Korhonen

Korhonen is a surname originating in Finland, where it is the most common[1] surname. The most common surname in Finland was Virtanen before 2009, when the number of people with the surname Korhonen exceeded the number of people with the surname Virtanen for the first time.[2][3]

Look up Korhonen in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

The word 'korho' is mostly archaic in modern Finnish, but in languages closely related to Finnish, such as Karelian, Estonian, and Ludic, it means "raised" or "upright". As an example of a verb derived from 'korho', in Karelian 'korhottaa' means "to be or move upright", "to have one's head up high", "to raise", "to shake threateningly", "to brandish", and "to listen attentively".

Some dialectal nouns derived from 'korho' have been documented in Finland, such as 'korhopää' from Pöytyä meaning roughly "one with a head of upright hair" and 'korholaiho' from Ylistaro meaning "a crop of cereal growing upright". 'Korho' is also reported to carry a meaning of "proud", "rich", and/or "boastful" in the southern parts of Finnish Lapland.

In modern Finnish 'korottaa' means "to raise" and 'kohottaa' means "to elevate", "to uplift", "to hold up", and "to leaven". 'Kohottaa' also means "to toast" when combined into 'kohottaa malja' ("to raise a goblet or a cup").

In some dialects, 'korho' is used to mean (a person) of poor hearing or (a person) lacking wit, and it seems that these meanings are most likely derived from the "to listen attentively" meaning of the verb 'korhottaa'.

In 1970 professor Alfred Salmela suggested that the word 'korho' is a loan from the Baltic languages and that it has meant "old, village elder, or chief".

The name originates from Eastern Finland (most likely Savonia) and is much older than its closest competitor for the title of the most common Finnish surname, Virtanen.