X-Nico

unusual facts about place name



Cynllibiwg

Cynllibiwg (or some variation) was evidently a place name in early medieval Wales.

Ebla tablets

There are gazetteers listing place names, including a version of a standardized place-name list that has also been found at Abu Salabikh (possibly ancient Eresh) where it was datable ca.

Jan Amora

The place name Jan Amora appears in the Futuh al-Habasha and in an 18th century legal text, but it is unclear if they refer to the place that became this woreda; Richard Pankhurst believes that this "Jan Amora" was located in Tigray.

Montaukett

Native Americans living on Long Island eventually became identified by European settlers by the place name in which they lived, such as the Montauk and the Shinnecock, artificially identifying the peoples separately and erroneously into "tribes", although they all shared the same culture and language.


see also

Albemarle, North Carolina

This place-name is derived of the English noble surname Albemarle, which is the French version of the medieval latinization Albamarla of the town Aumale in Normandy, France.

Aquitanian language

The placenames that end in ‑os, ‑osse, ‑ons, ‑ost and ‑oz are considered to be of Aquitanian origin, such as the place-name Biscarrosse, which is directly related to the city of Biscarrués (note the Navarro-Aragonese phonetic change) south of the Pyrenees.

Ayios Nikolaos Station

Ayios Nikolaos or Agios Nikolaos is a very common place name in Greece and Cyprus; it is Greek for "Saint Nicholas".

Blimea

Blimea is a place name emerged from many Asturian words with different phonetic variants translated into Castilian word " wicker " such as bima , blima , brima , blimba or bilma .

Bovec

The Friulian and German names indicate that the names may be derived from *Plitium or *Pletium, which could possibly be connected with the oronym Phligadia mentioned by Strabo or the place name Phlygades.

Brent

The place name can be from Celtic words meaning "holy one" (if it refers to the River Brent), or "high place," literally, "from a steep hill" (if it refers to the villages in Somerset and Devon, England) (Mills 1991).

Budge Budge

Budge Budge has a reduplicated place name, similar to many such places in Australia.

Chapman code

They can however be useful for disambiguation by postal services where a full county name or traditional abbreviation is not supplied after a place name which has more than one occurrence, a particular problem where these are post towns such as Richmond.

Charles Kingsley

Charles Kingsley's novel Westward Ho! led to the founding of a town by the same name (the only place name in England which contains an exclamation mark) and inspired the construction of the Bideford, Westward Ho! and Appledore Railway.

Choa Chu Kang

When the new town of Choa Chu Kang was built by expanding Teck Whye Estate near the other end of Choa Chu Kang Road at its junction with Upper Bukit Timah Road and Woodlands Road to the north, the place name began to be applied to a much larger area, especially when political divisions like the Choa Chu Kang ward applied to the entire northwest sector of the country during some editions of the Parliamentary elections.

Cocidius

Fanocodi was a Roman place-name mentioned in the Ravenna Cosmography for a location close to the Solway Estuary; the name has been derived from Fanum Cocidii, or temple of Cocidius, and the place identified with Bewcastle.

Docker, Cumbria

Diana Whalley 2006 'A Dictionary of Lake District Place-Names', English Place Name Society, has this name as either place-name 'the shieling at the hollow' or 'the shieling where the plant called dock grows', or a personal name which "may have been a link with the family traced in Parker 1918" (Parker CA 'A pedigree of the family of Docker'. CW2 18, 161-73).

Fir Domnann

Yet the area with the strongest place-name associations with the Fir Domnann is in north-west Mayo: the Iorrais Domnann, from which the modern barony of Erris takes its name, and nearby Mag Domnann and Dún Domnann.

Gyirong

Gyirong is a Tibetan place name also transliterated Kyirong or Gyrong.

Haestingas

It has been suggested that the Haestingas were of Frankish origin, based on Watt being a sub-king to the South Saxons and there being a place-name of Watten in north-east France.

Iron Confederacy

In the 1810s Peter Fidler describes the Cree and Sacree peacfully sharing the Beaver Hills, but he also records that a new geographical place name had been added to the region, the Battle River, which had not be mentioned by this name before, was so-called to commemorate a battle between the Cree and Blackfoot, who would go on to be long-term rivals.

Jaca Navarra

The word jaca has an unusual history, from Old Spanish haca, itself from Old French haque, which in turn is ultimately derived from the English place-name Hackney, a place famous for its horses.

John Henry Weber

This place-name gave rise to the modern names of Utah’s Weber Canyon, Weber County and Weber State University.

Kilrenny

That Kilrenny is of early Christian origin is suggested both by the Kil- element of the place-name, and by a carved stone with marigold motif (circa 700?) which stands to the west of the village, possibly marking an ancient area of sanctity.

Klitgaard

As a place name it is found in a few locations in Northern Jutland.

KRCA

In May 2005, KRCA was the subject of controversy due to billboards advertising its local newscasts, in which the place name "Los Angeles, CA" had the "CA" postal abbreviation crossed out, replaced with the word "MEXICO" in bold red and a picture of the El Ángel victory column on the Paseo de la Reforma superimposed onto a picture of the Los Angeles skyline.

La Hoguette

The place name La Hoguette is believed to derive from the Old Norse word Haugr meaning a knoll or a hill.

London stock brick

In Stock, Essex there is a common belief that "Stock Bricks" originated there; bricks were certainly made there, but the name is a coincidence, stock being a common English word with many meanings and also a common place-name element.

Lordship of Champlain

The same place-name was issued by the authorities in the Catholic parish at provincial county (1829), the Municipality (1845) and the past federal County (1867).

Montargis

Though the town is known to date to ancient times, during the Renaissance fanciful etymologies were invented to account for the place name Montargis, whether as mons argi, Mount of Argus, the place where the jealous goddess Juno charged Argus Panoptes with guarding her rival Io, or connected with the chieftain Moritas mentioned by Julius Caesar, in his Gallic Wars.

New Sarepta, Alberta

The "New" was then added because the name Sarepta was already a place name in Ontario and the government was not about to approve the similarity.

Padel

:*Oliver Padel, historian and Cornish Place-name scholar, son of John

Rheged

Place-name evidence from Dunragit (possibly "Fort of Rheged") suggests that, at least in one period of its history, Rheged extended into Dumfries and Galloway.

Roget Rocks

It is named after Peter Mark Roget (1779–1869), British physician, natural theologian and lexicographer, best known as author of Thesaurus of English words and phrases (London, 1852), a work frequently consulted in connection with Antarctic place-name proposals.

San Souci

Sans Souci (including "Sanssouci" spelling), most common as a place name

Sango language

The place name Bambari, for example, must be pronounced ba-mba-ri and not bam-ba-ri.

Shitterton

In 2012, Shitterton was voted "Britain's worst place-name" in a survey carried out by genealogy website Find My Past, beating Scratchy Bottom in Dorset and Brokenwind in Aberdeenshire.

Skeg

It also appears in the English place name Skegness - 'beard point', from the way in which a series of tombolos forms, towards the nearby Gibraltar Point.

Skinflats

The name of the village is sometimes claimed to be of Dutch origin, supposedly bestowed by Dutch engineers working on land reclamation in the 17th century, but there is no evidence that any such reclamation projects took place in the parish of Bothkennar where Skinflats is located and the place-name is readily explained as Scots in origin.

Stanghow

How or Howe, deriving from the Old Norse word haugr meaning a hill, is a common element in Yorkshire place name.

Thankamany

The place got for Thankamany is now known as Thankamany (place name), other nearby places are also known as Kamashi and Neelivayal (means land of Neeli).

Towednack

The parish saint disguised under the name 'Tewennocus' is almost certainly St Winwalo (pet-form: Winnoc), also commemorated at Gunwalloe and Landewednack, as well as Landevennec, Brittany: the place-name being derived from Old Cornish "te-Winnoc" (thy St Winnoc Winwalo), now represented as Late Cornish Te Wydnek.

Troth Yeddha'

This is a Lower Tanana Athabascan place name that derives from words troth, meaning 'Indian potato' or 'wild potato' (Hedysarum alpinum) and yeddha', meaning 'ridge'.

Twatt, Orkney

The Norse word commonly produces in England the place name element Thwaite.

Ventnor City, New Jersey

The first meeting was held on April 20, 1903, in the Carisbrooke Inn, which was located behind the present City Hall, on Atlantic Avenue between Cambridge and Sacramento Avenues; Carisbrooke is also a place name taken from the Isle of Wight.

Waxholme

Despite the place-name ending in "-holme" (which is normally from Old Norse holmr "island, water-meadow"), it is not from this word.

Wilamowice

The current place name is distinct from Antiquo-Willamowicz (now Stara Wieś).