Suitsupääsuse (Suitsupääsuke)

Barn swallow, Hirundo rustica, Estonia’s national bird and narry a street, avenue nor cul-de-sac in sight. Name proposed by present volume to replace Lahe or, even better, Smuuli. Also, drop the bloody diminutive, it’s your national bird, not a KFC. Take a little pride in your volatiles. And if this is the first time a name change can come about due to a foreigner, see võib olla teie esimene pääsuke ka! Another candidate for naming is Karl Ernst von Baer (and not everyone would approve), see Eerikneeme and Tammsaare A.H., or if you need another bird for Lilleküla, why not Siuru, the mythological firebird of Finno-Ugric tradition and name of literary group publisher of 25 books from 1917 to 1919.

• Bird

Suklema (?)

Former farm name, meaning and derivation unknown. None of the proposals are that convincing (‘Suk-’ from susi [wolf] and ‘-lema’ maybe something geographical or lamb-related)… Street named after a nearby inn of this name recorded as Sutlem (1798, Wiedemann in 1869 gives suklema as Ger. baden [to bathe or swim], fair for an inn), but may be related to the Sutlem manor 35 km S of Tallinn, first recorded 1425 as Suttelemode. This leads to two reflections: 1) MLG suddelære / sutteler became sudeln in mod. Ger., (make a filthy mess of or botch sthg, pfuschen, see also Sossimäe), and implied other grubbing-type terms revolving around the poor-quality or spoiled food attending the predatory camp-followers who ended up becoming sutlers (or victualers), essential players in miliary operations; and -ode with a very big perhaps, from MLG *ōd, from ōddēle, a term involving shared ownership (ȫde > desert, I think not); and 2) far more tenuous, from MLG sǖtlant (south land) or similar, with possible hints of nostalgia for back home in the south. Owned by the von Stackelbergs, one scion of which tacked the manor’s name onto his to become Eduard von Stackelberg-Sutlem. See Valdeku.