Would you swim in Paskalampi? Read the most bizarre place names in Finland

February 15, 2019 at 5:20 PM

Would you like to swim a few strokes on a lake called Paskalampi (Shit Pond)? How about diving in Vittulampi (Pussy Pond)? Or even better, would you immerse yourself in Persesilmänlampi (Ass hole pond)?

What would your friends think if you say you are going to spend your holiday in Mulkkusaari (Dick Island)? And if someone says that wants to climb in Tissikukkulat (Tit Hills)?

What about moving your home place to somewhere called Hevonperse (Horse Ass)? Would you invite your loving partner to have a romantic picnic in a field or meadow called Peräpukama (Haemorrhoid)? Or perhaps to Runkausvaara (Masturbation Hill)?

These are just a few examples of the strangest and most bizarre place names that can be found in Finland.

Who said Finns have no sense of humour? This beautiful country has about three million nouns to designate places. Among them there are some that may sound as the language used by daycare children or that simply serve to name with some contempt sites that simply do not measure up. Because, what is a little pond in a country with thousands of immense lakes? Exactly, a s#*t pond.

It can be affirmed without fear of being wrong that the result of combining the Finnish landscape with the minds of these tough northern inhabitants has given rise to a kind of a specific logic applied to the names of places. The outcome of all that 'popular poetry' is that on the map of the country abound the asses, tits, cocks and pussies.

So, what did the people who lived around those places in ancient times tried to mean by that?

Sirkka Paikkala, senior researcher at the Finnish Language Center, explained a few years ago to the Finnish newspaper Ilta Sanomat for an article on the same issue that Paskalampi (Shit pond) most likely referred to a lake whose waters were muddy or that was too small on the Finnish scale. And the same explanation could apply to Vittulampi.

Nigger and Gay islands

In Finland one can also find examples of place names that perhaps 500 years ago did not squeak when they were named, but that today would scandalise more than one: for example, there is Neekerisaari (Nigger's Island) and Homosaari (Gay's Island).

We reproduce next a list of peculiar or funny names of Finnish places followed by the municipality or area where they are located and the type of geographical feature. All the names listed appear in the National Map of Places published by the National Land Survey of Finland.

We encourage the reader, especially if is a foreigner who is studying Finnish language, to make the effort to try to understand the meaning of all of them. Surely s/he will have a good time.