Toponyms of Finland
Encyclopedia
The toponyms of Finland result mainly from the legacy left by three linguistic heritages: the Finnish language
(spoken by about 93% of the population), the Swedish language (about 5.5%) and Sami languages
(about 0.03%). Finland’s place names range from those of unknown or unrecognizable origins to more clearly derivable onomastics
. There are both national and international recommendations on how to use the bilingial country's place names in texts written in different languages. In Finland, the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland
and the National Land Survey of Finland
are jointly responsible for the standardization of place names.
, Imatra
and Keitele
which are thought to be among the oldest toponyms – still lack a sound derivation from existing languages despite of different approaches. This has led to the postulation that they may originate from an unknown language.
A substratum of archaic Sami place names, often fennicized in the course of time, can be found throughout the country. The majority of Finland’s toponyms can be recognized having archaic or dialectal Finnish origins. A Finnish substratum can be deduced in Swedish place names and vice versa in many cases. Major urbanisation started and city rights were granted in Finland when the country was part of Sweden in a situation where Swedish was the de facto only official language though the majority always spoke Finnish dialects as a first language. Therefore, in older foreign writing, many municipal and city names are given only in their Swedish form. Other substrata in Finland’s toponyms include Finnic, Baltic, Germanic and Slavic linguistic influence in several chronological layers.
, has two official languages: Finnish and Swedish. The Åland islands have a single official language: Swedish. On the mainland, Swedish-speakers are concentrated to the regions Ostrobothnia
, Uusimaa
and around Turku
. North Sami, Inari Sami
and Skolt Sami
are semi-official in the Sami Domicile Area
. The Language Act of 2003 groups municipalities into three groups: monolingually Finnish, monolingually Swedish and bilingual. The municipality is monolingual, if it has less than 8% of the minority language speakers and if the population of the lingual minority in the municipality is below 3,000. Other communities are bilingual.
In bilingual municipalities, the Language Act requires that all toponyms have both a Finnish and a Swedish name. In addition, many monolingually Finnish municipalities have an official Swedish name, and vice versa. The municipalities have the power to decide their own name but they are required to consult with the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland before the official decision.
The convention concerning street names and traffic signs maintains that the majority language toponym is presented topmost and place names in the minority languages are listed below.
or Neo-Latin, not in use in Finland or Sweden) exist for Finland’s provincial structures. These include the names of the nine historical provinces (Fi: maakunta, Sw: landskap) that have given names to some of Finland’s current regions (Fi: maakunta, Sw: landskap, altogether 20 as of 1997). These may fall under the category of "already established place names in foreign languages" mentioned in the above recommendations.
The names of the nine historical provinces in Finnish, Swedish and English :
The Research Institute for the Languages of Finland
has given guidelines for devising new toponyms. The basic principle is to use toponyms already in use and spell them according to the modern language norms. As the old toponym for a minor place, such as a field, often exist only in one language, they should be translated with care. Only such names which carry an identifiable meaning should be translated directly. If the toponym already exists in both languages, the existing forms should be used. If the translation of the name is unfeasible and there exists no toponym in the other language, then the toponym should be loaned in its original form. Personal names should not be translated. However, if the existing name is unusable in the other language for phonetic or grammatical reasons, a new name may be freely invented.
The cases where two municipalities are fused together, create a special case for the construction of toponyms. There are two simple cases for the name selection:
In other cases, the toponym should be selected from the historical toponyms of the area. In many cases, there are historical administrative structures that have encompassed the area of the merging municipalities. If such names are unusable, the name of some the most prominent villages in the area should be used. To reduce the possibility of confusion, the new name should not include the name of the province or the region. In no case should the name be made up of two parts, because the use of such name is grammatically difficult in Finnish language. The names of the merger projects or frivolous names should also be avoided at all costs.
If the merging municipalities will form a bilingual municipality, the Finnish name chosen for the municipality should be such that a Swedish counterpart can be found without difficulty. The Swedish name of the new municipality should be devised according to the same principles as in other toponymical planning.
, some toponyms receive external locative suffixes, especially those named for bodies of water, as in Seinäjoella. The rest receive internal locative suffixes, as in Helsingissä.
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
(spoken by about 93% of the population), the Swedish language (about 5.5%) and Sami languages
Sami languages
Sami or Saami is a general name for a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Sami people in parts of northern Finland, Norway, Sweden and extreme northwestern Russia, in Northern Europe. Sami is frequently and erroneously believed to be a single language. Several names are used for the Sami...
(about 0.03%). Finland’s place names range from those of unknown or unrecognizable origins to more clearly derivable onomastics
Onomastics
Onomastics or onomatology is the study of proper names of all kinds and the origins of names. The words are from the Greek: "ὀνομαστικός" , "of or belonging to naming" and "ὀνοματολογία" , from "ὄνομα" "name". Toponymy or toponomastics, the study of place names, is one of the principal branches of...
. There are both national and international recommendations on how to use the bilingial country's place names in texts written in different languages. In Finland, the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland
Research Institute for the Languages of Finland
The Research Institute for the Languages of Finland is a governmental linguistic research institute of Finland geared at studies of Finnish, Swedish , the Sami languages, Romani language, and the Finnish Sign Language....
and the National Land Survey of Finland
National Land Survey of Finland
The National Land Survey of Finland is an official body, dealing with cartography and cadastre issues in Finland. It is subordinated the Finnish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.-Organization:...
are jointly responsible for the standardization of place names.
Historical aspects
A few notable place names – such as a few major hydronyms Päijänne, SaimaaSaimaa
Saimaa is a lake in southeastern Finland. At approximately , it is the largest lake in Finland, and the fourth largest in Europe. It was formed by glacial melting at the end of the Ice Age. Major towns on the lakeshore include Lappeenranta, Imatra, Savonlinna, Mikkeli, Varkaus, and Joensuu. The...
, Imatra
Imatra
Imatra is a town and municipality in eastern Finland, founded in 1948 around three industrial settlements near the Finnish–Russian border. In the course of the last 50 years, this amorphous group of settlements has grown into a modern industrial town dominated by Lake Saimaa, the Vuoksi River and...
and Keitele
Keitele
Keitele is a municipality of Finland.It is located in the province of Eastern Finland and is part of the Northern Savonia region. The municipality has a population of and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is ....
which are thought to be among the oldest toponyms – still lack a sound derivation from existing languages despite of different approaches. This has led to the postulation that they may originate from an unknown language.
A substratum of archaic Sami place names, often fennicized in the course of time, can be found throughout the country. The majority of Finland’s toponyms can be recognized having archaic or dialectal Finnish origins. A Finnish substratum can be deduced in Swedish place names and vice versa in many cases. Major urbanisation started and city rights were granted in Finland when the country was part of Sweden in a situation where Swedish was the de facto only official language though the majority always spoke Finnish dialects as a first language. Therefore, in older foreign writing, many municipal and city names are given only in their Swedish form. Other substrata in Finland’s toponyms include Finnic, Baltic, Germanic and Slavic linguistic influence in several chronological layers.
Jurisdiction regarding languages in Finland
Finland, except for the Åland islandsÅland Islands
The Åland Islands form an archipelago in the Baltic Sea. They are situated at the entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia and form an autonomous, demilitarised, monolingually Swedish-speaking region of Finland...
, has two official languages: Finnish and Swedish. The Åland islands have a single official language: Swedish. On the mainland, Swedish-speakers are concentrated to the regions Ostrobothnia
Ostrobothnia (region)
Ostrobothnia is a region of Finland. It is located in Western Finland. It borders the regions Central Ostrobothnia, Southern Ostrobothnia, and Satakunta and is one of the four regions making up the historical province of Ostrobothnia....
, Uusimaa
Uusimaa
Uusimaa, or Nyland in Swedish, is a region in Finland. It borders the regions Finland Proper, Tavastia Proper, Päijänne Tavastia and Kymenlaakso...
and around Turku
Turku
Turku is a city situated on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River. It is located in the region of Finland Proper. It is believed that Turku came into existence during the end of the 13th century which makes it the oldest city in Finland...
. North Sami, Inari Sami
Inari Sami
Inari Sámi is a Uralic, Sami language spoken by the Inari Sami of Finland. It has approximately 300 speakers, the majority of whom are middle-aged or older and live in the municipality of Inari. According to the Sami Parliament of Finland 269 persons used Inari Sami as their first language. It is...
and Skolt Sami
Skolt Sami
Skolt Sami is a Uralic, Sami language spoken by approximately 400 speakers in Finland, mainly in Sevettijärvi, and approximately 20–30 speakers of the Njuõˊttjäuˊrr dialect in an area surrounding Lake Lovozero in Russia. Skolt Sami used to also be spoken on the Neiden area of Norway,...
are semi-official in the Sami Domicile Area
Sami Domicile Area
The Sami native region of Finland is the northernmost part of the Lapland Province in Finland, home of approximately half of Finland's Sami population...
. The Language Act of 2003 groups municipalities into three groups: monolingually Finnish, monolingually Swedish and bilingual. The municipality is monolingual, if it has less than 8% of the minority language speakers and if the population of the lingual minority in the municipality is below 3,000. Other communities are bilingual.
In bilingual municipalities, the Language Act requires that all toponyms have both a Finnish and a Swedish name. In addition, many monolingually Finnish municipalities have an official Swedish name, and vice versa. The municipalities have the power to decide their own name but they are required to consult with the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland before the official decision.
Conventions
These are the current conventions recommended by the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland. The conventions have also been adopted by the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names:- Finnish place names are used in the Finnic languagesFinnic languagesThe term Finnic languages often means the Baltic-Finnic languages, an undisputed branch of the Uralic languages. However, it is also commonly used to mean the Finno-Permic languages, a hypothetical intermediate branch that includes Baltic Finnic, or the more disputed Finno-Volgaic languages....
(such as Finnish and EstonianEstonian languageEstonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...
). Swedish place names are used in the North Germanic languagesNorth Germanic languagesThe North Germanic languages or Scandinavian languages, the languages of Scandinavians, make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages, a sub-family of the Indo-European languages, along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages...
(such as Swedish and NorwegianNorwegian languageNorwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
). Sami place names are used in the different Sami languages around northern Fennoscandia.
- In other languages, if that language doesn’t already have an established toponym for the place (very seldom), the choice between Finnish and Swedish toponyms is based on the demographic situation. Finnish place names are used when handling a municipality where Finnish is the majority language (90% of all municipalities , 93% of the cities). Swedish place naming is used when handling a municipality where Swedish is the majority language. Concerning the Sami Homeland, toponyms are written in Finnish and appended with the Sami place names.
The convention concerning street names and traffic signs maintains that the majority language toponym is presented topmost and place names in the minority languages are listed below.
Possible deviations in the conventions
A few exonyms (in MedievalMedieval Latin
Medieval Latin was the form of Latin used in the Middle Ages, primarily as a medium of scholarly exchange and as the liturgical language of the medieval Roman Catholic Church, but also as a language of science, literature, law, and administration. Despite the clerical origin of many of its authors,...
or Neo-Latin, not in use in Finland or Sweden) exist for Finland’s provincial structures. These include the names of the nine historical provinces (Fi: maakunta, Sw: landskap) that have given names to some of Finland’s current regions (Fi: maakunta, Sw: landskap, altogether 20 as of 1997). These may fall under the category of "already established place names in foreign languages" mentioned in the above recommendations.
The names of the nine historical provinces in Finnish, Swedish and English :
- 1. Varsinais-Suomi fi; Egentliga Finland sv; Finland ProperFinland ProperFinland Proper or Southwest Finland , is a region in south-western Finland. It borders the regions of Satakunta, Tavastia Proper, Ahvenanmaa and Uusimaa.- Municipalities :...
en - 2. UusimaaUusimaaUusimaa, or Nyland in Swedish, is a region in Finland. It borders the regions Finland Proper, Tavastia Proper, Päijänne Tavastia and Kymenlaakso...
fi, en; Nyland sv - 3. Satakunta fi, sv, en
- 4. Häme fi; Tavastland sv; TavastiaTavastia ProperTavastia Proper is a region of Finland. It borders to the regions Finland Proper, Pirkanmaa, Päijänne Tavastia, and Uusimaa.Hämeenlinna is the largest urban area in the region...
en - 5. SavoSavoSavo may refer to:* Savo Island near Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands* Battle of Savo Island, 9 August 1942* Savonian dialects of the Finnish language* Savonia or , a historical province of Finland* Savo - a main-belt asteroid...
fi, en; Savolax sv - 6. Karjala fi; Karelen sv; KareliaKareliaKarelia , the land of the Karelian peoples, is an area in Northern Europe of historical significance for Finland, Russia, and Sweden...
en - 7. Pohjanmaa fi; Österbotten sv; OstrobothniaOstrobothnia (region)Ostrobothnia is a region of Finland. It is located in Western Finland. It borders the regions Central Ostrobothnia, Southern Ostrobothnia, and Satakunta and is one of the four regions making up the historical province of Ostrobothnia....
en - 8. Lappi fi; Lappland sv; Lapland en
- 9. Åland sv, en; Ahvenanmaa fi
Guidelines for naming new places
In urban planning, new names are needed for different places. Suburbs, streets, parks and other areas must be named. In bilingual municipalities, the task is complicated by the need to use two different languages in the toponyms. As all municipalities in the Finnish capital region, which is the most swiftly developing area in Finland, are bilingual, the problem of devising good toponyms is not a small task.The Research Institute for the Languages of Finland
Research Institute for the Languages of Finland
The Research Institute for the Languages of Finland is a governmental linguistic research institute of Finland geared at studies of Finnish, Swedish , the Sami languages, Romani language, and the Finnish Sign Language....
has given guidelines for devising new toponyms. The basic principle is to use toponyms already in use and spell them according to the modern language norms. As the old toponym for a minor place, such as a field, often exist only in one language, they should be translated with care. Only such names which carry an identifiable meaning should be translated directly. If the toponym already exists in both languages, the existing forms should be used. If the translation of the name is unfeasible and there exists no toponym in the other language, then the toponym should be loaned in its original form. Personal names should not be translated. However, if the existing name is unusable in the other language for phonetic or grammatical reasons, a new name may be freely invented.
The cases where two municipalities are fused together, create a special case for the construction of toponyms. There are two simple cases for the name selection:
- smaller municipalities joining a city: the name of the city should be used
- municipalities which have been chapel parishes joining the municipality which has been the mother parish: the name of the historical mother parish should be used.
In other cases, the toponym should be selected from the historical toponyms of the area. In many cases, there are historical administrative structures that have encompassed the area of the merging municipalities. If such names are unusable, the name of some the most prominent villages in the area should be used. To reduce the possibility of confusion, the new name should not include the name of the province or the region. In no case should the name be made up of two parts, because the use of such name is grammatically difficult in Finnish language. The names of the merger projects or frivolous names should also be avoided at all costs.
If the merging municipalities will form a bilingual municipality, the Finnish name chosen for the municipality should be such that a Swedish counterpart can be found without difficulty. The Swedish name of the new municipality should be devised according to the same principles as in other toponymical planning.
Finnish Grammar
In Finnish grammarFinnish grammar
This article deals with the grammar of the Finnish language . For the ways in which the spoken language differs from the written language, see Colloquial Finnish...
, some toponyms receive external locative suffixes, especially those named for bodies of water, as in Seinäjoella. The rest receive internal locative suffixes, as in Helsingissä.