Sources of the Place Names Database (KNAB)

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There are two types of name sources in the database: monographs-articles-news (conventional sources) and dates-name decisions.

Conventional sources are abbreviated using two methods:

  1. Author's surname or the first word(s) of the title or conventional abbreviation, year of publication (with an additional number if necessary to make a distinction to other works published in the same year) and the page number(s) after a colon, e.g. Tamme1993:12. For frequently cited works the author's name might be abbreviated to two first characters, e.g. Hu1904 (= Hurt1904)
  2. Descriptive abbreviations consisting of three parts:

The abbreviation of dates or name decisions usually consist of two parts:

  1. year (or date: dd.mm.yyyy)
  2. the abbreviations of the authority approving the name (usually place name abbreviation + the type of the authority) and the code for the name decision (lowercase character), e.g. Tln_LVm (=regulation of the Tallinn City Government), Trt_LVKo (=decision of the Tartu City Council); most frequent types are as follows:

Sources that date back to earlier times than the 18th century are usually given as dates, i.e. with the year preceding other abbreviations.

Additional signs after source abbreviations:


In source records square brackets are used to denote periodic publications, libraries, etc. where the source may be found. The most common denotations: