The Book

All author earnings of A Rambling Dictionary of Tallinn Street Names to be donated to the foundation or donate here.

If anyone could help or advise as to the legal mechanism, it would be appreciated, thanks!

The Website

Not intended at the beginning, the present website is taking on a life of its own, with plans for relevant discussion forums, picture galleries and, over time, more non-streetname entries.

In theory, it will be funded by advertising relevant to people in Tallinn, to be determined.

A percentage of profits (also to be determined) to be donated to the foundation.

Jõeküla (Jõeküla)

River village, riverside village, to which the road seems to have once led.

Kakumäe (Kakumäe)

Reads like loaf/bannock or owl hill, but meaning uncertain. For some, kaku comes from kakk:kaku, earless or wood owl, Strix spp., while folk etymology prefers the more romantic (wut?...) katk:katku, plague, from a plague-epoch mass grave, but which plague: 1211-12 or 1532, is not clear? Neither is that convincing. One intriguing possibility is that it’s a ‘loan’ from an earlier reference to Õismäe (next-door Sub-district) where its name may (how?...) be derived from kukits, bunchberry or dwarf cornel, (Cornus, formerly Chamaepericlymenum, spp.), which grew extensively in the area. Spelling has ranged from Kakamaye (first mentioned 1467) through Kakomiag with a village named Kaggomeggi in 1726 to Kakomäggi and Kackemaye. Lent its name to a Haabersti summer manor, and/or locality including peninsula (poolsaar), cape (neem), spit (nina), and bar (leetselg, sandbank not bottlebank) in NW Tallinn. Former location of various fishing villages. For the erratically enthusiastic, there is a Mustkivi on the tip of the peninsula at ///target.lagoon.continuation (or ///swell.impassioned.buffeting)(?), see Rändrahnu.

Härgmäe (Härgmäe)

Härgmäe (Härgmäe): Ox or Bullock Hill. Another former farm name after former fortress in northern Latvia, Ērģeme, site of a battle where Ivan the Terrible’s army decisively defeated the Livonian Order on 2nd August 1560, leading eventually to its dissolution. Whether Estonian gave the name to Latvian or vice versa is not clear: Ērģeme might be a Latvian calque of Estonian Härgmäe, but härg itself is a Baltic loan word. Etymology and diachronics too complicated for my extremely modest grasp of Estonian.