Project: Attachment to Places and Place Names in American Letters and Video Games (2025-2027)

What makes a place feel like ours - and how do names help? A new project at the University of Helsinki explores how people build emotional and social bonds to places through the words they use, from early 20th-century emigrant letters to a bestselling video game. The project is titled Lenska & Suomi Hall: Attachment to Places and Place Names in American Letters and Video Games (Finnish: Lenska ja Suomi Hall: paikkoihin ja paikannimiin kiinnittyminen amerikankirjeissä ja videopelissä). It is funded by the Kone Foundation and runs for three years, through the end of 2027.

Two research worlds

We work across two contrasting yet mirroring environments:

• Emigrant letters to Finland (c. 100 years ago): Finnish-language letters sent from North America back home. We examine how writers build place in text and how they use place-names - sometimes mixing in English - to express belonging and orientation.

• The video game Alan Wake 2 (2020s): A contemporary, English-language game set in fictional North American towns where descendants of emigrants live. The game world features many hybrid toponyms that blend Finnish and English.

In both cases, readers or players lack physical access to the places described. That distance makes language - and names in particular - the main bridge to place.

What we ask & how we study it

Our core questions are socio-onomastic: Which linguistic resources express attachment to place via names? How does attachment to place-names show up in practice? We look at how places are identified, which forms and languages are chosen, and why. A writer or player may signal distance by not using an official name - opting instead for a nickname or self-chosen label.

Methods include close reading, onomastic analysis, and discourse study. We also observe player discussions about Alan Wake 2 - how fans talk about places, characters, and names across forums - to capture living metalinguistic commentary.

Attachment—and disconnection

Two key notions guide us:

• Place attachment (akin to “sense of place”): the emotional and functional bond between a person and a location.

• Toponymic attachment: positive or negative associations tied specifically to a place-name (after Laura Kostanski). We also consider the other side of the spectrum—toponymic disconnection—when a name evokes ambivalence or resistance.

Attachment to a place and to its name can overlap, but they need not. In a letter, “Frisco” for San Francisco might hint that the writer has rooted in a new home. In the game, a character might suddenly say Suomi (“Finland”) amid English dialogue, signaling group belonging among emigrant descendants.

Why it matters

By pairing historical letters with a modern game world, we can watch how language choices index belonging across time and media. The findings have wider resonance for migration studies, linguistic landscape research, and digital culture: names can foster cohesion, keep memories alive, or mark distance and change.

Team & timeline

• Project lead: Terhi Ainiala

• Researchers: Hanna Virranpää (doctoral researcher; emigrant letters), Lasse Hämäläinen and Milla Juhonen (postdoctoral researchers; game name environments)

• Research assistant: Sofia Sandström (collects Alan Wake 2 materials, analyzes player discussions and commentary on names)

The project runs until late 2027. An English project page is available (see “Project website” under Resources).

Resources & further reading

• Project website .

• Kostanski, Laura (2016). Toponymic attachment. In C. Hough (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming (pp. 412–426). Oxford University Press.

• Sancho Reinoso, A. (2022). From Place Attachment to Toponymic Attachment: Can Geographical Names Foster Social Cohesion and Regional Development? The Case of South Carinthia (Austria). In O.-R. Ilovan & I. Markuszewska (Eds.), Preserving and Constructing Place Attachment in Europe (pp. 239–254). Springer.

How do you say “home” with a name?