From the now rare noun venät(“Russian”) by later analogy with the genitive forms. The shorter root is found in derivations like venäläinen and in other Finnic languages like Vepsveńa. Cognates include Estonianvene, Venemaa.
Unlike with most other countries, the external locative cases (adessive, allative and ablative) are used when referring to a location; for example, "in Russia" is Venäjällä. As a consequence, the use of the internal locative forms Venäjään, Venäjässä, Venäjästä is limited to some expressions.