Forming Finnish Patronymic Names

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Here are some general rules for forming the possesive form of a name. Once you have the possesive form add poika (son) or tytär (daughter) as appropriate. NO SPACES between the possesive form and poika or tytär.

The following rules CANNOT automatically be applied in the reverse direction, to get the father's first name from a patronymic, without some familiarity with Finnish names.

1. If the parent's name has a double k, t or p, then drop one of the double letters and add an 'n' to the end. The 'n' indicates possesion (similar to "apostrophe s" in English) 2. For names with any other double consonants there is no need to drop any letter's; just add an 'n' to the end. 3. For some names that end in "as" there are two possibilities. Either replace the trailing "as" with "aan" or "aksen" 4. For most names with no double consonants, just add an 'n' to the end.