Asustusnimed Kiili vallas
Settlement names in Kiili municipality

Summary/Abstract: The paper provides a survey of the settlement names used in the municipality of Kiili, Harju county. As a regional study it is intended to become a brick in the foundation for more general studies covering the whole language area. The material for the study comes from the place name archives of the Institute of the Estonian Language. Besides the list of Kiili settlement names the study contains an analysis of the date and origin of the names, as well as their parallel names and structure. The names have been dated using some sources from 1241–1875. The analysis revealed that since the mid-19th century the proportion of anthroponymic names has considerably dropped and that of non-anthroponymic ones has increased while especially many recent farm names derive from the names of natural objects. One might assume that the steep drop in the number of anthro­ponymic farm names is due to liberation from serfdom; removal of peasants from estate property while keeping lands and buildings, created a need for naming the farms that earlier used to be called by the names of their owners, resp. families. Recent farm names often originated in natural names, secondary names, master’s surnames, or, more rarely, first names. Twenty per cent of farms had parallel names, whereas of the settlements only twelve per cent had parallel names. By structure the settlement names studied were classified into simple names and compound names. The simple names included abstracted names, names with a locative or collective suffix, and term names. The compound names were classified by the number of components, as well as by parts of speech. The study also deals with irregular shortening, group transition, folk etymology, adaptation, and a few dialectal features in Kiili settlement names.

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