Place Name Origins - Names of Settlements

Names of Settlements

Most pre-modern settlement names contain a generic element describing the place's function (e.g. 'farm', 'market', 'fort') or a prominent natural feature, or both; if only one of these is present, it is often modified by a personal name or an adjective.

For instance, examples from England:

• Personal name + function + feature - Todmorden - 'Totta's boundary valley' (name + function + feature)
• Personal name + function - Grimsby - 'Grimr's farm'
• Existing name + function - Exeter - 'River Exe (Roman) fort'
• Function + natural feature - Church Fenton - 'Marsh Farm (with a church)'
• Personal name + natural feature - Barnsley - 'Beorn's clearing'
• Existing name + natural feature - Cockermouth - 'River Cocker mouth'
• Function - Keswick - 'Cheese farm'
• Natural feature - Blackburn - 'Black stream'

These basic elements can also be found in place names in other countries; e.g. Amsterdam ('River Amstel dam'), Liechtenstein ('Light-stone'), Copenhagen ('Merchants' harbour), Paris ('Home of the Parisii'), Shanghai (approximately 'Seaport'), Tashkent ('Stone city'). These elements are also clearly present in the less 'weathered' New World place names - e.g. Fort Knox, Thunder Bay, Little Rock and so on. Carson City, for instance, was named for Kit Carson, and Belo Horizonte means "beautiful view". However, some apparent meanings may be deceptive; New York was not directly named after the English city of York but after the Duke of York, who was the head of the British Navy at the time of the British take-over, and Los Angeles was not named after angels but after the Virgin Mary, or the Queen of the Angels (El Pueblo de la Reina de los Angeles).

Countries which have seen repeated large-scale cultural and/or linguistic changes, such as England or France, tend to have more broken down place names, as the original meaning is forgotten and drifts more quickly. They may also have more linguistically diverse place names; for instance in England place names may have Pre-Celtic, Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Norse, or Norman-French origins. Conversely, countries with a more uniform cultural/linguistic history tend to have less broken down and diverse place names - Wales for instance (especially when compared to neighbouring England).