LogFAQs > #904579832

The Wave Master posted...

Do any of you disagree?

I kinda think a brief status quo change would be nice for... well, a change.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

A lot of East Coast names come from places in England, which in turn derive from Celtic or Anglo-Saxon words, and which often translate down into incredibly simplistic meanings. Like Greenwich ("the green settlement") or stuff like New York (where York in England is originally derived from Brythonic via Latin and filtered through Norse, and means something like "place where there's yew trees"). Then it gets even more confusing with names like "Watergate", where you assume it means there was a gate there, except in Norse it actually just means "road". In a similar way, you have fancier names like Midgard, which literally just means "Middle Earth" (or places like "Alfheim", which just means "Elf Home"). -berg means hill/mountain, -dale means valley, -mere means lake/pond, and ford means, well, there's a -ford somewhere.

Do you know whether that's a universal tendency or is it just common among certain ethnic groups?

The York thing I'd never even heard of. I had assumed it just came from a landholder's name at some point.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Plus, we also have a smattering (or more than a smattering) of names based on Native American tribal words. Like how in New Jersey, there's the town of Manalapan - which basically means "good land to settle on". Or there's Parsippany - "place where the river winds through the valley". Then it gets even more complicated when you have deliberate fusions of languages, like Minneapolis (Native + Greek = "water city") or Perth Amboy (Scottish + Native = "forest on level ground").

tbh, whenever I see a weird-looking named area, I always assume Native American. Of course, it's sometimes not the case -- Nassau, for instance, actually originates from Germany.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Woodbridge (ditto),

We also have a Woodbridge. Kind of a dump, really, although it's a pricier area because Yale faculty lives there. tbh, growing up, the fact that so many states had same-named towns always drove me crazy. I guess originality wasn't really a consideration early on... although it's not much better now either.
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