Tag: Surname
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Patronymic to Surname
Shortening the original Finnsih surname into Maki, Ranta or Niemi was not the only way to facilitate the immigrant’s settlement and integration. Patronymic looking names were familiar to many people of Germanic and Anglo-Saxon origin, and therefore did not stand out from the majority population. That is why behind many an Anderson, Jacobson or Johnson…
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Just Be a Maki If You Want
Surname Maki is said to have dominated the Thunder Bay phone book as long as it was published. Often the name was shortened from an original Finnish farm name or surname ending with -mäki. Just as often it was just chosen by an immigrant for convenience. Here I list 49 immigrants who chose to be…
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The Maki Clans of Thunder Bay
There are several families with multiple Finnish immigrants who took the surname Maki in Thunder Bay District. Often they were siblings, but in some case also cousins from the same area in Finland. In this article I present four such “clans” that appeared more than 100 years ago, and still carry the surname in Canada….