Names
Iirise (Iiris)
You guessed it: Iris.
Ilmarise (Ilmarine)
Mythological gentleman: god of fire, weather (ilm) and smithing (its multiple meanings also reflect its age, Ilm is a word linguists believe they can track back some 5000-6000 years in Finno-Ugric, and, almost invariably, the further back one goes, the greater the range of meaning). However, this raises an interesting point. The genitive of ilm is ilma and this is associated more with earth, the world (cf. īlma: world, cosmos, air in Livonian): ilmale tooma means to give birth, to bring into the world; ilmaelu means life, existence. Given the importance of the genitive in declining Estonian words, perhaps this tense defined the original word (sticking my neck out under a very sharp axe here, but please note that the present dictionary lays no claims to expertise – be warned). Apart from Tallinn and other conglomerations ending in ‑linn (Pelgulinn), all towns in Estonia are named using the genitive, which makes sense. The descriptor is of something, the word is not the object itself. Of incidental interest, Estonian’s once-neighboring Old Novgorod dialect had a nominoaccusative case, in the feminine plural at least. Interestingly, too, a major lake 6 km north of Novgorod is called Ilmen (Rus. Ильмень), mentioned by that name in The Rus’ Primary Chronicle (Laurentian codex), originally written around 1113. Part of a small Estonian mythology street-name group. See Taara.
Ilo (Ilo)
1) Folklore personification of joy, beauty and merriment; 2) Deity hostess of feasts; 3) First name, both male and female; 4) Alternative spelling of ilu, beauty; 5) Name of literary magazine published in the 1920s.
Imanta (Imanta)
Apparently an erroneous transcription of Ymaut (Latvian), or Himmot or Himotu (Livonian), the soldier who killed the newly-appointed bishop of Ikšķile (ikškilā meaning ‘one village’ [or, possibly, ‘village No.1’] in Livonian [cf. German, Üxküll or Uexküll] in present-day Latvia), Cistercian Bishop Berthold of Hanover, on his bolting horse during the Livonian Crusade in 1198. Name of Estonian choral society founded in Riga, 1880.
