BBC journalist named Amy McPhersson went to Finland and tried to find out why Finland is Suomi.
Finland has been called Finland in most languages starting from 14th century. But Finns always called it Suomi and Lithuanians called it Suomija.
What is the mystery here? As it turned out, nobody is sure of the origin of Suomi. Lithuanian word Zemes means land. It sounds both like Suomi and siimes, and the Finnish word siimes means the forest. Both the Finns and Lithuanians are originally forest dwelling people.
Another possibility for Suomi is the word suo, which is Finnish word for swamps. And Finland was until recently made mostly from swampland.
Third possibility is that Suomi comes from suomu, meaning fish scales in Finnish. The ancient Finns actually used fish scales in their clothes.
Luis Lewis
what mystery? it came from a roman historian who named the different tribes and countries as finland was the last country in his book he named it "finland"
Alexander Rogers
the mystery is the word Suomi, not the word Finland
Andrew Sullivan
>land Ah yes, very roman
Hudson Cook
>Land >Roman
Ah yes very historic.
Logan Brown
>Zemes Žemė for singular, and can mean land, Earth or dirt, depending on context. Žemės for plural, and generaly it's only used to refer to "lands".
Brody Rogers
obviously it is the word "fin" i was talking about try and use your brain the next time
James Martinez
We came from Russia, it's simple.
Christopher Brown
>Finns don't even know the origin of their country's name
