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Roosikrantsi (Roosikrants)
Rosary, from rose plus (Ger. Kranz) chaplet, crown or wreath, but also the name of a Danish dynasty of Hanseatic merchants. Renamed (1944?-1989) as Lauristini J. during the Soviet occupation. Next door to Hariduse, and various interpretations have been put forward: there used to be a place of execution called Rosenkranz nearby; criminals used to tell their rosaries on the way to becoming debeaded; a Michel Rosenkrans bought some land nearby in 1643. Similarly, being close to a St-Barbara cemetery resulted in its being named Barbarastraße for a few hundred years (1575±25-1800±25), and another name was Kummerstraße, street of sorrow (1813). The result of all this is the perfect haze for popular etymology and wishful thinking. Research needed. There were actually two Roosikrantsi streets, a greater and a lesser. Enlarged, the latter later resulted in part of today’s Pärnu.
Roopa (Roobas)
Rail or rut. Here: railway. Interesting word: while ‘rut’ is the primary meaning, both literally and metaphorically, it is also closely paired with rööpa:rööbas, ‘rail’ as in trains or trams, and believed to originate from a sense of ‘sticking-out-i-ness’ as in ‘pile of stones or ice’, ‘edge of ice’, ‘frozen lump of snow’, evolving into ‘track or depression in the road’, with tramlines being the nice fit between raised and sunken. Street originated with Starcksche Straße (1875) after local surveyor Robert Starck who built the street on his land near Tehnika, switching into Raudtee aaru (prob. alt. spelling of Aru, dry, upland meadow), then various versions of increasingly Estonianized German for railway track: Schienenstraße (1907-1942), Shiini (1908), Schiini (1908-1921), Siini ( 1923) till the good ole Soviet regime decided on Tiivase A. (1959-1960), a one-time Bolshevik and member of the Tallinn Soviet.
