This pilot study focuses on commercial naming in the historical linguistic landscapes of Helsinki as depicted in historical photographs from 1867 to 1939 available from the collections of Helsinki City Museum. Due to the lack of historical data, only a few linguistic landscape studies have included a diachronic perspective. Some methodological consideration of the limitations of the material, such as the representability of the available photographs, is still needed, but overall, this type of material ofers potentially valuable insight into historical linguistic landscapes.

My analysis offers some qualitative observations on multilingualism and on the commercial names themselves. The use of diferent languages (Swedish, Finnish, Russian) in Helsinki reflects the diferent sociolinguistic and political changes in the city throughout the years. The visible company names are mostly descriptive in nature, while international brand names are not dominating as in modern landscapes, only appearing towards the end of the analysed time period. The informative commercial signage also raises questions of the limits between proper names and other features on signs.