Eastern Bloc instead of the Baltic region (Estonia and Finland).

Finland is not in the Baltic region. But yes Leksa is originally from Estonia and his father is Russian.

 

[Sauce12]

Raphael Diaz from Switzerland. I was like ok maybe we’re gonna start seeing latino players.

His dad is from Spain, he owns a spanish passport.

Erik Gudbranson for me, always thought he's swedish.

 

[Albatros]

Finland is not in the Baltic region. But yes Leksa is originally from Estonia and his father is Russian.

Ingrian Finn according to some sources:

Meet Leo Komarov, the Leafs’ international man of mystery