Kven Sea - Kven Sea in Other Sources

Kven Sea in Other Sources

Noteworthy is the total absence of the name "Kven Sea" from all Norwegian and Swedish sources. Sagas that describe the era during which Ottar lived, use the name "Helsingjabotn" for the Gulf of Bothnia, for example in the Orkneyinga saga. If Kven Sea was a name used for the Gulf of Bothnia, it along with all of its possible variations seem to be completely missing from the Scandinavian namespace in later times. This is easiest explained so that they were not the same. It has however been suggested that "Kajano More" appearing in Russian documents from the 14th to 16th centuries in different spellings as the name for the Gulf of Bothnia might have been an equivalent of Kven Sea. This however does not explain its absence in Scandinavian sources.

If the name "Kven Sea" was used for the Gulf of Finland and if, as it seems probable, "Kven" was originally a dialectal Norwegian name for "Finn", there is a clear continuum of the name as Finska viken in both Swedish and Norwegian. It must also be noted that Gulf of Finland was called a sea of its own still in the 16th century. In the north, Kven Sea and Finska viken are also the only seas, or parts of bigger seas, that are known to contain a name of a nationality.