Imported Toponymy and the FamilySearch Place Name Database: Mapping North American Communities with European Capital Namesakes

Cray, Ed. Ethnic and place names as derisive adjectives. Western Folklore 21 :27 -34, Jan. 1962. Fairclough, G. Thomas. A variant of 'downtown.' American Speech 37: 158, May 1962. Heier, Edmund. Russo-German place-names in Russia and in North America. Names 9:260-68, Dec. 1961. Names resulting from the Russo-German immigration are discussed on p.266-68. Jennings, Gary. Naming names and backgrounds. Denver Post Oct. 29, 1961, Roundup p. 31. General article on names in the U. S. Condensed in Reader's Digest 79:114-16; Dec. 1961 under title: Why did they call it that? Kane, Joseph Nathan. The American counties; a ~ecord of the origin of the names of the 3,072 counties, dates of creation and organization, area, 1960 population, historical data, etc, of the fifty States. Rev. ed. New York, Scarecrow Press, 1962. 540 p. 1st ed. 1960. 500 p. Kilpatrick, Jack Frederick. An etymological note on the tribal name of the Cherokees and certain place and proper names derived from Cherokee. Journal of the Graduate Research Genter 30:37-41, April 1962. Krueger , John R. A pronunciation standard for place names of the Pacific Northwest. American Speech 37 :74, Feb. 1962. Local pronunciations of some tribal names and place-names. Further comments by C. F. Voegelin, ibid. 37 :75, Feb. 1962. Leigh, Rufus Wood. Naming of the Green, Sevier, and Virgin Rivers. Utah Historical Quarterly 29: 137 -47, April 1961. Adapted from his full-length book manuscript, Indian, Spanish, and government survey place names oj the Great Basin and Oolorado plateaus.

Artikkelissa selvitetään, millaisista paikoista Pohjois-Amerikan ensimmäisen siirtolaispolven suomalaiset ovat kirjeissään puhuneet ja mitä paikannimiä he ovat näistä paikoista käyttäneet. Tutkimusaineisto koostuu 434 Pohjois-Amerikasta Etelä-Pohjanmaalle vuosina 1881–1939 lähetetystä kirjeestä. Kirjeistä on koottu kaikki paikannimet, jotka viittaavat Pohjois-Amerikassa sijaitseviin paikkoihin. Paikannimiaineisto koostuu 199 eri paikannimestä, joita käytetään kirjeissä 881 kertaa. Paikannimiä analysoidaan sosio-onomastiikan, kontaktionomastiikan ja kriittisen onomastiikan keinoin. Analyysissa tarkastellaan, millaisissa kirjoitusasuissa nimiä niitä käytetään, mikä on paikannimien kieli, millä tavoin jotkin paikannimet ovat mukautuneet suomeen ja millainen on nimenkäyttäjän suhde siihen paikkaan, jonka nimeä käyttää. Mahdollisuuksien mukaan tarkastellaan myös syitä nimenkäytön taustalla. Kirjeissä käytetyt paikannimet voidaan jakaa viiteen kategoriaan: viralliset paikannimet, paikannimen ja appellatiivin, adjektiivin tai postposition yhdistelmät, fonologisia muutoksia sisältävät paikannimet, lyhennelmät ja käännösnimet. Tutkimus osoittaa, että kirjeissä puhutaan eniten osavaltioista, kaupungeista sekä muista pienemmistä asutusalueista. Huomattavasti vähemmän puhutaan luonnonpaikoista. Tutkimus osoittaa myös, että paikoista puhutaan eniten sekä niiden virallisilla nimillä että suomeen fonologisesti mukautuneilla nimillä. Vähiten käytetään lyhennelmiä ja käännösnimiä. Tulokset tukevat aiempia kirjetutkimuksissa tehtyjä havaintoja: ne kirjoittajat, jotka ovat kirjeissään käyttäneet fonologisesti mukautettua paikannimeä, näyttäisivät olevan kirjoitustaidoiltaan harjaantumattomampia kuin ne, jotka ovat käyttäneet paikannimien virallisia asuja. Tutkimuksessa nousee esiin suomalaisten rooli osana Pohjois-Amerikan asutuskolonialismia: kirjeissä mainitaan muutama asutusalue, joille on annettu suomenkielinen ja Suomeen viittaava nimi. Place names in letters written by first-generation Finnish Americans The article examines what kind of places the Finnish of the first immigrant ­generation spoke about in their letters, and what names they used for these places. The research material consists of 434 letters sent from North America to ­Southern Ostrobothnia between 1881 and 1939. All the place names that refer to places in North America have been collected from these letters. The place name material consists of 199 different place names, which are used 881 times. Place names are analysed using socio-onomastics, contact onomastics and critical onomastics. The analysis examines the spellings in which these names appear, the language of the place names, how some place names have been adapted from English to Finnish, and the relationship of the name user to the place named. If possible, the reasons behind the use of names are also examined. Place names can be divided into five categories: official place names; combinations of place name and appellative, adjective or postposition; place names with phono­logical changes; abbreviations; and translated names. The research shows that the writers mostly speak about cities and other settlements. Much less is spoken about natural places. The research also shows that places are most often referred to by both their official names and names that are phonologically adapted to Finnish. Abbreviations and translated names are used much less. The results support previous observations made in correspondence studies: those writers who used a phonologically adapted place name seem to be more inexperienced in their writing skills than those who used the official forms. The research also explores Finnish settler colonialism in North America: the letters mention a few settlement areas that have been given Finnish names.

Geographical research and the problem of variant place names in digitized books and other full-text resources

The historical interpretation of place names is a richly rewarding endeavor in the United States, particularly in Florida, where a white man, Ponce de Le6n, bestowed the first permanent name in the North American continent. Florida place names follow the tendencies of place-naming all over the United States, but the nomenclature is distinctly Floridian and has its own geographic, historic, social, cultural, and circumstantial pattern. From these names one can draw virtually the whole history of her people: their ideas, ideals, and legends; their ancestry and religions; their industries, politics, and wars; as well as the climate, topography, and vegetation of their land. There are few states in the Union that bear a more picturesque, romantic, and historic name than Its story has been told many times, but it is worth repeating. In March, I513, Juan Ponce de Le6n, Governor of Puerto Rico and shipmate of Columbus on his second voyage to the New World, led an expedition westward in search, somewhere among the Bahamas, of an island which, according to native lore, was the site of a fountain of youth. He sighted land on March 27, Easter Sunday, and debarked somewhere near the mouth of the St. Johns River on April 3, claiming the territory for Spain, and naming it La Florida. The word florida is a Spanish feminine adjective, meaning 'flowery,' 'covered with flowers,' or 'abounding in flowers,' and Pascua Florida means 'Feast of Flowers' or 'Flowery Easter.'3 George Stewart, an authority on place-naming in America, informs us that the absence of a priest on the Ponce de Le6n expedition who could tell them what saint's day it was

Broche, Gaston E. Villes americaines de noms fran9ais. Societe de geographie et d'etudes coloniales de Marseille. Bulletin 63:73-89. 1944-47. Duffy, Thomas F. A controlled research project: American place names. New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968. 78 p. maps. (Aspects of English). Bibliography: p. 14-17. Very limited and out of date. Describes a project for controlling the sources used by students in writing research papers, using a study of American place-names as an example. Contains a group of four general readings on place-naming practices and a group of four specific readings dealing with place-names in Massachusetts and Virginia. Florin, Lambert. Ghost town El Dorado. Seattle, Superior Pub. Co., 1968. 192 p. maps. (The Western ghost town series). Ninth in the author's Western ghost town series. Includes towns in 11 western states of the United States and in British Columbia. Frazer, Robert Walter. Forts of the West; military forts and presidios, and posts commonly called forts, west of the Mississippi River to 1898. Norman, Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1965. 246 p. Bibliography: p. 190-226. Arranged alphabetically within the boundaries of present states. Includes origin of the post name and changes in name and location. Jakle, John A. Salt-derived place names in the Ohio Valley. Names 16:1-5, March 1968. Includes a map of such place-names, as found on the Ohio Valley's Topographic quadrangles. McClung, Quantrille D. Bent, Boggs and Carson place names. Oolorado Genealogist 28:35-36, June 1967. A listing of place-names derived from these three surnames, throughout the United States. Murray, J. Franklin. Jesuit place names in the United States. Names 16:6-12, March 1968. Names of places for which European Jesuit missionaries are in some way responsible. New York, Washington, Philadelphia. New York Times Jan. 26, 1969, p. xx29. Short article on small English towns bearing same name as the major U.S. cities.

Imported Sophistication: The Ballets Russes Tours of the 1930s–50s and Toronto's Quest for Cultural Significance

The Old Toponymy and New Topography of Zion: Utah, Photography, and Daniel George's Series <i>God to Go West</i>

The naming of places on university campuses plays an important role in shaping the cultural landscapes and geographies of higher education institutions. In recent years, there have been contentious debates over place renaming at colleges and universities in North America and around the world, which has drawn increasing attention to the politics of toponymic practices in higher education contexts. The decision-making process involved in place naming on a university’s campus is generally informed by the institution’s naming policy and implemented by a university naming committee, yet there is very little scholarship on university naming policy frameworks, procedures, and practices. In this article, we provide a systematic and comparative analysis of university naming policies in Canada and the United States. Drawing on data from more than 2,000 colleges and universities across North America, we assess the level of representation that faculty and students have on university naming committees, institutional commitments to public engagement in the naming process, the value of diversity, and restrictions on corporate naming rights agreements. We conclude that colleges and universities should develop more inclusive and equitable naming policy frameworks to ensure that campus namescapes live up to the ideals of higher education institutions in the twenty-first century.

Abstract: The names of native wildlife species are attached to thousands of landmarks throughout the United States. We used a U.S. Geological Survey online database to assess the abundance, distribution, density, and historical range fidelity of 24 faunal place names within the continental United States and Alaska. Our search generated over 35,000 faunal place names distributed across 49 states, with overall highest densities in mountainous regions. The distribution of place names corroborates the familiar pattern of range constriction characteristic of many species during the past century. Place names of range‐limited species demonstrated strong fidelity to historical ranges. The spatial patterns of faunal place names are important indicators of a species' historical distribution. Furthermore, these place names reflect culturally important connections between humans and native fauna. Prudent analysis of place names may provide important biogeographical information for maintaining or restoring species and habitat components, although its utility will likely be limited to large, charismatic species.

N astonishing volume of material has been published on place names in the A6 United States. But when one examines this abundance one is impressed by the fact that practically all of the serious place-name studies have been done by philologists from a linguistic point of view; few of these studies have been done by geographers, or from a geographic point of view.1 Place names may be considered as significant in the cultural landscape as are house types, field patterns, or modes of transport. From this point of view, the classification and distribution of place names is as much in the field of geography as the etymology of these terms is in the field of philology. Moreover, place names are persistent cultural traits, the character and distribution of which may indicate the spread of people and ideas at various times. It is well known that European geographers and historians have long employed place names as aids in tracing human migrations and even in reconstructing the former vegetation cover of certain areas.2 For the geographer and historian one of the most significant aspects of placename study involves the origin, spread, and present distribution of the generic parts of toponyms. Generic terms dealing with physical features in the United States, such as brook, run, butte, and hollow, are generally the more meaningful parts of geographic names, for they are durable language forms, originally associated with definite culture groups. The same can be said for generic terms that deal

This article reviews some of the recent literature on how GIS relates to toponymy in general and, more specifically, to changing place names. It reviews articles on Indigenous names and commemorative place names while considering some of the main reasons place names are revised, such as linguistic and political change in a region. It reviews articles describing settler names in North America and considers questions of gender equity in place names.

Place names, or toponyms, provide a useful geographical reference system; they can help analyse past landscapes, recover history and understand changes. Among place names, plant place names (phytotoponyms) can be used to analyse the current and past distribution of plants and plant communities and to highlight changes in land use due to human impacts and climate change. We assessed the feasibility of using place names related to species and forest ecosystems to evaluate changes that have affected the forest landscape. As a case study, we considered Calabria, a region in southern Italy rich in toponymic studies. We used the official topographic maps of Calabria, at scales of 1:25,000 and 1: 10,000, and literature data on Calabrian toponymy. To interpret toponyms related to plants and avoid errors, we performed a joint linguistic and naturalistic analysis. A total of 1609 phytotoponyms were identified relating to 45 forest species (28 trees and 17 shrubs) and 399 place names generically related to woods and forests. The most frequent plants associated with place names were Castanea sativa (8.3% of all plant place names), Quercus pubescens s.l. (7.2%), Salix sp. pl. (6.9%) and Quercus frainetto (5.6%). All the phytotoponyms were georeferenced and mapped in a GIS. Phytotoponym distribution maps were compared with current Calabrian forest vegetation, using digital orthophotos, land use maps and literature data. A close correspondence between phytotoponyms and forest vegetation for the mountain belt was identified. In contrast, in the basal belt, we found poor correspondence between phytotoponyms and current forest vegetation, especially for wet forests, that can be accounted for by the severe changes in the landscape due to the agricultural and urban transformations that have occurred. The spread of phytotoponyms concerning species linked to forest degradation, such as Spartium junceum, emphasises the ancient anthropic impacts on forests. Our study shows that phytotoponyms are an important tool for analysing changes in vegetation over time. They make it possible to reconstruct changes in the landscape and the intended use of the territory and provide useful information on the restoration of forest ecosystems.

C to Newcastle. Roses by different names. Does any reader of Names have to be told that onomastics and dialectology are kissing cousins, often bedfellows, sometimes two sides of the same coin? If so, let that improbably obtuse reader look at any ordinary issue of Names; there will plentifully appear examples of the link between the study of names and the study of language variation. In 1983 alone, and not counting book reviews, Names had articles on geographic variation of nationalistic place names in the United States; upstate vs. downstate in New York; the American terms creek, run and hollow; Celtic names in the American North and South; surnames in the Southern United States; geographical spread of English place-name surnames; changing place names in New Mexico, and the development of ethnic epithets from personal names. All of these topics would have been equally at home in American Speech, journal of the American Dialect Society, whose readers recently have been treated to studies of Criminal Monickers and Hairbender Beauty Salon de Paris of Ethel. Substantial works on names have likewise appeared in the monograph series Publication of the American Dialect Society, from Frederic G. Cassidy's exemplary The Place Names of Dane County, Wisconsin (No.7, 1947) to Virginia O. Foscue's The Place Names of Sumter County, Alabama (No. 65, 1978). Names and dialect. Which field is the handmaiden, which the maid; which is the branch and which the clinging vine; which the host and which the parasite, may sometimes seem at issue, but it is more often a matter of whether the left hand should serve the right, or which hat a scholar cares to put on. And indeed, the practitioner is often the same. As readers of this journal well know, American scholarly interest in names took much of its impetus from members of the American Dialect Society, some of whom helped with the birth of the American Name Society. Five different scholars have been independently chosen as presidents of both societies namely, Kemp Malone, Allen Walker Read, Frederic G. Cassidy, Audrey R. Duckert, and

Academic geographers have a long history of studying both tourism and place names, but have rarely made linkages between the two. Within critical toponymic studies there is increasing debate about the commodification of place names, but to date the role of tourism in this process has been almost completely overlooked. In some circumstances, toponyms can become tourist sights based on their extraordinary properties, their broader associations within popular culture, or their role as metanyms for some other aspect of a place. Place names may be sights in their own right or ‘markers’ of a sight and, in some cases, the marker may be more significant than the sight to which it refers. The appropriation of place names through tourism also includes the production and consumption of a broad range of souvenirs based on reproductions or replicas of the material signage that denote place names. Place names as attractions are also associated with a range of performances by tourists, and in some cases visiting a place name can be a significant expression of fandom. In some circumstances, place names can be embraced and promoted by tourism marketing strategies and are, in turn, drawn into broader circuits of the production and consumption of tourist space.

Place Names