Aarseth

Aarseth is a Norwegian surname. It is a toponymic name derived from farm names common in Norway; the element seth denotes a farm, homestead, or pasture in place names, indicating geographic origin rather than a trade or lineage.

Notable people with the surname include Espen J. Aarseth (born 1965), a Norwegian scholar in literary and game studies. He is a professor of digital culture at the IT University of Copenhagen and a leading figure in the development of game studies as an academic field. He is widely associated with the concept of ergodic literature and is the author of Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature (1997), a foundational work arguing that ergodic texts require nontrivial user effort to traverse. His research has influenced theories of interactive narratives, digital media, and video games.

The surname is found in Norway and among Norwegian communities worldwide. Espen Aarseth is the most internationally recognized bearer of the name, but the surname may be carried by others in various contexts within Norwegian diaspora communities.