What is the most common Finnish surname?
Korhonen
As of February 2021, Korhonen was the most common surname among the 5.5 million Finnish population. There we around 22.2 thousand people having the surname Korhonen, followed by Virtanen with around 21.6 thousand individuals. Other common surnames included Mäkinen, Nieminen, Mäkelä, and Hämäläinen.
Do Swedes know Finnish?
The language of Finland belongs to a different family. Finnish is close to Estonian and Hungarian. Most people in Finland know Swedish, so the Finns can understand the Swedes, but most Swedes cannot understand Finnish.
What are common Finnish last names?
The most common Finnish-language surnames include Korhonen, Virtanen, Nieminen, Mäkinen, Hämäläinen, Koskinen, Heikkinen and Järvinen. Yes, this land loves its –nen suffix, a sure way to recognise a Finnish surname.
Why do Finnish surnames end in Nen?
The “nen” ending of a Finnish surname can mean “son of,” but is usually a descriptive of the place where a family lived. As examples, Makinen means “small hill,” and “Virtanen” means “small stream.” These names mean the family came from the stream or the hill.
What is Finnish last name?
Finnish Last Names. Over a third of Finnish surnames end with -nen, which signifies a place of belonging. Many of these names were adopted during the 19th century. Popular Finnish Last Names on FamilyEducation: Lehtinen, Heikkinen, Karvonen. Image: Helsinki, Finland.
What ethnicity is surname?
Last name: Decent. This uncommon name is of Old French origin, and is a patronymic form of the surname Saint, with an elided preposition “de” implying “of the Saint (family)”. The surname derives from the Old French “saint, seint”, from the Latin “sanctus”, blameless, holy, which was used sometimes as a nickname for a notably pious individual.
Is Finnish a Germanic or Slavic language?
Finnish is an uralic language, as many have answered. It has nothing to do with either slavic or germanic languages, exept loan words. Swedish, Norwegian and Danish are germanic languages, which belong the Indo-European language family just like the Slavic languages.
What is the history of surnames?
The history of surnames dates back to 5000 years ago. The very first use of surnames was to legally distinguish two people with similar names. It might sound strange, but when surnames first came to use, they were not passed down from one generation to the other.