Aia (Aed)

Fence, enclosure, garden, run. However, as in English where garden originally meant that which enclosed it, as in, for example, Latin: hortus gardinus, ‘enclosed garden’, deriving from Proto Indo-European (PIE) *gher- ‘to grasp, to enclose’ (cf. Old English geard ‘enclosure, garden, house’, etc.) ultimately giving rise to Old Church Slavonic gradu, ‘town, city’ and Russian город (gorod), град (-grad), English girdle and related to PIE *gherdh- ‘staff, pole’. The same seems to apply in Estonian where the aed originally meant an enclosure made of pickets (cf. Finnish aita, fence). Only Tallinn street name a palindrome in the genitive, but not the nominative. Unusual for existing in 2 varieties: the old-town street, known as Aia tänav since at least 1908 (although a Russian counterpart, Садовая [see Rohula] is recorded for 1907, sadly, the street has no 302А...), passing through Valli and Wallstraße (1873), Rohuaja (grass / herbal remedy garden, 1885) and Ujula (1958-1987) during the Soviet Era after which it was restored to its original name, while Aia tee, in Merivälja, first recorded in 1924, switched to Aiatee tänav in 1987 when Aia regained its name (no duplicates please!), then back to Aia tee in 2014 (duplicates are cool!). Such are the joys of odonymy.