Toponymy

“ In fact, every province has its own peculiar nomenclature; and the more remote the place the more characteristic the names, and, therefore, the most curious are the least accessible. It is the tendency of diffused civilization to diminish variations, and up to a certain point, at least, to assimilate all to one model, and this process for many years affected the educated and aristocratic community, although latterly a desire for distinctiveness and pride in the individual peculiarities of race and family, have arisen ”

“ When a language is not pure, but the result of the intermingling and interaction of several tongues as distinct as Celtic, Saxon and Norman; and when, by the wear and tear of daily use through centuries, place-names have altered in detail of spelling and pronunciation; and when for a long time spelling and reading were arts known but to a small minority of 58 the population, it is plainly inevitable that the original form and real meaning of a place-name should often be difficult to trace. ”

“ Under no system of nomenclature but that of our fathers could the name of the township have so simply and naturally become the name of the man, and the name of the man have so simply and naturally become the name of the city. ”

“ Any student of our family nomenclature must be struck by the fact that the number of foreign names now recognizable in England is out of all proportion to the immense number which must have been introduced at various periods of our history. Even the expert, who is often able to detect the foreign name in its apparently English garb, cannot rectify this disproportion for us. The number of names of which the present form can be traced back to a foreign origin is inconsiderable when compared with the much larger number assimilated and absorbed by the Anglo-Saxon. ”

“ And now we come to what we may term the second branch of local surnames, that branch which throws a light upon the migratory habits and roving tendencies of our forefathers. So far we have touched upon names implying a fixed residence in a fixed locality. We may now notice that class which by their very formation throw our minds upon that which precedes settlement in a particular spot, viz., removal—that which speaks to us of immigration. Such a name in our mediæval rolls as ‘Peter le Newe,’ or ‘Gilbert le Newcomen,’ or ‘Walter le Neweman,’ declares to us at once its origin. ”

“ The map of the country is besprinkled with place names from at least half a hundred languages, living and dead, and among them one finds examples of the most daring and elaborate fancy. There are Spanish, French and Indian names as melodious and charming as running water; there are names out of the histories and mythologies of all the great races of man; there are names grotesque and names almost sublime. ”

“ Nearly all have suffered some mutilation or change of form. In many instances, hardly a trace of true original can be detected in the modern name. Some have been separated from the localities to which they belonged, and assigned to others to which they are etymologically inappropriate. A mountain receives the name of a river; a bay, that of a cape or a peninsula; a tract of land, that of a rock or a waterfall. And so 'Massachusetts' and 'Connecticut' and 'Narragansett' have come to be proper names, as truly as 'Boston' and 'Hartford' are in their cis-Atlantic appropriation. ”

“ Place-names everywhere are a most interesting study; as a rule, people do not recognize that every place-name has a meaning or reference to some outstanding peculiarity or characteristic of the place, and that much history can be gathered from interpretation. ”

“ Before, however, we enter into the history of these, and with regard to England that is the purpose of this book, it will be well to take a brief survey of the actual state of human nomenclature in preceding times. Surnames, we must remember, were the simple result of necessity when population, hitherto isolated and small, became so increased as to necessitate further particularity than the merely personal one could supply. ”

“ Kemble was the first to call attention to the fact that very many of the names of places in England, as disclosed by the forms in which these names appear in ancient charters, consist of a personal name in a patronymic form. Some of these names consist simply of a nominative plural in ingas, as Æscingas, the sons or descendants of Æsc, others of a genitive plural in inga, with ton, ham, &c., appended, as in Billingatun, the town of the Billings, i.e. sons or descendants of Billa. ”

“ We have seen in a preceding chapter that the earliest Saxon place-names in England are derived from a personal name, and that the idea contained is that of a modified form of common right. We shall find that a very large proportion of the later Anglo-Saxon place-names are also derived from the name of a man, but that the idea contained is now that of individual ownership or occupation. The extent to which English place-names are derived from ancient names of men is, in my judgment, very much greater than is generally supposed. ”

“ A contraction of the plural form of a Massachusetts noun-generic,—asquash, denoting 'things which are eaten green, or without cooking,' was adopted as the name of a garden vegetable,—with conscious reference, perhaps, to the old English word squash, meaning 'something soft or immature.' Sometimes etymology overreaches itself, by regarding an aboriginal name as the corrupt form of a foreign one. ”

“ I will take one more instance of a name presumed to be common to the Germans and to the Celts as an illustration of the manner in which—men's names being handed down from generation to generation without, even in ancient times, any thought of their meaning—a name may survive, while the word from which it was originally derived has perished out of the language, or is retained in a sense so changed as hardly to be recognised. ”

“ Now, according to Professor Wilhelm Arnold, the German writer who has recently given the closest attention to these local names, the patronymic suffix [p360] 'ingen' is one of the distinctive marks of settlements of Alamannic and Bavarian tribes, and denotes that the districts wherein it is found have at some time or another been conquered or occupied by them. The heims, on the other hand, in this writer's view, are in the same way indicative of Frankish settlements.545
The view of so accurate and laborious a student must be regarded as of great authority. ”

“ When society grows so permanent that male kinship and paternity are recognized, the custom of patronymics is introduced. The totem name gives place to a gentile name, itself probably a patronymic in form; or, as in Greece, the gentile name gives place to a local name, derived from the deme. ”

“ These single enclosures became the nucleus of a village which, gradually increasing, became a town or city, in the same manner as villages and towns arose around the Celtic duns, raths, and lises. This root, in the names of towns and villages, is more common than any other in Anglo-Saxon topography, being an element in an eighth part of the names of dwelling-places in the south of Great Britain. The greatest number of these names is connected with those of the original proprietors of the places, of which but a few examples can be given here. ”

“ Every knoll, hill, mountain, and every peak on a range has a name; and so has every watercourse, dell, and plain. In fact, every feature and portion of the country is so minutely distinguished by appropriate names, that it would take a lifetime to decipher their meaning. It is not the want, but the superabundance of names that misleads travellers, and the terms used are so multifarious that good scholars will at times scarcely know more than the subject of conversation. ”

“ The invention of original names usually takes place in the early stages of a people’s history, for a preference soon arises for established names, already borne by kindred, and as the spoken tongue drifts away, from the primitive form, the proper name becomes a mere appellative, with the original meaning forgotten, and often with a new one incorrectly applied to it. ”

“ Again, these complications are caused by the assumption of surnames other than those originally belonging to the persons assuming them, by the creation of special limitations in the grant of a title; by the confounding of names with titles, or those of peerage with those borne by courtesy; by the growth of peerages which, as it were, sprout from some great House already ennobled; and lastly, by the distinctions which exist with regard to peers of the United Kingdom, of Great Britain, of England, or of Ireland. ”

“ In the modern teaching of geography, the beginning is made in school-yard or the precinct and from this centre it broadens out to cover one’s city, one’s county, one’s state or province, one’s country, until at last it embraces the round earth. ”

“ The first member is generally prefixed to distinguish places having similar positions—e.g., Staple-ford, Notting-ham, New-ark, &c. Sometimes the names of places are represented by a single word—e.g., Slough, Ford, Holt, Down, Berg, Furt, &c.
All places do not admit of explanation. Those ending with Ing or having after it Ham or Ton, are derived from the names of tribes, families, or individuals. ”

“ Family by family, village by village, county by county, these devoted amateurs should study in minutest detail their local origins, and, gathering ultimately into little county historical societies, should sow the seed that would make the whole state history-minded, and at the same time prepare a rich soil for the later growth of a more scholarly historical literature. ”

“ When two nouns only are compounded into a place-name, the first loses its final letters or last syllable, while the second remains entire. The first is a qualifier of the second and follows it in translation, e. g.—Tecalli from tetl, calli = “house (calli) of stone (tetl) .”
8. In place-names compounded of an adjective and a noun, the adjective precedes, e. g.—Iztacuauhtli from iztac, cuauhtli = “the white (iztac) eagle (cuauhtli) .” ”

“ In almost every case where man has interfered with nature the resulting local name is naturally of Anglo-Saxon or, in some parts of England, of Scandinavian origin. The Roman and French elements in our topographical names are scanty in number, though the former are of frequent occurrence. ”

“ We have under other heads alluded to the carelessness of persons in addressing their letters. To make them legible and complete, give the name of the post-town, and if there be more than one town of that name, or if the post-town is not well known, be careful in giving the name of the county, which in all cases is as essential as that of the State. The number of the house, too, if in a street, is a great assistance. ”

“ LOCAL SURNAMES. In well-nigh every country where personal nomenclature has assumed a sure and settled basis, that is, where a second or surname has become an hereditary possession in the family, we shall find that that portion of it which is of local origin bears by far the largest proportion to the whole. ”

“ This last pronunciation was also adopted by those among the later-coming residents who had an interest in history, or who loved for their own sakes the melody of the devout old names given by the first explorers—names now so rapidly disappearing from bay and harbor, reef and key. But these three classes were no longer all, there was another and more recent one, small and unimportant as yet, but destined to grow. ”

“ The multiplicity and individualism of English surnames form a strange contrast to the tautology of Wales, the Scottish Highlands, and some parts of Southern Scotland, where, with rare exceptions, a name alone means nothing. ”

“ Conceive, now, what trouble it entails to find a man in a strange village if you happen not to know his contranome (and how on earth are you to discover it?) , if his surname means nothing to the inhabitants, and his Christian name is shared by a hundred others. For they have an amazing lack of inventiveness in this matter; four or five Christian names will include the whole population of the place. ”

“ It should be remarked that both Jaredites and Nephites named cities, plains, valleys, mountains and provinces after the names of prominent men, especially the men who were identified in some way with the settlement or history of said places; so that it often happens that names of places take on the names of men or some variation of their names; and hence the frequent identity and more frequently the likeness between the names of places and the names of men. ”

“ The main features of these books are (1) a handy and charming form, (2) numerous illustrations from photographs and by well-known artists, (3) good plans and maps, (4) an adequate but compact presentation of everything that is interesting in the natural features, history, archæology, and architecture of the town or district treated.
In those volumes which treat of counties, there is first a general description of the country—its situation, physical features, flora and fauna, climate, inhabitants, industries, history and archæology. ”

“ There is less excuse for the pompous folly committed by giving absurd names, when we remember that we are in fact no more wanting in good leading ideas for such purposes, than other people. After the first duty of preserving as many Indian words as possible, and after allowing a portion of the counties and towns for monuments to distinguished men, either as local benefactors or deserving well of the country generally, there would no doubt still remain a large number of sites to be named. ”