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Finnish exonyms

Below is a list of Finnish language exonyms for places in non-Finnish-speaking areas:

Note that the Finnish language inflects place names where English use prepositions like in and to. These variants can affect any place name and are inflections, not exonyms. For example Mene Birminghamiin means Go to Birmingham.

General

Foreign place names containing a direction such as South or Upper are often translated, e.g.:

North Carolina → Pohjois-Carolina; Upper Volta → Ylä-Volta

Belgium

China

Cuba

Cyprus

Denmark

Egypt

Estonia

Estonian and Finnish are quite closely related and share many words that differ only slightly, such as saar (Estonian) and saari (Finnish) for island. Many Estonian toponyms and even people's names are simply translated into Finnish as if they were Finnish words, creating an unlimited number of potentially existing exonyms. Below are only some frequently encountered examples of these, as well as those where the difference is significant.

Finland

The Swedish names for the above are commonly (if not exclusively) used in modern-day Finnish.[6] Korsnäs in Ostrobothnia should not be confused with other locations in Finland with the same name (see Korsnäs (disambiguation)).

Areas with both Finnish-, and Swedish-speaking inhabitants have endonymic place names in both languages. Due to changing demographics, some monolingually Swedish areas have historical Finnish names inherited from earlier Finnish-speaking inhabitants. For example, Molpe, a village of Korsnäs is Moikipää in Finnish.

France

Germany

Greece

Ancient transcriptions that do not reflect modern pronunciation are used in some cases, e.g. Herakleion ("Iraklion").

Iran

Israel

Italy

Latvia

Lebanon

Lithuania

Norway

For further names, see Finnish exonyms for places in Norway.

Poland

Portugal

Romania

Russia

Note that Finnish was formerly an official language in the Republic of Karelia and is still widely used there, and some places in what was Finnish territory until World War II have been given new Russian names; thus, Finnish names of Karelian places are not all strictly exonyms.

Saudi Arabia

Serbia

South Africa

Spain

Sweden

Northern Sweden has a Finnish/Meänkieli-speaking minority and thus some place names are derived from Finnish, making them not exonyms. There are several more Finnish place names in this area.

Several place names of genuinely Swedish places, more than these, have been modified due to the much differing Finnish pronunciation principles. Meänkieli names have usually been slightly modified when picked up by Swedish language. Some Meänkieli names, at least closer to the mountains, were originally Sami, but were modified when picked up into Finnish.

* marks place names in traditionally Finnish/Meänkieli-speaking areas.

Syria

Turkey

Ukraine

United Kingdom

United States

See also

References

  1. ^ "Suomen kunnat: Kökar". toti.eu.com. Archived from the original on 12 May 2008. Retrieved 15 July 2007.
  2. ^ "The Genealogical Society of Finland". Archived from the original on 1 October 2007. Retrieved 2 June 2007.
  3. ^ "Verbix". Archived from the original on 30 September 2007. Retrieved 15 July 2007.
  4. ^ Lumpari World Water Features Database | WorldCityDB.com Archived 2007-09-27 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ Svenska Ortnamn i Finland Archived 2007-11-13 at the Wayback Machine, The Research Institute for the Languages of Finland, see "Mariehamn"
  6. ^ Svenska Ortnamn i Finland Archived 2007-11-13 at the Wayback Machine, The Research Institute for the Languages of Finland, see "Korsnäs" and "Liljendal".
  7. ^ "Venäjän federaation paikannimiä" (PDF). kotus.fi (in Finnish). Retrieved 11 March 2024.