Naming tells the researcher how people conceive of the world. What places are important enough to warrant a name? What are these names? What do they indicate about a person’s relationship with their surroundings, with society at large and with various communities? And what is a name exactly; how is distinct from other words in a language? All these are central to the work of an onomastician.

Onomastics is usually thought of as etymological research: determining the history and provenance of names. However, an onomastician can do much more than clarify the origins and background to place names such as (lake) Päijänne, (the municipality of) Kuhmoinen and (the suburb of) Pakila.

– Socio-onomastics, or the sociolinguistic examination of naming deals with the function of names and variation in naming, along with the connection between a name and society, says Terhi Ainiala.

The range of signification of names for their users, and the relation between names and identity  form part of socio-onomastic research. A further subdivision can be termed folk onomastics, which seeks to shed light on names and the associated attitudes and attachments of their users towards those names. Ainiala offers an example:

– Slang terms for Helsinki such as Hesa and Stadi convey strong emotions and affective meanings. On the other hand, the name Stadi is undergoing a process of institutionalisation, for example, when it forms part of an official title such as the vocational college, Stadin ammattiopisto.

A name refers to just one location, in other words it gives it a unique identity. Helsinki denotes just Helsinki, a city among all cities. The place named typically forms a crucible for a large number of connotations, associations, emotions and encyclopedic information. This is why many names are words freighted with feelings, and a single name can spark any number of meanings and mental images for the speaker or hearer. Districts like Eira and Ullanlinna are distinguishable from Kontula and Jakomäki; and Nico, Jami and Yasmine probably play in different kindergartens than Sofia and Mikael. Just how divided are these meanings and associations, and what use is made of them in fiction, advertising and the like? To date there hasn’t been a comprehensive answer to these questions, but ongoing research tackles these issues in a multidisciplinary fashion.

 Further reading:

• ‘Slangin käyttö virallisissa yhteyksissä mietityttää nimistöntutkijaa’ (’The official use of slang gives an onamastician pause for thought’), Helsingin Sanomat newspaper, 22 July 2014
• Terhi Ainiala & Hanna Lappalainen  ’Helsinki, Hesa vai Stadi: miten Helsingistä puhutaan?’ (‘Helsinki, Hesa or Stadi: how do people talk about Helsinki?’) Kielikello quarterly journal 2/2010