Institute for the Languages of Finland :: From one language to another

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Names Archive

The Story of a Place Name

Place names – a piece of our cultural environment

The birth of place names - talking about places

A name after a place

A name from a name

From one language to another

Storing the name of a field

Archived names

Checking the names on the Basic Map

Saami names on the maps

Names on the Basic Map

Names in multiple languages

Planned names – Kruununhaka in Helsinki

Names in town plans – ”Keimola Hill”

Publications, articles and links

From one language to another

The Finnish names in the Saami region are often adaptations or translations from the Saami languages. The wilderness church of Pielpajärvi is located by the lake Iso Pielpajärvi (Great Pielpajärvi) east of the village of Inari. The Finnish name Pielpajärvi is an adaptation of the Inari Saami name Piälppáájävri. Its first part piälppáá means a small pointed wooden arrow, whereas its second part jävri corresponds to the Finnish word järvi ’lake’. There are also other names beginning with the word Pielpa in the region: Pieni Pielpajärvi (Little Lake Pielpajärvi) (Uccâ Piälppáájävri), Pielpavuono (fjord) (Piälppáávuonâ) and Pielpaniemi (peninsula) (Piälppáánjargâ).

The name Kalkuvaara is an adaptation of the Inari Saami name Kálguvääri. The first part of the name kálgu is based on a word referring to a wife or an old woman, and the second part vääri is a hill covered with forest. Sarviniemi (peninsula) is a translation of the Inari Saami name Čuárvinjargâ (čuárvi meaning a horn and njargâ meaning a peninsula).

Swedish into Finnish and Finnish into Swedish

The influence of the languages on Finnish and Swedish place names can be seen on the map below.

The Swedish names or name elements in the Finnish areas are marked in red, whereas the Finnish names or name elements in the Swedish areas are marked in blue.

Updated 04 October 2011

Piälppáájäävri church in the wilds. Photo: Toni Suutari 2008.

Photo: Juha Lohi.

A view of Aittijoki village by Tenojoki river in the municipality of Utsjoki. The first part of the Finnish name, ‘aitti’, is an adaptation of the North Saami word referring to a barn, fi ‘aitta’.

Names may be well preserved even if the places had changed considerably or the words found in the names had disappeared from the language. Name loans from one language to another also show that names have not been expected to describe places accurately.