Mõigu (Mõik)

The word means ‘utricle’ (either the plant, a ‘small bladder’ or chamber of the inner ear...), but actually after a nearby manor. Its former cemetery, Mõigu kalmistu (Ger. Friedhof / Kirchhof von Moik), was built for Baltic-Germans in 1774 as a result of Catherine the Great’s 1772 edict, just after the Moscow plague and riot, prohibiting burials in church crypts or within city walls. Razed by the Soviet army in 1950-51 along with the Kopli and Kalamaja cemeteries. Settlements date back to late Bronze Age. First recorded 1241 as Møikæ, where the -æ may represent a Dano-Latin genitive of an unconfirmed name, poss. Mõik:Mõigu, or from mõigas or meigas, see Meika and Meleka, then Maeykokulle (1541) and Moykell (1620), remembering that küla means village.