HS Culture 24.4.2001 - More and more surnames appear in Finland

By Erkki Lyytikäinen

The amount of surnames that are used in Finland grew dramatically at the end of the last century.

In 1998, nearly 130,000 different last names were in use in Finland. As recently as in 1985, people bore only some 80,000 names.

Hence the number of different surnames grew by over sixty percent over a period of thirteen years. This increase cannot be due to population growth. In fact, there are two reasons: the internationalisation of the population and the popularity of double names.

These are the conclusions

of the third, revised edition of the book Sukunimet (“Surnames”), which has become significantly thicker than before.

The foreign names of Finns speak of internationalisation. The five most common foreign names are Nguyen, Mohamed, Tran, Ali and Ahmed.

Of traditional Finnish family names, the number one spot is still held by Virtanen. Ever since 1970, Virtanen has been followed by Korhonen, Nieminen and Mäkinen. The order of these three names has varied over the years, however.

New information has been added to each name article (excerpts from documents, information on distribution, alternate explanations of origin). The authors, Pirjo Mikkonen and Sirkka Paikkala, have written a total of 160 new name articles. The article that provides statistical facts on Finnish surnames is also quite interesting.

The articles discuss the age, distribution, and places of origin of surnames, and attempts to name the first known bearers of certain names. Information is also provided on the origin of surnames, when it is available.

There may be several rival explanations on the origin. The interested reader can continue with the help of a ten-page list of references.

The building blocks

of names have originally been individual and based on the Finnish language. Western culture and its fashions have later received strong positions. Mikkonen and Paikkala suspect that by the onset of the eleventh century, Finns had all but abandoned their original family names.

Of course this foreign source of names cannot be recognised anymore. These “new” names have been used for perhaps one thousand years, and have become a part of the domestic range of names. For example, a name such as Pyörni still bears some resemblance to its original Swedish version Björn, but Hermunen and Härmä have come quite far from their German origin, Herman.

Names reflect all fashionable trends,

both the old and the new. The most recent layer of Finnish names was built from foreign names that were translated into Finnish versions.

This great project required that upper-class names be turned into Finnish ones, and all foreign (read: Swedish) names were to be abandoned. Changing names was at the height of its popularity one hundred years ago. Tens of thousands of surnames were turned into Finnish versions.

The novelty of these Finnish names was that the first bearer had chosen the name by himself or herself. After all, surnames are generally given by others.

Families were divided by this wave of name changes. Some family members changed their names, others did not. Former bearers of the name Riddelin became both Ritarsalo and Orjatsalo.

In these name changes, a vast amount of traditional foreign names that had been used in Finland disappeared. Many of these names had been used only in Finland.

The traditions

on name giving have differed clearly in the Eastern and Western regions of the country. Additional names, and the surnames that evolved from them, were created on their own, but taxation was the factor that actually forced people to take on surnames.

In Western Finland, it was the house that was principally taxed. The tax authorities could not have cared less who lived in the house, as long as the prescribed sums flowed into the coffers. Therefore, the name of the house often became the last name of the inhabitants, and this name was passed on to the next occupants as well, whether they were relations or not.

In Eastern Finland, it was the people who were taxed. Farmers wandered over large areas of the country and could change the location of their dwelling on many occasions. Taxpayers of this sort were recognised and reached by the name. In Eastern Finland, the house was often named after the inhabitant.

With 130,000 surnames

used in Finland, it is obvious that not everyone will find their own in the reference book.

Criteria for being named in the book are the Finnish nature of the name, or the extent of its use. All names with a minimum of one hundred bearers have been included.

There are entries for 5,200 names, and the index of one hundred pages in length includes 16,500 names.

Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 19.4.2001