r/LearnFinnish • u/des_tapir • 7d ago
Question En
Does en/on have a genitive meaning? Suomenlinna I think is "fortress of Finland", and then there are Savonlinna, and Hämeenlinna. With names, there are Oikkonen, Raikonnen, etc. (are these patronymic-type names as in Abramovic, Alexandrovna etc.)?
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u/AbsolutelyAnonymized 7d ago
Yes, Suomenlinna means the castle of Finland (nom. Suomi —> gen. Suomen). Same with the rest. The genetive suffix is -n.
No, these names are not genetives. -(i)nen is a very common suffix for diminutives and adjectives.
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u/Petskin Native 7d ago edited 7d ago
-n >< -nen
Genetive ending is -n, some vowels just change.
Häme -> Hämeen
Hämeenlinna -> Hämeenlinnan
-nen is often a diminutive or in old surnames often means something like "close by to".
Tyttö -> tyttönen (girl -> small girl)
Virta -> Virtanen (stream -> the ancestors potentially lived once close to a stream)
However, Kivi -> Kivinen (Rock/stone -> Rocky/Stony OR a surname with rocks to do, as in 'Flintstones')
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u/GEP8952 Native 7d ago
the ancestors potentially lived once close to a stream
Or worked for someone named Virta, or at a farm named Virta. Many of the -nen surnames (but not all) were originally derived from names of employers in this way.
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u/okarox 7d ago
Actually there are two types of nen-names. The Old ones from eastern Finland do not have a clear meaning, like Korhonen. Virtanen is an example of new Western Finnish names that were adopted when last names became mandatory. These typically have a clear meaning relating to the nature but it does not necessarily reflect the person who adopted it.
In the Western Finland they used the house name instead of a family name.
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u/puuskuri 6d ago
"Sen arvellaan mahdollisesti tulevan ’korho/korhu’-sanasta, joka tarkoittanut paikoin huonokuuloista ja kuuroa, paikoin sanalla on ollut merkitys ”vähän tyhmä, huomaamaton, kömpelö”. Suomen lähisukukielissä, kuten karjalassa, virossa ja lyydissä sanalla ’korho’ on yhteinen merkitys ”koholla oleva” (kuten heinä, jää, hiukset, karvat, tms.). Esimerkiksi karjalan ’korhottaa’: ”olla tai liikkua pystynä, pää pystyssä, kohottaa, heristää, höristellä”, sekä Suomen eri murteissa, kuten Pöytyän ’korhopää’, ”pörröpäinen”."
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u/des_tapir 7d ago edited 7d ago
Are there known etymologies for Oikkonen or Raikonnen? Edit: *Räikkönen!
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u/stimulaatti 7d ago
Räikkönen (I assume that’s what you mean as Raikonnen isn’t a typical Finnish name) is of Karelian origin and might come from a personal name Räikkö/Räikkä, same as Korhonen might come from a Korho. So Räikkönen might mean ”related to Räikkö” or ”little Räikkö”.
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u/warghast13041975 7d ago
There is a word in Finnish that means like a straight bit of a road or a short cut, take a short cut, straighten something or to be a bit simple and straight forward: Oikoa, Oikoonen.
That could be the origin for Oikkonen.
Where I grew up there was a four mile straight bit of road called Longinoikoonen :)
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u/iwy_iwy 7d ago edited 7d ago
I think of -nen endings as kind of adjectives. Especially in the Eastern Finland. There are surnames derived from substantives or adjectives. Describing something.
A person and his/her offspring were called with a certain nickname, which represented the type of person they were. Or their skill. So the nickname became the surname over time, when it was inherited. And with -nen it was called "how this person is like", "a person with this character".
For example "Räikkönen" has been asummed to relate to an old adjective "räikkäpäinen". Which means "hot-blooded" "quick-tempered". "Päinen" means "headed". So it's "tempered- headed". There might have been a guy or a gal, who was very quick-tempered. Räikkäpäinen was their nickname. Or maybe a whole family was known to be quick-tempered. Then this was inherited forward. It was shortened through time -> maybe, räikkänen, räikkönen. All in all, it's sort of an adjective.
Other meaning: "Räikkä" has meant in old Finnish "a deterrent noise". "Räikätä" has meant "to shoot". "Räikönen" has meant "a shooting noise/kaboom". So, Maybe some people were good at shooting and hunting? Maybe a certain house/villa was known for its hunters. So the whole house and its people were known for this name.
Räikkä and Räikkö have also been people's first names. So some big personality named Räikkö, could have have had a family and grandchildren named "Räikkönen". = "Räikkö'rling / Räikkö's people".
So, this pictures a profession or what kind of people they were.
Yes, in some cases, -nen relates to a place where they lived. Like "Jokinen", "Riverling".
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u/53nsonja 6d ago
Surnames that are in the form of nature word + nen are recent innovations and have nothing to with ancestors or anything. They were simoly adopted roughly 100 to 150 years ago by western finnish people as surnames became mandatory to mimic the much older eastern finnish names.
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u/TheRrandomm 7d ago
Finnish doesn't really use patronymics. Some people can have something like "Jukanpoika/Jukantytär" (Son of Jukka / Daughter of Jukka) as a second or third name, but it isn't very common AFAIK.
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u/okarox 7d ago
Patronymics have not become last names in Finland but they have been used in addition to clarify when there has been many similar names.
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u/QueenAvril 18h ago
In Finnish - not really - but we do have a hefty chunk of Swedish patronymics as surnames (like Johansson, etc.) and those don’t necessarily indicate a Swedish speaking person, as official names in Finland often were Swedish ones for Finnish speakers too and additionally surnames have traveled across languages groups through marriages.
However many families did change their original Swedish surnames into Finnish ones during the nationalist period.
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u/Argyrea Native 7d ago
The suffix in the surnames you mentioned is actually -nen. The first records of it being used in surnames are from the Middle Ages in Eastern Finland, particularly Savonia, where -nen surnames were often derived from either the first name or nickname of the progenitor of the family (also worth noting that tribe names were used in this fashion as well, such as Hämäläinen and Karjalainen). Later on the practice spread and people started using it to make surnames from other words as well, such as nature-related (Virtanen, Koivunen) or topographical (Mäkinen) words.
The first examples you provided are the -n suffix, which denotes the genitive case. Completely different from -nen, even though they look similar.
The -nen suffix is also used to form diminutives. For example, the word for bird "lintu" becomes "lintunen". Some nouns formed this way have become so common you don't really think of them as diminutives anymore, like the word for lightning "ukkonen" (from Ukko, the god of thunder) or the word for the offspring of an animal "poikanen" (from "poika", boy).
Yet another thing -nen can be used for is to create adjectives: dirty "likainen", angry "vihainen", red "punainen", golden "kultainen", wooden "puinen" etc.
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u/_raakkeli_ 7d ago edited 7d ago
Fun fact (maybe, haven’t checked:D) I learned from an older relative, is that there’s a historic difference between families with surnames ending -nen/-la, like for example Koskinen/Koskela. So, the name itself usually represents where the family is from, so in this example both would be from near some rapids, BUT the family with -la would own the farm land and the family with -nen would just work there and be more likely peasants. So, -nen families would be more ordinary and probably more poor people, where as -la families would own their own land and would be more important people in the area.
EDIT: and this is a great example that even if it’s an old person telling something abt olden times, it can still be total bs😂 at least I said hadn’t checked it:D
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u/Inresponsibleone Native 7d ago
It is more of location/ dialect related. Eastern Finland is mostly -nen and -la is common in the west and south.
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u/okarox 7d ago
In the Western Finland they used house names instead of surnames. When surnames became mandatory many naturally adopted the house name as surname. Btw the house name tradition continued. In the 70s in Somerniemi my uncle had neighbors that always were referred by the house name, not the surame.
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u/QueenAvril 18h ago
We still do that - although my understanding is that naming are usually more in reference to the lot/property/estate/grounds as whole, instead of just individual house.
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u/TumbleweedNervous494 7d ago
Nah, this isn't real. It might have been real in a specific place and time but generally no. -nen is more eastern and the origin is a bit less clear. -la is is more western, and more clearly tied to a place.
Also I -nen may be older than -la, and there used to also be -tar or -tär for women. Koskinen/Kosketar.
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u/RRautamaa 7d ago
Words that end in -i often have the oblique form -e-, so there's e.g. tuomi - tuomen. The genitive is -n, the vowel changes in all forms, e.g. tuomella, tuomesta, tuomeen, etc., not just the genitive. Words of newer origin ending in -i do not change like this, e.g. harmi - harmin.
The illative is not the genitive: it corresponds to English "into". The illative is formed by repeating the previous vowel V in the form -hVn, e.g. maa -> maahan. You also drop the 'h' if this results in a simple double vowel: lamppu -> lamppuhun -> lamppuun. The form lamppuhun is still used in the Pohjanmaa dialect. However, for words ending in -e, this is more complicated. Words ending in -e used to have a consonant at the end: *-ek. Although the consonant is long gone, it still affects the oblique form. For Häme, it is Hämee-. Thus, the genitive of Häme is Hämeen, and the illative is Hämeeseen.
As for Finnish surnames, there are many different traditions in the country. In Western Finland, surnames are often not originally surnames, but the name of the homestead (farm) that the family lived in. In Eastern Finland, people usually have had true inheritable surnames since times immemorial. Often the founder of the family gave it its name. So, it was a patronymic - for the first generation. Then, it became an ancestor name. However, these two traditions were somewhat mixed, so it's not a clear cut. Finns no longer use patronymics anywhere.
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u/Valokoura Native 7d ago edited 7d ago
About surmames in general.
Historically when married it was husband's name that was used.
Today anything goes.
Both might keep their name.
Man might want woman's name if it is cool or rare.
Married couple could invent completely new surname or use generic one and use that. Some surmames are protected and you can't use those.
Edit: Depending on family's history surnames might have been same or had changed every heneration. Like my father's family line is from Karelia region and their surname chaged every generation like "Son of Jack". You'd know father's name instantly and that's why surnames changed there.
As expained before surname could yave been house name like everyone working at that farm had same. People didn't move that much which made surname irrelevant for most people. If there were family of traders etc. Then surname was needed.
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u/machinepornstar 2d ago
Some surmames are protected and you can't use those.
All surnames are protected. I can't remember how the rules go but it is somewhat like you can take any surname your family members have had three generations backwards or you can take completely new surname.
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7d ago
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u/Hopeful-Banana-6188 7d ago edited 7d ago
There are two distinct endings in question here; the nen that occurs in names like Härkönen (of which "Harkonnen" in the Dune series is a misspelled version) is unrelated to the endings in Suomenlinna/Savonlinna. I wouldn't really say it's like the Scandinavian sen/son since that is of patronymic origin while the Finnish suffixes are not patronymic.
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u/Hopeful-Banana-6188 7d ago
Partially correct; as others pointed out, Suomenlinna/Savonlinna/Hämeenlinna do have a genitive suffix, but the -(i)nen in names is not a genitive suffix nor a patronymic and originates from a dimunitive and adjective-forming suffix.
Incidentally, this is a misspelling as it is the K that should be doubled here not the N (also the Ä and Ö are absent but of course that is understandable if you don't have a Finnish keyboard).
For some reason I've seen this particular misspelling with "Räikönnen" instead of the correct Räikkönen a lot from non-Finnish speakers; perhaps it's just that the doubled letters are mysterious to people who don't speak the language making it hard to remember where they go.