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4.7: Language and Place Names

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    Language and Place Names

    The names people give to their physical environment provide a unique source of information about the cultural character of various social groups. Place names often reveal the history, beliefs and values of a society. Toponymy is the study of place names, and the names people assign to specific geographic sites offer us the opportunity to recognize a country’s settlement history, important features of the landscape, famous personalities, and local allusion to distant places and times. Place names can change overnight, often depending on political factors and social considerations. The change of Burma to Myanmar and Zaire to Congo are two recent examples of changes due to political developments. In the United States, interest in changing the names of places associated with Civil War heroes from the South is an on-going effort, at times with dramatic confrontations between different social groups.

    Toponyms provide us with valuable geographic insights about such matters as where did the settlers come from, who settled and populated the area, and what language did the early settlers speak. Many of the place names found in the United States can be classified in terms of the following major categories:

    natural landscape features (hills/mountains, rivers, valleys, deserts, coastline)

    Hollywood Hills, Blue Ridge Mountains, Chattahoochee River, Rio Grande, San Fernando Valley, Monument Valley, Mohave Desert, Biscayne Bay,

    • urbanized areas (cities, towns, and streets)

    Williamsburg, VA; Lawrenceville, GA; Chattanooga, TN; New Iberia, LA; Buford Highway, GA; Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive, Ponce de Leon Avenue

    • directional place names (East, North, South, West)

    North & South Dakota, West Virginia, North & South Carolina, South Texas

    • religious significant names (saints, Biblical names)

    San Antonio, Santa Fe, St. Louis, Sacramento, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles; Bethany, AK; Canaan, VT; Jericho, IA; Shiloh, OK

    • explorers and colonizers (French, English, Spanish, Dutch setters

    Columbus, OH; Coronado, CA; Balboa Park (San Diego), CA; Cadillac, MI; Hudson, NY; Bronx, NY; Raleigh, NC; Henrico County, VA

    • famous persons (presidents, politicians, Native Americans)

    Lincoln, NE; Mount McKinley, WA; Austin, TX; Washington, D. C.; Jackson, MS; Tuscaloosa, AL; Pensacola, FL; Arizona, Mississippi, Utah

    • culturally based names (immigrant’s homeland, famous locations

    New Orleans; New Mexico; New Amsterdam, NY; Troy, NY; Rome, GA; Oxford, MS; Athens, GA; Birmingham, AL; Toledo, OH

    • business oriented names (wealthy individuals, politicians, corporate sponsors)

    Sears Tower, Wrigley Stadium, Trump Towers, Gwinnett County, Dolby Theater, Verizon Center, Sun Trust Park

    A classification scheme proposed by George Stewart (1982) focuses on ten basic themes which dominate North American toponyms. These include the following categories: descriptive (Rocky Mountains), associative (Mill Valley, CA), commemorative (San Diego, CA), commendatory (Paradise Valley, AZ), incidents (Battle Creek, MI), possession (Johnson City, TX), folk (Plains, GA), manufactured (Truth or Consequences, NM), mistakes (Lasker, NC), and location shift (Lancaster, PA).


    4.7: Language and Place Names is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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