KAKS HARGLA KIHELKONNA VETENIME
Gauja (Koiva) River and Aheru Lake - two hydronyms on the Estonian borderland

Summary/Abstract: The article looks at the origin of two hydronyms – Gauja (Koiva) River and Aheru Lake. Bodies of water are probably the first types of objects that were given names because people needed them for food and transportation purposes. Hydronyms are, on average, the oldest name strata and because of that include a lot of names of opaque origin (approximately 25% in Finland), difficult etymolo¬gies, and very old names. A complete overview of hydronyms in Estonia has not yet been written. This article aims to continue to explore the origin of two names. Estonian and Latvian researchers have debated the origin of the name Koiva for decades. Different etymologies for this name were offered as far back as the 19th century. However, these etymologies have not been adequate either phoneti¬cally or typologically. This article presents the majority of these many etymologies. The name Koiva has not been discussed in Estonian for over a hundred years. Nevertheless, internationally, this name has probably been solved. Jorma Koivulehto (1986) has claimed that Koiva is not of Finno-Ugric origin. Koivulehto explains that in the name Koiva, just like in some Baltic and Germanic words, a consonant cluster is metathetically borrowed: *Gawja > *Kaiva > Koiva. Wolf¬gang Schmid (1998) has offered the most plausible etymology for Koiva. Schmid compares the German word Gau ‘river valley area’ (Germanic protoform *gawja) with other Gauja names in Baltic languages. The word *gawja has no specific Indo-European etymology and Schmid believes that the name Gauja (Koiva) contains an Old European hydronym. In addition to Schmid’s etymology, this article also offers a possible motive for the name, which compares the Daugava River (Väina) with Gauja (Koiva). This motive for naming should be clearer when we look at the geographical locations of those rivers. The estuaries of these two rivers are located close to each other. When giving names, the ancient name givers considered the direction and the point where the river was leading. Daugava has been an important international waterway, while Koiva has led to inland nearby.

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