as much poverty of invention as Twenty-fourth Street, Fifth Avenue, or No. 10 Island, while they do not possess the prac tical advantages of the numerical system of nomenclature, and must be a source of unending perplexity in the post-office, the booking-office, and the schoolroom. The geographical etymologist regards a large portion of the names in the United States with feelings which are akin to those experienced by the ecclesiologist who, having traced with delight the national developments of the pointed architecture of Western Europe, beholds the incongruous restorations-so called-for which the last century is to blame, or the Pagan temples, the Egyptian tombs, and Chinese pagodas, with which architectural plagiarists have deformed our cities. Such plagiarisms and incongruities are as distasteful as the analogous barbarisms with which the map of the United States is so wofully disfigured. The further perpetration of such æsthetic monstrosities as those to which reference has been made is now happily impossible. Our architects have taken up the idea of Gothic art, and developed, from its principles, new and original creations, instead of reproducing, usque ad nauseam, servile copies or dislocated fragments of ancient buildings. Would that the same regeneration could be effected in the practice of name-giving! If the true principles of Anglo-Saxon nomenclature were understood, our Anglo-American and Australian cousins might construct an endless series of fresh names, which might be at once harmonious, distinctive, characteristic, and in entire consonance with the genius of the language.1 When we attempt a scientific analysis and classification of local names, we find that by far the greater number contain two component elements. One of these, which in Celtic names is generally the prefix, and in Teutonic names the suffix, is 1 Many of the Swabian patronymics which have not been reproduced in England would furnish scores of new names of a thoroughly characteristic Anglo-Saxon type, if combined with appropriate suffixes, such as ham, ton, hurst, ley, worth, by, den, don, combe, sted, borough, thorpe, cote, stoke, set, thwaite, and holt. Thus Senningham, Wickington, Erkington, Frelington, Moringham, Hermingham, Lennington, Teppington, Ersingham, Steslingham, Mensington, Relvington, Plenningham, Aldington, Delkington, Ensington, Melvington, are characteristic Anglo-Saxon names, which nevertheless do not appear in the list of English villages. some general term meaning island, river, mountain, dwelling, or inclosure, as the case may be. Thus we have the Celtic prefixes, Aber, Inver, Ath, Bally, Dun, Kil, Llan, Ben, Glen, Strath, Loch, Innis, Inch; and the Teutonic suffixes, borough, by, bourn, den, don, ton, ham, thorpe, cote, hurst, hill, ley, shiels, set, stow, sted, wick, worth, fell, law, dale, gay, holm, ey, stone, and beck. mann. This element in names is called the Grundwort by FörsteWe have already, in the case of river-names, called it the substantival element. The other component serves to distinguish the island, river, or village, from other neighbouring islands, streams, or villages. This portion of the name, which we have called adjectival, has been denominated the Bestimmungswort by Förstemann. There are only about 500 German Grundworter, which, variously combined with the Bestimmungswörter, constitute the 500,000 names which are found upon the map of Germany. The Bestimmungswort is frequently a personal name—thus GRIMSBY is Grim's dwelling, ULLSTHORPE is Ulf's village, BALMAGHIE is the town of the Maghies, CLAPHAM is the home of Clapha, KENSINGTON the homestead of the Kensings. In a larger number of cases, instead of a personal name we have a descriptive adjective denoting the relative magnitude, the relative position or antiquity, the excellence, or, sometimes, the inferiority of the place, the colour or nature of the soil, or its characteristic productions. A full enumeration, not to say a discussion, of these roots would occupy a volume-we can only append a list of a few of the more important. LIST OF SOME OF THE LOCAL NAMES. I. WORDS DENOTING RELATIVE MAGNITUDE. From the Celtic word mor or mawr, great, we have the names of Benmore, and Penmaen-Mawr, the great mountains; Kilmore, the great church; and Glenmore, the great glen. Much Wenlock, Macclesfield, Maxstoke in Warwickshire, Great Missenden, Grampound, and Granville, contain Teutonic and Romance roots of the same import. Similarly MISSISSIPPI is an Indian_term of precisely the same meaning as the neighbouring Spanish name Rio Grande, which, as well as the Arabic GUADALQUIVER (keber, great), and the Sarmatian word WOLGA, signifies "the great river." Lakes WINNIPEG and WINNIPEGOOSIS are respectively the great sea and the little sea. From the Celtic beg or bach, little, we have Bally begg and Inis beg, Glydwr Fach, Pont Neath Vechan, and Cwm Bychan. We find several Teutonic Littleburys, Littletons, and Clintons. MAJORCA and MINORCA are the greater and lesser isles. BOCA CHICA is the great mouth. We find the prefix broad in Braddon, Bradley, Bradshaw, Bradford, and Ehrenbreitstein, and some of the Stratfords and Strettons are probably from the root "strait," and not 66 street. II. RELATIVE POSITION. The points of the compass afford an obvious means of distinguishing between the places of the same name. Thus we have Norfolk and Suffolk, Wessex, Essex, and Sussex, Northampton and Southampton, Surrey, Westmoreland, Northumberland, and Sutherland; Norton (57) and Sutton (77), Norbury (7) and Sudbury (7), Easton (14) and Weston (36), Eastbury (21) and Westbury (10), Easthorpe and Westhorpe, Norleigh, Sudley and Westley. The Erse iar, the west, appears in the name of ORMUNDE or West Munster, as well, possibly, as in those of IRELAND and ARGYLE. The ZUYDER ZEE is the southern sea; DEKKAN means the south in Sanskrit; and ALGARBE is an Arabic name meaning the west. The OSTROGOTHS and VISIGOTHS were the eastern and western divisions of the Goths, as distinguished from the Massagetæ, or the great Goths, the chief body of the nation. AUSTRIA (Oestreich) is the eastern empire, WESTPHALIA the western plain, and the WESER (anciently Wisaraha) is the western river. From the close resemblance of the sounds it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between roots meaning the east and those meaning the west. Thus OSTEND in Belgium is at the west (ouest) end of the great canal; and OSTEND in Essex is the east end of the land. In Chinese, pih and nan mean respectively north and south. Hence we have PIH-KING and NANKING, the northern and southern courts; PIH-LING and NAN-LING, the northern and southern mountains; NAN-HAI, the southern sea, and the kingdom of AN-NAM, or the "peace of the south." Hinton PEREA is the country "beyond" the Jordan. ANTILIBANUS is the range "opposite " Lebanon. TRANSYLVANIA is the country beyond the forestclad range of mountains which bounds Hungary to the south-east. (14) is a common name for a village behind a hill, as in the case of Cherry Hinton, near Cambridge. From the German prepositions an, in, and zu, we have the names of Amsteg, Andermat, Imgrund, Zermatt, Zerbruggen, and Zermägern. Many German names beginning with M are due to am or im prefixed to Celtic names. Thus Oersberg has become MARSBERG, Eppenthal is now MEPPENTHAL, Achenthal is MACHENTHAL. From the AngloSaxon at, at, we have Atford, Adstock, Otford, and Abridge. From the Celtic preposition ar, upon, by, or at, we obtain ARMORICA, the land "upon the sea," ARLES (ar-laeth), the town "upon the marsh," and Armagh, the city "upon the plain." In the names of POMERANIA, and of PRUSSIA, we have the Sclavonic preposition po, by. With Netherby, Dibden, Dibdale, Deeping (the low meadow), Holgate and Holloway, we may contrast High Wycombe, High Ercal, Upton (42), Higham, Highgate, and High street. III. RELATIVE AGE. There are numerous English villages which go by the names of Althorp, Alton, Elston, Elton, Eltham, Elbottle, Alcester, Aldbury, Abury, Albury, Aldborough, Aldburgh, and Oldbury, and on the Continent we find Altorf, Starwitz (Sclavonic stary, old), Torres Vedras, Civita Vecchia near Rome, and Citta Vecchia in Malta. On the other hand, there are in England alone more than 120 villages called Newton, besides Newport (12), Newnham (11), Newland (11), Newark, Newbiggen (17), Newbold (11), Newbottle, Newstead, Newbury, Newby, Newcastle (10), Newhall and Newburgh, which we may compare with Continental names like Villeneuve, Villanova, Neusiedel, Neustadt, Novgorod, Neville, Neufchâtel, Nova Zembla, Newfoundland, Naples, and Nâblus. These names denote only relative, and not absolute age. Thus the New Castle built by the Normans on the Tyne is now 800 years old, yet still keeps its name; and Nâblus (Neapolis) in Palestine is twice that age, having been founded by Vespasian after the destruction of Samaria. New College is one of the oldest colleges in Oxford, having been founded in 1386; and New Palace Yard, Westmin-. ster, is a memorial of the palace built by Rufus. IV. NUMERALS. In ancient Anglo-Saxon and German names, the numerals which most commonly occur are four and seven, numbers which were supposed to have a mystical meaning. Such are Sevenoaks, Klostersieben and Siebenbürgen. Nine-elms dates from a later period. We have a mountain group called the Twelve Pins, in Ireland, and Fünfkirchen and Zweibrücken in Germany. Neunkirchen, however, is only a corruption of Neuenkirchen, or New Church, and Ninekirks, in the Lake district, is St. Ninian's Kirk. The modern names of the ancient Roman stations in the Upper Rhine valley, near Wallenstadt, are curiously derived from the Roman numerals. We find, at regular intervals, as we proceed up the valley, the villages of Seguns, Tertzen, Quarten, Quinten and Sewes. The three cities of Oea, Sabrata, and Leptis in Africa, went collectively by the name of TRIPOLIS. in Syria was a joint colony from the three cities of Tyre, Sidon, and Aradus. On the Lake Ontario there is the Bay of the Thousand Isles. TERCEIRA, one of the Azores, is the third Island. The LACCADIVES are the ten thousand islands, and the MALDIVES are the thousand isles. The PUNJAB is the land of the five rivers, and the DOAB1 is the country between the "two rivers," the Ganges and the Jumna. PLYNLIMMON is a corruption of Pumlumon, the five hills; and MIZRAIM, the Biblical name of Egypt, describes either the "two" banks of the Nile, or the "two" districts of Upper and Lower Egypt. V. NATURAL PRODUCTIONS. TRIPOLI A far larger number of names are derived from natural productions. Mineral springs are often denoted by some corruption of the Latin word Aquæ. Thus we have Aix in Savoy, and Aix near Marseilles; Aix la Chapelle, or Aachen, in Rhenish Prussia; Acqui in Piedmont; and Dax, or Dacqs, in Gascony. The misunderstood name Aqua Solis, or Aquæ, probably suggested to the Anglo-Saxons the name of Ake mannes ceaster, the invalid's city, which was changed at a later period to Bath, from a root which also supplies names to Bakewell, anciently Badecanwylla, in Derbyshire, and to the numerous Badens on the Continent. THERMOPYLE took its name from the hot springs in the defile; TIERRA DEL FUEGO from its volcanic fires; and REIKJAVIK, or "reek bay," was the Norse settlement in the neighbourhood of the GEYSERS,2 or "boilers." HECLA I The ab here is the Sanskrit and Persian word for water, which comes to us from the Persian through the Arabic, and which we have in the word julap (gul, rose; and ab, water), as well as in shrub and syrop (scharab). 2 The words geyser, yeast, geist, gas, gust, and ghost, are all from the same root, which signifies something boiling, bubbling up, or overflowing. Compare the cognation of ἄνεμος and animus. |