Sörby is a village in the municipality of Borgholm within the island province of Öland and the county of Kalmar in Sweden. It is in Gärdslösa socken. As of 2005[update] the village had 59 inhabitants.
The name of the settlement appears as Söderby in older sources. One possible etymology is that it is "south" (Swedish: söder), but there is no obvious centre to the north to which this might refer; another suggestion is that it derives from a word such as sur or sörjig (damp, slushy) and meant a marshy area.[1]
In 1540 the village was part of the lands of the Diocese of Linköping and had 3½ dwellings and 6 smallholdings; in 1544 there were 4 freeholders, one of them Gustav Vasa.[1]
References
^ abPalm, Bertil (1966). Byar och gårdar i Gärdslösa, en sockenbeskrivning (in Swedish). Kalmar: Gärdslösa fornminnesförening. p. 158.