Samppa

Samppa can actually derive from the the word for a column, but Finns used trees for religious purposes, not poles.
In place names 'Samppa' is a southwestern variant of 'sammas' which means boundary mark/stone, not a pole, even though they are homonyms.

Samppa can be used as a nickname for Samuel, Samuli and other Sam-names.

Samppa is an ancient Finnish word that means "a pole". Samppa is, however, not just any pole but one that was used for religious purposes in some parts of Finland long before Christianity arrived in Finland - a bit like the Native Americans used totem poles in Norht America. There are some placenames in Finland that refer to these samppas, like Samppalinnanmäki ("Samppa castle hill") in Southern Finland. This means that Samppa is not just a pet form for the name Samuel, but it also has an own historic meaning in Finnish (which most people called Samppa aren´t even aware of).