The name Finn is an ethnonym that in ancient times usually referred to the Sámi peoples, but now refers almost exclusively to the Finns.
The probable cognates like Fenni, Phinnoi, Finnum, and Skrithfinni / Scridefinnum first appear in a few written texts starting from about two millennia ago in association with peoples of northern Europe, possibly the Sámi. The Icelandic Eddas and Norse sagas (11th to 14th centuries), some of the oldest written sources probably originating from the closest proximity, use words like finnr and finnas inconsistently. However, most of the time they seem to mean northern dwellers with a mobile life style.[1]
The etymology is somewhat uncertain,[2] but the consensus seems to be that it is related to Old Norse finna, from proto-Germanic *finþanan ('to find'), the logic being that the Sámi, as hunter-gatherers "found" their food, rather than grew it.[3] This etymology has superseded older speculations that the word might be related to fen.[4]
Finn is an exonym, a name that other peoples have used of the Sámi and the Finns, but which they themselves have not used.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
:0was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ de Vries, Jan (1962). "Finnr.". Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch [Old Norse Etymological Dictionary] (in German) (2nd ed.). Leiden: Brill Publishers. OCLC 685115.
- ^ Collinder, Björn (1965). An Introduction to the Uralic Languages. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-520-32988-1.
- ^ "Finn, n". OED Online. March 2021. Archived from the original on 28 July 2020. Retrieved 3 July 2020.