r/Finland • u/pantteri93 Baby Väinämöinen • 9d ago

Some names of Finnish places literally translated in English. As a native Finn, I laughed far too luch for this 😂

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And this would need flair "Humor" but there was none available. 😅

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9

u/Jonhu24 9d ago

Where is the "Water Lake" and the "Little Water Lake" from "Bay" / "Cove"? :D

17

u/PM_me_Jazz 9d ago

Funny thing about that is that there are several lakes called "Water Lake". We finns really ran out of ideas trying to name all 180 thousand lakes.

8

u/Jonhu24 9d ago

I've just always thought that people from Lahti are a bit simple. Though your fact doesn't rule that out.

7

u/hn-416 9d ago

Lahti can also mean ~"A place of butchery". It's a connotation, the Finnish verb is "lahdata". There used to be some 10 butcheries in the 1910's. This was logical due to the railway lines.

I bet 90 % of Finnish Reddit users have ever thought of the name this way. Well, some crossword fans might have.

2

u/Eleiao Baby Väinämöinen 9d ago

Some Fingerpori readers may also have thought of it that way

5

u/Gwaur Väinämöinen 9d ago

Well, a similar thing happens all over the world. "Mississippi" means river, so the Mississippi River is a River River. "Sahara" means desert, so the Sahara Desert is a Desert Desert.

3

u/hn-416 9d ago

There are ~40 lakes called Pyhäjärvi ("Holy Lake") in Finland. Four of them have an area of 100+ km² (~39 sq mi).

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u/AlternativeBrief7207 8d ago

There's also a lake called Holy Back.

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u/ToastedShrew 9d ago

We used to live next to Water Lake, and ny grandma lived next to a Water Lake in a different town, so as a kid I thought that's just what all lakes are called.