Nimiluetteloon

Nimiluetteloon is a comprehensive Finnish database of personal names, developed primarily for genealogical, demographic, and linguistic research. It was initiated in 2012 by a consortium of university linguists, genealogists, and volunteer contributors, and is maintained under the auspices of the National Library of Finland. The project aimed to centralize and standardize information about Finnish first names and surnames, including their historical usage, regional variations, etymological origins, and statistical popularity data over time.

The database contains more than 30,000 distinct names, with each entry cataloguing spelling variants, earliest recorded instances, and source references such as church registers, census records, and civil documents. A notable feature of Nimiluetteloon is its integration of multilingual spelling adaptations for names that appear in historical documents influenced by Swedish or Russian linguistic traditions, reflecting Finland’s complex cultural history.

Access to Nimiluetteloon is provided through a publicly available web portal that offers search and download functions. Basic queries can be performed for free, while bulk data downloads require a short registration due to licensing constraints. Researchers often cite the resource in studies of Finnish demographic trends, migration patterns, and onomastic evolution. The project is continuously updated, with new entries added annually and periodic reviews of existing data to correct orthographic inconsistencies or incorporate newly discovered archival material.