Best Finnish Driver

[palino]

Mika Häkkinen

[Steno]

I said that many surnames are real words, but in these cases Raikko, Hakki and Kovalai don't mean anything, though. So I don't know who's made them up.

Still, for example in the most common Finnish surname "Virtanen", "virta" means "flow", and there are also surnames with just the "Virta" part. So in that sense I think that the -nen suffix is there only to soften the name.

I did my Research and found this

No, it's not an equivalent of "son". In some parts of Finland (around Häme and Pohjanmaa) this kind of -son structure was used a long time ago, but that looks completely different: for example "son of Heikki" would be "Heikinpoika".

The -nen ending has a different kind of etymology. It originates from a region called Savo, where it was traditionally used as a name of a house or a farm (or a piece of land); the first resident, the builder of a house, gave his name to the farm and added the -nen -ending, and later on all the residents had also this house-name added into their name (to separate all the same named people). So usually when it was the oldest son who inherited the land and house, also the name stuck like modern surnames; but if for some reason someone from other house moved in, he also got his "surname" changed... But mostly these "house names" stuck like surnames because of this tradition.

Major part of the Finnish population was without surnames until the late 1800's. Then it was decided that it would be a good idea to get this surname thing official and everyone should have one. For the base of this new naming legislation (which was finally written as a first naming-law in 1921) the traditions from the Savo-region were taken, because it was already well stabilised and more formal than the "-son" -endings in some other parts. Many people had to invent new surnames at that time, and a common way to do it was to take a nice Finnish word and just stick the -nen in the end. This is how the most common Finnish surnames, like "Virtanen" and "Järvinen" were formed (virta translates as a stream and järvi means a lake). So, this is where the -nen ending comes from, and this is why it actually doesn't really mean anything (like son or anything else).

Wow! really nice information! Thanks for that :cheezy: It's a bit like japanese names then...

[escalador]

Hakkinen and Raikkonen. What about Kovalainen ? Uhm.. we have to wait.

[mazza369]

Kimi!

[kingjamie]

Mika Hakkinen because since I have watched F1 only Schumi was better, Kimi needs to be in a few more title races, as for Keke I never saw him drive, so I can't comment on him.

[kunattila06]

Best FINNS Keke Roseberg,Mika Hakkinen,Kimi Raikkonen

[Sentenced]

Is a close call between Mika and Kimi. In my opinion Mika is clearly a better qualifier, but to me he made a lot of more "silly" mistakes than Kimi in race time. He almost lost the 1999 championship against Irvine because of them (among other things of course) after getting 11 pole positions.
Difficult question. I guess for know I have to say Mika because of his 2 tittles and his charisma, but Kimi will probably end up being better than him.

[phil1993]

Is a close call between Mika and Kimi. In my opinion Mika is clearly a better qualifier, but to me he made a lot of more "silly" mistakes than Kimi in race time. He almost lost the 1999 championship against Irvine because of them (among other things of course) after getting 11 pole positions.
Difficult question. I guess for know I have to say Mika because of his 2 tittles and his charisma, but Kimi will probably end up being better than him.

yeah, kimi is growing into Michael, the way he dominated at Spa last year and his drives at Fuji and yesterday in Malaysia were also mesmirising. He can control a race, whereas Mika never really had that

[flyingjohn]

I think these are: Mika Hakinen,Kimi Raikonen and maybe Keke Rosberg...
Greetz John

[macel]

I think Raikkonen is the best, Kovalainen shows great promise though.

[chandusama]

i would say

kimi
mika
keke
hekki
mika salo

[hokc77]

Mika was the reason i got hooked to F1.
Kimi is the next best thing.

[antti]

Mika is number one for me, but Kimi is coming in a good second.

[Iceman_PR]

Kimi "the Iceman" Raikkonen!!!!

[fettemieze]

Mika Hakkinen !

I do like Kimi as well, but no emotions - "too cool" for me :tired: