Names
Laulupeo (Laulupidu)
Song festival (one of the great events in the Estonian calendar). Try and imagine over 100,000 people all singing the same songs, mostly from memory, for hours on end. In comparison, a recent survey found that the average Brit knew 4.74 words ad nauseam of Auld Lang Syne. Rare in Tallinn, the street has changed its name only once (1923) since its creation as Laulupidu (see Pidu for discussion of genitive pidu/peo) in 1921 (KNAB) although TAAK says it was built for the VIIth song festival in 1910, making it even longer. Singing means something to Estonians...
Lauri (?)
Named after nearby former farm, short for Laurentius, related to Laurits, St Lawrence, 3rd‑C martyr, reputed to have been roasted on a griddle, but probably just decapitated with a plain old sword. Unrelated to Laurimaa, 18 km away.
Lauristini J.
(Johannes Lauristin, 1899-1941)
Estonian politician and communist. Serial prisoner, forced labor twice: seven years (1923-1931) then six until the (probably) Konstantin Päts amnesty of 1938. Died either during an evacuation or, some suggest, assassinated by the NKVD. Soviet occupation renaming (1944?-1989) of Roosikrantsi.
Lauteri A.
(Ants Lauter, 1894-1973)
Actor, “People’s Artist of the USSR”, who lived at No.8 in this street from 1960 till his death, star of famous Estonian pic: Mehed ei nuta (Men don’t cry). Part translator of Stanislavsky, and winner, lucky lad, of a Stalin Prize (1952) and Order of Lenin (1956). Lauter also means boat slip or landing stage for fishing boats (see Valguta), and its genitive is lautri, so it seems that the genitive of personal names tend to try to retain as much of the nominative as possible, perhaps to de-signify the root word (see, for example, Süda P.).
