Names of Places

You hold in your hand evidence of my fascination with "the Romance of Place-Names" and with the colorful information they preserve for us about many things, from the intentions of explorers or the enthusiasms of namers of new features to the hopes of settlers to the evocative and even sentimental use of placenames in literature. Placenames occur in fact and fiction and even tell us of ancient trade routes and of settlement patterns. They enshrine history. They have inspired adventure, sparked imaginative literature, and sent people off on adventures to the far corners of the earth.

Written for various audiences over a period of years, my placename essays varied in intent, style, and probably in usefulness to the reader. I believe, however, that each one revised to appear here has something in it worth saving, even something to inspire you with "the Romance of Place Names." Whereas most placename scholars specialize in the names of a single settlement, a county or township, a state, or a country, or the names of natural features and such, I speak of Canada, of Mexico, of the United States, of New York, Connecticut, Vermont, Kansas and Iowa, of California, of English names, French names, Spanish names, of Amerindian names, of names of England, Cornwall, and Wales. I treat neighborhood names in New York City and names of New Orleans’ French Quarter in terms of local history. I speak of house names and slang names and names in verse and catch phrases, and much more. You do not have all that I can say about placenames but you do have here examples of most of the sub-fields of placename study in which I am interested, from folklore and fun to sociodynamics. I hope you will be interested in them, as I am.

There may be some repetition still in evidence, because these articles were conceived for different audiences at different times, but making a good point more than once is no crime. After all, it has been said that professors never say anything just once...especially those who are anxious for students to retain information presented to them...and I am a professor still, though an emeritus one, who does not have to worry about preparing candidates for examinations and can communicate for the pleasure of readers. I have written here not academic lectures but, I hope, communicate in a conversational style. There can be no class discussions, though I would be pleased to think that as they read my readers will pause to turn over in their minds the points I bring out and to connect my facts and opinions with their own experience and ideas. I have not hesitated to be personal; you be personal, too. Conduct your own dialogue with the author as you read.

I leave the matters of least interest, such as terms for geographical features and etymologies, for others to write about elsewhere. These are subjects that are of lesser concern to non-specialists, important as these subjects are to geographers and linguists. I spare you the scholars’ debate over the word I render always as placename, and, tempted though I am to tell you how we got some of our English generics from other languages, or how the British used to mock us for words such as bluff, I generally steer clear of terms of toponymy (the study of geographical names). I do sneak in a few such terms (and explain them for you in ordinary language). Such technical terms are basically, however, for linguists and geographers and such. Actually, I wish more geographers were interested in names the way I look at placenames, but perhaps even geographers will pick up this book.

As always, I have to defend myself in name study for the lists to which you will be subjected. I am of the same mind as David Hume. He wrote in Of Simplicity and Refinement of Writing that "no criticism can be instructive which descends not to particulars and is not full of examples and illustrations." I attempt to keep my writing here simple, even refined, entertaining enough for the general reader and authoritative enough for the specialist, and to give lots of examples. I trust you will find patterns in the particulars, mind in the minutiae.

Some of the work here, as I said above, is published for the first time. The essays that have previously been published have been entirely rewritten for this volume; the alterations have been made the better to appeal to the general reader. The editors of these pieces that appeared in scholarly journals, especially Prof. Kelsie B. Harder and Prof. Conrad Rothrauf and Prof. Edward Callary, all over the years editors of Names, and Prof. Ronald L. Baker of Midwestern Folkore, are not responsible for any errors that may have slipped into my revisions and expansions. Specialists might have welcomed elaborate footnoting of everything or an index larger than the text, but I give you what I think you may need as guides to further reading. I supply what you might possibly be interested in looking up. But I do not clutter my text, nor can I undertake to provide a complete index. (Those lists make that impractical!) If you will look at the Table of Contents you will know where to look for what you want. If you are a scholar seeking one particular name (such as your own!), then you must read the article on the subject...which is no bad thing.

For all the various approaches to placename study that I have presented, I omitted as not very useful in this collection certain other topics, as I have said. One, for instance, is the study of placenames in wine (where Napa Valley, for instance, does not mean that all the wine in the bottle comes from there, any more than that Philadelphia Cream Cheese comes from Philadelphia or New York cut steak must come from New York). I am something of an expert on tradenames and product naming, an art that often involves not just placing a product but relating to placenames, but I do not go into that here. I cannot undertake to cover all the ways placenames enter our lives. Placenames are used in naming not only persons but even racehorses and commercial products. I hope only to have interested the reader in a topic which, in one way or another, has engaged some of the best scholars in America.