syntypaikat

Syntypaikat is a Finnish term that translates roughly to birthplaces in English. It refers to the places where individuals were born and is used as a biographical and demographic data field in Finnish-language sources. The word combines synty (“to be born”) and paikka (“place”), with the plural form syntypaikat.

In practice, syntypaikat are recorded in genealogical records, biographical dictionaries, census data, and historical databases to provide context about a person’s origins and to support regional demographic analyses. The value may refer to current or historic place names and may correspond to municipalities, parishes, or geographic coordinates, depending on the dataset and historical period. Because borders and names change over time, researchers often need to standardize or map historical birthplaces to current or archived geographic identifiers.

Limitations include privacy considerations for living individuals, the potential for multiple places associated with a single birth (such as hospital locations), and variations in how birthplace information is recorded across sources. Data quality improves when syntypaikat are linked to stable place codes, standardized gazetteers, or geospatial coordinates. The concept is commonly used in genealogical research, biographical compilations, and regional history studies, where birthplace data helps illuminate migration patterns, regional characteristics, and individual life narratives.

See also: place of birth, genealogy, toponymy, demographic data, geographic information systems.