Use of inherited place names

Location	Finland
Tags	place names, language, naming, oral tradition, geographical names
In other languages	Finnish: Perinnäisten paikannimien käyttö

Practitioners and people who know the tradition well

Inherited place names are names that people travelling through or living in an area have given – and continue to give when needed – to places in their environment. They are part of language and are created and used by the entire language community. In earlier times, places were named by the first people moving through the area (for example hunters and Sámi people) and later by those who settled there permanently. Initially, names were transmitted from one user to another only as oral tradition. For this reason, old place names have only survived in areas where settlement has been continuous. More systematic recording of place names in documents and maps began in the 16th century.

Inherited place names that emerge in the speech of a linguistic community differ from planned place names, such as street and park names assigned by municipalities. Inherited names of lakes, hills, villages and fields form part of our shared intangible cultural heritage, and public authorities do not have jurisdiction over them or the right to change them. Although established inherited place names are now recorded on maps, they are not official in nature.

Names of villages, lakes, hills and forests are in constant use as people move across the country and describe events in different locations. For example, people moving in nature use inherited place names when navigating, and tourism entrepreneurs use them in their activities and marketing. The media and local heritage associations use place names not only to indicate locations, but also to convey information about interesting names and their origins.

From the late 19th century, and especially in the early 20th century, place names began to be systematically collected for research by interviewing local inhabitants in every parish of Finland. Finnish- and Sámi-language names have been recorded in the collections of the Names Archive of the Institute for the Languages of Finland, and Swedish-language names in the place name collections of the Society of Swedish Literature in Finland. These collections play a central role in the work of name planners at the Institute for the Languages of Finland, the administrators of the Geographic Names Register of the National Land Survey of Finland, and municipal planners. They serve researchers in onomastics, linguistics, geography, history and cultural heritage, as well as many other fields, along with enthusiasts. The collections have also been used as source material for numerous theses and regional studies.

At Finnish universities, research on place names is an essential part of the teaching and study of the Finnish, Finno-Ugric and Nordic languages. Initially, place name research aimed to correct inaccurate forms that had come into use, but it has since expanded to include the classification of name origins, structures and meanings, as well as their use.

Practising of the tradition

The function of a place name is to distinguish a place from other similar places, as it is difficult to speak about places without names. In earlier times, for example, a hunter moving along waterways would mentally distinguish different sites, such as headlands, bays, rapids and hills, by naming them, which later helped them navigate the area. Prominent landscape features and water bodies were therefore named at an early stage. People have named places that are significant for their activities: farmers named their fields, people moving in forests their berry-picking areas, children their play areas, and young people their meeting places. A name becomes established in a community when it is consistently used. Established names are also recorded on maps. When places are referred to by name, both children and newcomers learn to recognise and use the place names of their local area. Place names are part of everyone’s local environment and support local identity.

However, place names do not always remain unchanged over time. Different user communities may use different names for the same place, or an old name may be replaced by a new one for various reasons. As environments change and generations change, new inherited place names also emerge within local linguistic communities. For example, new residents may begin using a new name for a house. In addition to place names recorded on maps, village communities, families or groups of friends may have their own names known only to a very small group of users. These so-called microtoponyms may refer to features such as a rock, a cliff, a bend in a ditch or a street corner. Microtoponyms are also common in urban areas, although city dwellers tend to use planned names more often in everyday life.

The background and history of the tradition

Place names have not been created randomly. The name-giver or naming community has identified a connection between the place and the name, although this connection may have been forgotten over time. Names are always formed using words and linguistic elements current at the time. As a result, different historical layers can be seen in place names.

The oldest place names offer no clues about their origins, and it may be unclear what words they contain or even what language they originally belonged to (e.g. Päijänne, Aanaar). Some names contain recognisable words, but their original meaning cannot be determined (e.g. the island Maksasalo [‘liver island’], the lakes Tämäkohtu [‘this womb’]) . In other cases, the form of the name may have changed so that it appears to contain a different word than originally. For example, the Finnish name Hailuoto [shark islet’] was originally Haililuoto [’Baltic herring islet’], and the first part of the Swedish name Fölskär [’foal island’] comes from a dialectal word meaning a seabird. Some place names are fully transparent, such as the Finnish name Riihimäki [‘hill with a threshing barn].

Most place names consist of two parts. The first part provides distinguishing information about the place, and the latter part indicates the type of place (e.g. Pihlajamäki [‘rowan hill’]). The name-giver typically focused on the most distinctive feature of the place, such as the terrain (Suopelto [‘bog field’], Kärråkern [‘bog field’], Ráhpesoaivi [‘rocky hill] ), its shape (Suolijoki [‘gut river’], Långudden [‘long headland ’]), or its size (Isoniemi [‘big headland’], Stuorramaras [‘large birchhill’]). A place could also be named after something found there (Myllykoski [‘mill rapids’] ), something that happened there (Surmakorpi [‘death forest’]), or its use (Tanssikallio [‘dance rock’], Fårholmen [‘sheep islet ’]). Houses were named after their first inhabitants (Mattila) and land areas after their owners (Turkkilanmaa [‘Turkkila’s land’] ). Almost any vocabulary related to different areas of life could be reflected in place names. However, commonly occurring features were not usually selected; instead, a clearly distinguishing characteristic was required. For instance, a hill with many spruces but only one rowan tree is more likely to be called Pihlajamäki [‘rowan hill’] than Kuusimäki [‘spruce hill’] if spruces are common in the area.

In the 18th century the Great Partition (an agricultural land reform in Swedish Empire) increased the number of farms and cultivated areas, which created a spontaneous need for many new place names. By the mid-20th century, however, urbanisation and rural depopulation began to reduce the use of inherited place names. Agricultural production concentrated into larger units, and farms were abandoned. This development continues today, and many inherited place names have fallen out of use, although they remain documented in maps and archives.

Place names have been studied scientifically since the late 19th century. Research has examined, among other things, the structure and formation of names, their meanings and functions, name borrowing, usage and variation, and the associations and meanings connected to names. A large and diverse body of publications has been produced, and Finnish research in this field is internationally recognised. The university-level textbook Nimistöntutkimuksen perusteet (Terhi Ainiala, Minna Saarelma & Paula Sjöblom 2008, Finnish Literature Society) contains a comprehensive chapter on place names and presents materials and developments in place name research. Based on this work, the widely distributed English-language publication Names in Focus. An Introduction to Finnish Onomastics (2012) has been produced.

The transmission of the tradition

Place names convey information about the history of an area, natural conditions, settlement history, dialects, vocabulary, tools and many other aspects, often including features that have already disappeared from the region or dialect. Even if the meaning of a name is not understood, a place name still fulfils its function, that is, it distinguishes one place from another. Place names are also important to local inhabitants from the perspective of local identity. Names and their origins interest people, and many stories, both factual and fictional, have been passed down about them. In the past, knowledge of place names spread as oral tradition, but today inherited place names are most reliably transmitted to new generations when they appear on maps and in other written documents. The extensive collections of the Names Archive of the Institute for the Languages of Finland and the Society of Swedish Literature in Finland are available for those interested in inherited place names. These collections contain municipality-based information on names and the places they refer to, including dialectal forms of the names, their background, the type of place, and its location.

In addition to maintaining the Names Archive, the Institute for the Languages of Finland has, for several decades, checked and corrected the place names presented on maps at the request of the National Land Survey of Finland. The Institute has also published, together with the map service Karttakeskus, the book Suomalainen paikannimikirja (2007), which includes information on the origins of key Finnish place names. In its work, the Institute provides guidance on the spelling and use of Finnish- and Swedish-language place names and disseminates information about inherited place names through media appearances and commissioned training.

The Society of Swedish Literature in Finland has published the book series Finlands svenska ortnamn, which provides a comprehensive overview of Swedish-language place names in Finland. The series includes Kurt Zilliacus’s Skärgårdsnamn (1989) about names in the archipelago, Gunilla Harling-Kranck’s Namn på åkrar, ängar och hagar (1990) about the names of fields, meadows and pastures, Ritva Valtavuo-Pfeifer’s Terrängnamn i Svenskfinland (1998) about terrain names, and Lars Huldén’s Finlandssvenska bebyggelsenamn (2001) about settlement names.

Saami place names and place name traditions are presented, among others, in Ilmari Mattus’s Anarâš päikkinoomah (2015), Samuli Aikio’s Davvisámi báikenamat (2017), Taarna Valtonen’s doctoral dissertation Kulttuurista onomastiikkaa. Neljän saamen kielen paikannimien rakenne, sanasto ja rinnakkaisnimet vähemmistö–enemmistö-suhteiden kuvastajina (2014), and Anni-Magga Eira’s doctoral dissertation Eanan lea earálágan go das lea eallán (2025).

The Roma have also traditionally had an extensive system of place names in the Kalo Finnish Romani language. Many of these names are descriptive. For example, Helsinki is called Baro fooros [‘large city’] in Romani. Romani-language place names in Finland were written about in Estonian by Paul Ariste in the 1940s. Older Romani dictionaries and word lists also contain place names, although current usage has not been comprehensively studied.

Local heritage associations in Finland collect place name information as part of local history and other heritage knowledge. This information is incorporated into village books, other publications and exhibitions in local museums. Presentations on local place names are also given at events organised by these associations.

Documentation of the tradition

The place name collections of the Names Archive of the Institute for the Languages of Finland contain more than 2.5 million records of names from Finland and nearby regions, and the place name collections of the Society of Swedish Literature in Finland include approximately 400,000 names. These collections have been gathered by recording names in use by interviewing local inhabitants. The material has been collected since the 19th century, and smaller scale collecting continues to the present day. Both the Institute for the Languages of Finland and the Society of Swedish Literature in Finland continue to accept place names collected by private individuals and local heritage associations.

Most of the place name collections were gathered by linguistically trained researchers during the 1950s to the 1980s. Collectors travelled from house to house within villages. They recorded names and located them on maps. Most of the place name collections of the Institute for the Languages of Finland have been compiled into the digital Names Archive, into which the collections of the Society of Swedish Literature in Finland are also being incorporated. In addition to the place name itself, the database contains information on the type of place (for example, pond, house or field) as well as location and collector information. The original archive slips with their associated data are displayed to users logged into the digital Names Archive.

Place names are transmitted from one generation to another not only through speech but also through maps. Maps therefore serve both to preserve older names and to reflect changes in naming. At the Institute for the Languages of Finland, Finnish- and Swedish-language entries in the Geographic Name Register of the National Land Survey of Finland are reviewed upon request. The Institute also coordinates the verification of Saami-language place names in the register, which is carried out at the University of Oulu. The register forms the basis for the place names used in maps produced by the National Land Survey of Finland and in the MapSite map service. The guiding principle is that names selected for maps should be known and used locally. In verifying names, extensive place name materials from the Institute for the Languages of Finland and the Society of Swedish Literature in Finland are used, and when necessary, members of the local speech community are interviewed.

Sustainable development

The preservation and use of inherited place names supports sustainable development. When place names remain as stable as possible, they best fulfil their primary function: people and activities can efficiently find the correct location, and resources are saved. In multilingual environments, a single place may have established names in several languages. From the perspectives of emergency safety as well as cultural and social sustainability, it is important that inherited place names in different languages are represented according to the same principles in maps and geographic information systems.

Place names are also connected to historical events. When a place and its name are familiar to the listener, a place name carries a wide range of information, including knowledge about local inhabitants, vegetation, landforms and activities that have taken place there. A place name reflects people’s knowledge and experiences of how a place has evolved over time into what it is today. An inherited place name is an expression rich in associations, combining orally transmitted cultural heritage with lived experience of the environment. Stable names formed and accepted by the language community are often a central part of an individual’s sense of belonging and attachment to place.

The future of the tradition

Inherited place names will also be needed in the future, as they are important in many ways both for the functioning and resilience of society and for the local identity of residents. The Institute for the Languages of Finland and the National Land Survey of Finland have jointly promoted the introduction of place name legislation in Finland. The aim is that public authorities would, in their work, use inherited place names used by local inhabitants—i.e. those that have been verified by the Institute for the Languages of Finland and recorded in the place name register of the National Land Survey of Finland.

New place names continue to emerge out of necessity. Older inherited names, even those that have fallen out of active use, may serve as a basis for consciously planned naming. Particularly in urban areas, new names also arise spontaneously, or alternative names are created for already named places, for example through wordplay or foreign influences. Some of these names exist only briefly, while others persist for a longer time.