Names
Nunnadetagune torn (0) 
Lit. behind the nuns. The nuns in question being those of the Cistercian convent of St Michael, Püha Miikaeli klooster, which used to be (1249-1629) within the perimeter of Kooli, Aida, Lai, Suur-Kloostri and Gümnaasiumi. In 1543, the year which European historians usually consider the switch point between the Middle-Ages and Rennaissance, its abbot, Elsebe Soye, converted to Lutheranism. In 1631, it was ceded to Tallinn City for use as a school, changing its name since then 15 times, including a 5-day spin in February 1918 as Töörahva Valitsuse Tallinna Poeglaste Gümnaasium, or Tallinn working-people’s government boys’ school, ending up as today’s Gustav Adolfi Gümnaasium, one of whose alumni was the short-lived Bengt Gottfried Forselius (±1660-1688), teacher, founder of peasant schools and spelling reformer, then in 1922 its eastern wing went full monty and converted into a Saku beer bottling-plant (see Odra). Sic transit gloria bloody mundi. See next entry Nunnatorn. And can somebody please, ffs, explain why some towers are Xtorn and others X Torn?... Good grief!
Nunnatorn (0)
Nun’s Tower. Name first recorded 1738 but, built 1311-20, also known at one stage as de nie torn. Nie has an intriguing history. In MLG, it basically meant ‘new’, so New Tower? It was once, so why not? It is also what linguists call a ‘babbling’ or ‘nursery’ word for a variety of care-givers: Welsh nain (grandmother), Persian nana (mother), Greek νάννα (nanna, female cousin or aunt), Russian няня (njanja, nanny, nurse or babysitter), and even Sorbian nan (father). But this also gave Latin nunnus and nunna (monk and nun). So although there is the obvious probability of it originally meaning ‘nun’, it might also have been a fortuitous coincidence. See also Paks Margareeta.
