Origin of "Котлин"

Question

I searching for "kotlin" word definition, probably someone who knows Russiancan help me.

What does 'Kotlin' mean? It's related to Kotlin Island? What the history behind this island and the name kotlin?

Answer 1

Deriving Котлин from котёл is an example of folk etymology - and actually, it's completely wrong. To start with even if it was derived from котёл - in Russian it would hardly end up as Kotlin - it's just that -lin ending is not typical at all. It's way, way too germanic.

Actually, there's a trade agreement between Novgorod Republic and Hanseatic League dated back to XIIIth century - and the island Kotlin is mentioned their under the name "Ketlingen". You can find more information about that particular document here.

Ironically it still can be related to "котёл" (but it's still very suspicious, and even if it is - the XVIIIth century myth is still an anecdote):

На старинных шведcких картах, хранящихся в архивах Стокгольма, остров надписан как Kettusaari - фин. 'лисий остров'. В договоре великого князя Ярослава с немецкими и голландскими послами, 1207 г., название записано в переосмысленной форме Ketlingen (ниж.-нем. Kettel 'котел', -ingen сложный формант, употребительный в нем. названиях селений). В Новгородских грамотах XIII в. Котлинг, позже о. Котлин.

Roughly, Finnish people called this island Keettusaari, then (probably through Swedish) this end up as Ketlingen in Dutch and German sources and was borrowed by Novgorod Republic as Котлинг (Kotling) which evolved to just Kotlin.

And yes, programming language was called Kotlin as a reference to both Kotlin being island near Saint Petersburg and the language itself being a competitor to Java - which is also named after an island.