>>1860433
they probably wanted to avoid using ä because not everyone knows what that's supposed to sound like in which specific language.
väki should be "romanized" into vaeki if they want accuracy, but it seems like a lot finnish immigrants (into the US) with names such as Pääkkönen and Mäkelä had their names transcribed as Paahkonen and Mahkela so that's probably how they ended up with "Vahki".

i don't know finnish at all, but wiktionary tells me that Proto-Finnic väki means "power, strength" so that's probably how they came up with kuuvahki?