Input from citizens

All of Finland is invited to participate in collecting new name data and enhancing the existing data. Place names are an essential part of our immaterial cultural heritage, and converting the corpora into online format will serve all Finns. 

Place names are of interest to researchers in a range of fields, as well as to people interested in local history, culture and geography and genealogy. Municipalities use typonymic data when planning place names, and also in various applications within education and culture.

In the initial stage, the digitisation project focuses on names in Finnish, but the idea is to include the collection of place names in Swedish and Saami. When the corpora have been converted into digital format, the data can be further enriched and supplemented. Citizens can provide information about whether the names are still used today or have been replaced by new ones, whether a place exists anymore, or what new names have been created. 

Cooperation in practice

The Institute has contacted all Finnish municipalities in order to create a cooperation network. The municipalities that join the network will have the opportunity to participate in developing the digital Names Archive into a service for the entire country.

Pilot projects involving the residents of the municipalities will help to define methods for collecting new place name data and enrich existing data. They also help to ensure that the programs and other solutions are adapted to the user groups’ needs.