The origin is almost certainly Norwegian, Danish doesn't use "våg" as far as I can recall, and the word has a different meaning in Swedish. If it came from Swedish, the spelling of the third part of the word would not be "nes".
I'd make a guess for north-western Norway (with a high probability for some island off the coast of Møre- og Romsdal*).
The meaning is, literally, "mire/moor (bog) + small bay + headland", and would probably translate better as "headland in the little mire-bay".
"Å" isn't difficult with Ikonboard at all, you just need the proper keyboard setup.
* Wimping out and checking with the Norwegian online cartographic service for roads, I find a place called "Myrvågneset" on Gurskøya (an island off the coast of Møre- og Romsdal); this may be entirely coincidental. There are, BTW, exactly four people in Norway with your spelling of that last name, and 51 with "å" instead of "aa".
Jan,
You win the prize (a free subscription to the LL forum .)
My father came from Ålesund on the West coast of Norway. A cousin of mine has traced the family genealogy back to a Jakob Olafsson who leased a section of the Myrvaagnes farm on Gurskøya, near Myrvågneset. At about the same time, some other guy, who may or may not have been related, leased another section of the same farm. My speculation is that after a few generations (Olaf Jakobsson, Jakob Olafsson, etc.), one of the Olafs or Jakobs moved to the big town of Ålesund, where some other Jakob or Olaf had the same father's name. So their friends started calling him by the name of the farm he came from. Of course, back then it was spelled with two a's; the "Å" came later.
Thus, some, or perhaps all, of the 55 (both "Å" and "aa") may be related to me. They are almost certainly descended from shareholders in the Myrvaagnes farm in the 19th century.
After my father came to America, married, and had kids, he thought of changing the family name legally to something simpler. The classiest sounding variant he considered was "Moorway", while the longest translation he came up with was "Quagmireinletpromontory", which is a more cumbersome version of your translation. I'm glad he never actually changed the name!
And if you ever get out to Gurskøya, take a look at the well-preserved Myrvaagnes farmhouse, which is preserved as a national historic house. I'll post a photo of it some day, after I've scanned it (taken with film, in 1996).
So, now back to Wienke ( rhymes with Blinky?).
Eric
P.S. Without the right keyboard, I could get your "å" and "ø" by cutting and pasting