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What's in a name? Would Tony Bennet still leave his heart in San Francisco if it were called Stinking Flats or Mud City? Doubtful. Upon studying odd names of places, or toponymy, tumbles us immediately into history. For example, there is a village in Wales known as Llandfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrudrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, probably the longest place name in the world. In Welsh it means St. Mary's (church) by the white aspen over the whirlpool and St. Tysilio's (church) by the red cave. Luckily for letter writers in this Welsh community, a return address need only say Llandfairpw.
Wales has no monopoly on unusual place names. For example, London boats a Threadneedle Street, an obvious Medieval remnant of when craft guilds such as weavers were located in one corner of the city. Along the southern coast of England lie the Cinque Ports. Any one with a little French recognizes "cinque" as meaning five, hence the five ports, but why were they lumped together? The answer was these coastal communities historically were tax-exempt villages. Rather than pay taxes, the villages were expected to provide naval defense for the mouth of the Thames.
The United States, too, has its unique town names. Many of the names that may strike us odd derive from the presence of Amerindians shortly before these places became English speaking communities. Chicago, for instance, is based on an Algonquin phrase for the place where wild onions grow. Tulsa is another example. What exactly is a Tulsa? Well, Tulsa is simply a Muskogean Indian name for the town that originally stood where Tulsa stands today. Pocatello, Idaho got its name from an Indian leader who was helpful to Americans in clearing the way for the railroad to go through.
Winnipeg, in Canada, owes its name to the Algonquins also. Winnipig was the Algonquin word meaning dirty water, a possible non tribute to the Red River, which flows near Winnipeg.
Baton Rouge was named in a similar way. The original name of the Choctaw village was red pole, a red pole serving as a boundary marker. When the French arrived in Louisiana in the 1700's, they simply translated red pole into French, and so we wind up with today's Baton (pole or stick) and Rouge (red). Furthermore, French explorers trekked along most of the principal rivers in the heartland of America. For instance, they got so far west as Idaho, whose capitol is Boise, which in French means wooded.
While there are many Amerindian names on the American landscape, there are many other odd names that derive from other sources. Boca Raton is a pleasant sounding city in Florida. However, the Spanish were 16th Century settlers in the Sunshine State, and Boca Raton in Spanish translates as the mouth of the rat.
In surveying unusual names in the United States, we shouldn't forget that the Dutch held New York as a colony until the Revolutionary War. Consequently New York state is peppered with Dutch names; for example, Schenectady. Actually Schnectady is a joint Indian and Dutch word. The Iroquis called the area the place of the pines; the Dutch took what they heard from the Indians and called it "Scheaenhedstede," "stede" in Dutch meaning a town. "Flatbush" a section of Brooklyn, also, comes from Dutch "vlacht bos," meaning flat forest.
Ypsilanti in lower Michigan sounds as though it might be an Indian name as well, but not so. Ypsilanti was the surname of two Greek brothers who fought heroically in the Greek resistance movement to Turkish oppression. Hence, it is likely that the name was chosen by Greek residents of Ypsilanti.
And what of Cincinnati? What is a Cincinnati? More accurately we should ask who was Cincinnatus? He was a Roman ruler who resisted tyranny. After the American Revolution, military officers and other patriots bonded together in the Cincinnati Society. Apparently the city fathers of Cincinnati admired these patriots-hence the tribute to Cincinnatus.
If we leave American cities and venture out to smaller places, the number of odd names increases. For example, Cle Ellum in Washington state is from the Kittitas Indian words, meaning swift water.
Intercourse, Pennsylvania lies in Pennsylvania Dutch country and refers to intercourse in the sense of a conversation or exchange of ideas. Nearby Bird in Hand presents a thornier problem for the etymologist.
Dwarf, a dot on the Kentucky roadmap suggests a story as well. As does Santa Claus, Indiana. The possibly partly apocryphal story of Santa Claus goes like this. Initially the town went nameless for a number of years, being called the "no name village." Then in 1856 a meeting was called at a local church to resolve the issue. When no solution could be reached, it so happened that a stranger came to the door of the church in a sleigh. At once the village children cried, "Santa Claus"; hence the name.
Towns such as Horseheads and Penn Yan, New York; Baraboo, Wisconsin; Tombstone, Arizona; Truth or Consequences, New Mexico; Knockemstiff, Ohio; Maggie's Nipples, Wyoming; and Rabbit Hash, Kentucky are further American place names that beg for explanation. To examine only one--Truth or Consequences is actually the modern resultant of a name change. When Ralph Edwards the host of the old radio show, "Truth or Consequences," ventured there to do a program, the obliging town fathers changed the name from the prosaic Hot Springs to snazzier Truth or Consequences.
And finally, there is tiny New Harmony, Indiana. The name is not odd in itself, but the story of the community is exceptional. New Harmony was named by a westward trekking band of apostate Lutherans who were convinced that the Second Coming was imminent. Abandoning their first settlement, Harmony, along the Ohio River north of Pittsburgh, they moved westward under the authority of their patriarch, George Rapp. New Harmony came to be one of the most interesting communities in the United States, serving as home to wild-eyed Utopians financed by Scottish millionaire, Robert Owen, and the hard-working, sex-denying, but technologically-sophisticated Harmony society that flourished in Indiana before an eventual return and breakup in Pennsylvania near the turn of the 20th Century.
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