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Esku (Esku)
Old farm and man’s name. Said to come from the expression jumalakiiver, ‘God’s helmet’, perhaps from Russian кивер (kiver: shako, itself from the Hungarian for ‘peak’, csákó), but cannot date much earlier than the 1870s, and where the ‘jumala’ fits in is unclear. Also suggested to be an MLG loan but the ice is too thin for me.
Gaasi (Gaas)
Gas. The word ‘gas’ is believed to have been created by Dutch scientist Jan Baptist van Helmont (1579-1644) as his mother-tongue pronunciation (/χɑs/ or /ɣɑs/) of Anc. Greek χάος – chaos, thus named, apparently, because of his surprise that gas was so disorganized: “halitum illum, Gas vocavi, non longe à Chao”: (I called that vapor Gas, not far removed from Chaos). Anagram of Saagi. Construction-material street-name group. See also Paneeli.
Glehni N.v. (Nikolai von Glehn, Count, 1841-1923)
Founder of the then town, now Tallinn suburb, of Nõmme. Died in Brazil. One of the last scions of a family descended from the German merchant Heinrich von Glehn who arrived in Estonia in the mid 17th C. Street has a fairly motley history of name change, with (ignoring the minor Ger & Rus. versions) Glehni (1927-39), followed by Niine (1939-59), interluding as Marana (Potentilla spp.) in 1940-41, then Niineõie (bast tree blossom, 1959-60), and Välgu (1960-89) during the Soviet occupation. The Glehni streetname was reinstated (and time-shared?) in 1939, upped to Nikolai v. Glehni tn in 1989 and restored to all its aristocratic pre-1939 fullness of Nikolai von Glehni tänav in 2010.
Graniidi (Graniit)
Granite. After local depot of paving- and other stones imported from Finland.
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