The Australian form of the surname is a mixture of the German and Wendish names.

The official German word ‘zwar’ has usually been the written form used in Australia, but from the beginning the Wendish pronunciation of Swor has been in everyday use. So the German word ‘zwar’ is used, but pronounced as the Wendish ‘Swor’.

In Australia Zwar is pronounced ‘Swor’, to rhyme with war, (and not the German pronunciation ‘tsvar’ to rhyme with ‘car’). This has been true for all three brothers who emigrated to Australia. Their descendants originating from Broadford in Victoria, the Barossa Valley and the mid north of South Australia usually pronounce Zwar as Swor.

When descendants attended a Lutheran College where most of the teachers were of German background, the teachers always pronounced it as the German form ‘tsvar’ whether one liked it or not! (One did not correct ones teachers!). If one went on from a Lutheran College to a Lutheran Seminary the German pronunciation ‘tsvar’ continued well into adulthood, whether one preferred it or not.

Australians pronounce the ‘z’ as a soft form of the ‘s’, and not the sharp ‘ts’ of the German language.

When Peter Zwar’s son Ernst moved from South Australia to Western Australia (in the late 1800’s?) he changed his name to Swar. One still finds this spelling in Western Australia.

Today one finds both pronunciations in Australia:
Zwar as Swor,
and Zwar pronounced ‘Swar’ to rhyme with ‘car’.

Note: In the U S A there have been generations of Swor families who can be traced back to John Swor, who had emigrated to Philadelphia from Binnewitz in the Bautzen District of Germany in 1843. John Swor’s father was Karl Zwahr of Binnewitz.
There are also Zwahr families in the U S A, and Zwar families in Canada.

Beware
When Pastor John Burger published his work ‘The Coming of the Wends’ in the Lutheran Year Book of Australia in 1976 he gave the meanings of some Wendish names. It was the first detailed work on the Wends published in English in Australia. In this pioneering and valuable work Burger gives the meaning of some Wendish surnames , and suggests some possible meanings, but he is careful to qualify his ideas, and so he writes on page 57:

“ Zwar (if derived from Stazowar), a military guard.”

As later research has shown, ‘zwar’ is not from Stazowar but is the German form of the Wendish ‘Sswore’.

Unfortunately in a publication some years after Burger’s article, his material was used but tragically the careful statement (If derived from Stazowar) is completely left out and it is blandly stated that zwar means a military guard. This statement is completely false. Unfortunately there are now people in Australia who have been misled and believe ’Zwar’ means a ‘military guard’ and it is now difficult to correct the error.
Once published, false information continues to be read by innocent readers as though it were fact.

The original meaning of ‘Zwar’ is a ‘Tie, a Bond or a Link’.