The Finnish symbols include flags, heraldics, the Finnish maiden and the Finnish wild nature. Names are not considered symbols and there is a strong agreement that names should not be followed and not be paid attention to, "A name does not make a man worse, if the man ('s behaviour, lack of moral) does not make the name (reputation) worse.". The capital was chosen and named by the king of Sweden some 200 years ago. Before that Turku was the capital.
The flag of Finland has a blue cross on white background. Blue symbolizes rationality, in practise common sense with a picture of the whole and civilized views. White symbolizes moral, in practise the rule "Live and let others live!" and civilized wise behaviour & carrying responsibility. The cross comes from Christianity. These are considered national values to be respected in Finland by all.
The heraldic symbol of a lion is taken to mean something like liveliness, vigour, wisdom of life, strenght, superior skill, courage with healthy mind and spirit and not exactly lions.
Finland's map looks like a maiden, so the symbol Finnish maiden which is considered wise and with wisdom of life, feeling too.
The nature as symbols kind of cures symbols and national values to more healthy, common sense like, natural, modest yet good quality, able to endure in the Finnish climate.
(My last name is Tervola, of which I was told as a kid that it is the best last name in Finland. It gives the easy association "health sings", so maybe that was the goal in choosing the name Helsinki, Healthsing, (about Finnish wisdom about health see in this blog http://finnishskills.blogspot.fi/2015/11/healthy-ways-of-living.html), but Finns did not know many foreign languages and English wasn't so widely used at those times.)
In Finnish language the name of Finland is Suomi, which gives as an easy association "mi suo" which means "That which gives by giving the possibility to something" meaning something like "the country giving like the nature gives better possibilities for life".
13.3.2018 Some foreigners have the nasty habit of guessing at the meanings and associations of Finnish words by finding words with similar letters, but that is not how Finnish words and associations between words are born. Finnish words build uon the phonetical meanings of letters and upon an honest wise landscape like view of the thing in question. Like for example in the Finnish word for peace "rauha": r is conflict like situation and taking distance, maybe dividing the situation into parts, a is according to the traditional culture, u is non-conceptualized wider environment & wider view, more profound, h is easy and ha is the sound of laughter, things well.
4th of June 2019 The blue in the Finnish flag refers to objective thinking with a view of the whole. The white in the flag of Finland symbolizes good moral. These are not atmosphere colours to follow or otherwise pictures of the Finns. Instead they are useful additions which are often needed in life. If you just live your life or do something, just following your wishes often does not bring a well working result. But if you add good quality thinking to support it and take care that the effects are good for life in the society and in the world, in the individual lives of each with wisdom of life, then it usually happens that all can just freely according to their so corrected wishes live their lives, according to their emotions, likings and wisdom of life. And so these two colours in the flag of Finland are a reminder of what is needed in addition to just living your life as you feel like doing. So invest some work in these virtues and life just smiles.
1st of October 2020 I was born in Helsinki and lived there over 30 years. So I heard quite many versions of why the capital has such a name, but mostly the opinion was fully according to the Finnish saying "A name does not make a man worse if the man does not make the name /reputation worse." i.e. that one ought not pay attention to names but to things themselves instead.
Tervola was maybe the best Finnish name, so it maybe was considered as the name of the capital: "health sings" which both are Finnish values and Finnish skills. But the Swedish translated it wrong to "helsin". Or that the name originally was meant to be "health sings" or the like but foreigners in Helsinki took to heart the associaltion "hell sin" to it and did amazingly much evil, and so Finns thought that it is better to have a Finnish version of that association to the name Helsinki (-ki means also) so that things would not go so criminal.
Finland is a neighbour of Sweden and for things to work out well solutions need to be well thought of and that means that one should have honest picture of how things are as a starting point, and with Swedes that worked out only with the association "hell sin" since they tend to lie in imago oriented ways.
If a place has a beautiful name that is a value people there respect, some follow only the name and bypass other things and so if one has good quality objectivity as a goal, one ought to take into account everything in one's thinking and that is why Helsnki is maybe named so that it has the association: "hell sin too" must be taken into account in thoughts.
Finland used to have very good quality of life due to wisdom of life and healthy ways of living and objective thinking with a view of the whole and a well running society, so that other nations, other cultures looked like hell and hell sin in comparison. A capital is much for associating with the rest of the world, but a communication was lacking since Finns did not know what difficulties the other countries needed to overcome, and so to gain communication and to be able to help the others to wise ways of living, Finns choose a name of the capital that is not good but which helps us to help the rest of the world to a better future, muvh happier.
Finland was very harmonical and fractureless, with wise people countryside, but big towns and the capitaö had foreign influencies,of which the young adults coming from the more countryside areas of Finland had to be warned.
22th of December 2023 My comments
About the name of Helsinki, and of beneficamity grounds for moral, etc https://learntalents.blogspot.com/2023/11/beneficality-grounds-for-moral.html
28th of May 2024 The word association "to finish" to tge word "Finnish" refers to Finland being at the edge of livable region in the world. On more northern areas the winter is too harsh and too lobg and the summer is too short and too cold for animals and plants to live there. Also in Finland there is a big difference between the southern half and northern Lappland. So Finland is the land of end in the sense of being at the edge of the livable region, so it is lije at the edge of a desert: you must all the tine take into account that it is such a climate and weather, checking everything is it good enough for the weathers and for what they demand from life, also in tge long run.
*
23th of June 2024 As I think of myself as younger, I have liked the Finland's national hymn Maamme-laulu, kind of seriously liking this climate's nature and this place to live in, lufe here with the four seasons and the Finnish culture. But later as I have learned to compose melodies, see advices at LearnTalents.BlogSpot.com/2023/09 , I have wondered if I have understood the melody of our national hymn right at all. It seems charmed by the climate etc, but at the same time, as I have also learned of healing, see www.EasyHealing.info i.e. CuringGuesses.BlogSpot.com , there seems to be in the feeling of singing together as a group, a flow of bacteria created pressing the people downwards toward a lack of moral, kind of toward opposing the ideals sung about, which are not so clear but something convincing, naturally supported because of being good chouces, I thinl. So is it possible to have such a hymn at all?
If one thinks of choosing a new anthem, it ought not have such too big drawbacks. I have written at lenght about many kinds of useful skills in my blogs, see especially LearnTalents.BlogSpot.com . I used to have a singing experience of life but I have it no longer, and also my picture of the world is too broken. But anyway I have learned from writing that good choices often ought to ve ok from the point of view of tge whole world, or something in that direction, since many have their own likkngs of which cultures abd climates to prefer, and so they should move to live there, and so there ought to be lit of learnibg of new cultures' skills when already living there, etc. And anyway, foreign relatilns matter too. My only melody in this is Reaching for a good future in a society, but it isn't hymn like. Of having written amazingly much of the skills for a Christmas gnlme like life, I guess that some would lije to choose some Christmas song, but is any Christmas song ok all the year? The song "Tonttu" is about Christmas gnomes, but under zero temoeratures are too dangerous if there are many foreigners interested in the song. From writing about the gour seasons, I have noticed that the song "On kesän kurkas huomen ja suvi sunnuntai. Ei liiku lehti tuomen, on lintunenkin vait'. Vienosti kukkii pellit ja vaarat vihannoi. Kun hartaat aamun kellit vain rauhaa rauhaa meille soi. * Kuin pyhäin juhlasaatto käy soinnut yli maan. Tää on kuin sen päivän aatto, suuren autuaan. ..." seems to fit the weathers of all the seasons and bring longed for fracturelessness, but I do not know what it's effect would be otherwise. Of hymbs there is the Finlandia hymn, which is very famous, and has usually been the only much suppirted alternative for the old anthem. But I do not know of songs so well, so I cannot estimate this well enough, at least not nowadays at all.
30th of July 2024 The map of the Finland being of the form of a woman, the Finnish maiden, does not mean it referring to some certain type of women. The map just happens to have such a form.
Some have wondered if tge style of the map as a woman figure coukd tell what type of woman, but largely that is not so, because the map is primarily describing districts of Finland, so the forms are of this and that village or town with it's neigbouring countryside, summer cottages, etc. So if the map forms are to describe anything, it is the local culture, climate, nature and terrain, forms of nature and human life there, of which in the scale of the whole country is especially important to notice how climate and location differencies affect life in the different parts of the country, like southern being more leisurely in a working life way and school like view and Saimaa region kind of warm countryside like, while more northern kind of tense like huh how will we here bear the seasons, and even more northwards the Lappland. So if the map is of tge form of a maiden, it is or should ve wise and with wisdom of life, especially weather skills, and holistically rational is what is often considered Finnish and good for the locatiln, and the climate and these emphazies make it an independent woman, ok for the country and for the world, ok fairly toward others too, but not so detailedly described that it could not be a similarly wise man, for example the ypung men in the milutary service, if needed, but more like bringkng wisdom than demanding there being any persons claiming the task their own.
