# Talonen



## cyaxares_died

Does "talonen" mean something? I just read that "talo" actually means "house" in Finnish. Is "talonen" a grammatical case of "talo" (or a compound word)?


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## Perkele

-nen is a diminutive suffix.

talo: house
talonen: a little house (de: das Häuschen, es: la casita / casilla)

lapsi: a child
lapsonen: a little child

tähti: a star
Tuiki, tuiki tähtönen: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

However, I've never seen or heard talonen used in any context other than names. -nen is a common family name suffix. Talonen is a relatively common family name.


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## Hakro

I agree that "Talonen" is a family name but it's seldom used for "a little house".

As a family name, Talonen originally means someone who owns a house.

In family names the ending -nen is not a diminutive suffix. It rather means the place where the family lived: Mäkinen (mäki = hill) - they lived on a hill; Jokinen (joki = river) - they lived by a river, etc.


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## dinji

Hakro said:


> In family names the ending -nen is not a diminutive suffix. It rather means the place where the family lived: Mäkinen (mäki = hill) - they lived on a hill; Jokinen (joki = river) - they lived by a river, etc.


 
In theory it is like this and somtimes, originally, also in practise. 
But a closer study of these name shows that many of the late examples where invented in discussion with a clergyman working with the population registry, without any connection to any place where the familiy lived, just using the type described by Hakro as a template. This often applies to the most common/popular ones V_irtanen/Aaltonen/Jokinen_ etc.


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## Gavril

dinji said:


> In theory it is like this and somtimes, originally, also in practise.
> But a closer study of these name shows that many of the late examples where invented in discussion with a clergyman working with the population registry, without any connection to any place where the familiy lived, just using the type described by Hakro as a template. This often applies to the most common/popular ones V_irtanen/Aaltonen/Jokinen_ etc.



Onko noin tapahtunut -laan/-lään-päätyvien nimien (es. Hakola, Anttila) tapauksessa?


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## cyaxares_died

I love the way Finnish sounds and looks and must come around to learn it one day.

But until I will have mastered some Finnish, could you translate your question so us others could benefit as well?


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## Gavril

cyaxares_died said:


> I love the way Finnish sounds and looks and must come around to learn it one day.
> 
> But until I will have mastered some Finnish, could you translate your question so us others could benefit as well?



"Has this sort of thing happened in the case of names ending in -la/-lä?"


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