Names
Latika (Latikas)
Common-, carp-, freshwater- or bronze-bream, Abramis brama. Part of a fish group. See also Lesta.
Lätte (Läte)
Source, spring, fountain. Southern Estonian dialect for ‘well’. Named, like its parallel peer Allika, after a spring in the courtyard of Tatari 24. Both streets claim its ancestor as Quellenstrasse, spring street, but where the other was thus known from 1890 to 1942, this street was only thus recorded once in 1942: in Ein Führer für deutsche Soldaten durch Reval mit Stadtplan, Strassenverzeichnis, 10 Bildern und kleinem deutsch-estnischen Wörterbuch (A guide through Tallinn for German soldiers, with map, street index, 10 photos and short German-Estonian dictionary) by Dr. Friedrich Klau, a book known for its haphazard rendering of local names, which may well have mistaken it for Allika. Renamed (1948?-1991) as Lätte A. during the Soviet occupation.
Lätte A. (Aleksander Läte, 1860-1948)
Composer and Estonia’s first music critic. Name changed due to fortunate similarity. Either way, back to the fons in 1991. Soviet occupation renaming (1948?-1991) of Lätte.
Laugu (Lauk)
Four possibilities: 1) Common coot, Fulica atra, breeds in Estonia; 2) Leek (often porrulauk); 3) Blaze (on a horse’s head) or blazed horse; 4) Parting (of the hair). All these are related by the idea of a vertical white slash of color: on the frontal part of the head for coots, with their white ‘frontal shield’ (featherless ‘plate’ of skin from the top of the bill to the forehead, hence “bald as a coot”), and horses, various FU cognates refer to bulls, cows or other blazed animals; and leeks are typified by a white upper region. As to hair, since it could suggest dark hair parting to reveal a pale forehead, it may represent a word dating back to before the stereotypical Scandinavian blond hair became a widely acquired and inherited feature. Although the genetic mutation for blond hair seems to date to about 11000 BP, it might not have become widespread until about 6000 BP. Street named in 1953 but never, apparently, built.
Lauka (Laugas)
Bog-pool. See my mother’s cooking.
Lauliku (Laulik)
Poet, bard, singer, often lead singer at weddings, or songbook. Temporarily Triigi N. (1940-1941).
