Names
Otsatalu (Otsatalu)
Ots:otsa has various meanings, two that fit here: either tip, top, front or back of something, or a man’s name, so it could be the last farm on a village border, or Ots’ farm. Interestingly, there’s a street off Otsatalu called Oti, and while both were named on the same day after Otsa talu & Oti talu, the talu may well have been dropped from Oti to prevent confusion. The commonality in the names may signify a historical succession issue, that of a single ‘Ot’-based name forking into two for now-unknown reasons...
Õuna (Õun)
Apple. Street in Nõmme. There used to be an Õuna between Imanta and Lembitu, known as Кашутинская ул or Kasutini after local property owner until 1922, and as õhk:õhu (air, atmosphere) in 1940-41. There is a touch of mixed-blood foreign ancestry to both õun and its southern cousin, ubin. The former possibly Indo-Iranian and the latter possibly proto-Baltic, perhaps a conflation with uba (see Oa). When the noble spud arrived in Estonia in the mid-18th C, northerners called it maaõun and southerners maaubin, both calqued on German Erdäpfel (see Maasika and Kaarla).
