What Is an English Geographical Name?

Abstract

What is AN English geographical name ? The question is one of a kind about which we now find it ha d to think clearly. In this in ta ce, the different associations of the word English, and the continual confusion between a name and its spelling, combine to cloud our thought. A name is not merely some? thing written down on paper, but is primarily a sound or sequence of sounds in a particular language, by which a particular thing is identified in that language. Its spelling, like the written representation of a vowel or consonant, is a matter of convention, that is, of received habit. An English geographical name is therefore, in the most general terms, the spoken word or words by which any part of the world, or any place in the world, is known in the English language. The written name is a mere record of the sound. An excellent example of an indisputably English name which has entered into the names of places and of geographical features in many parts of the world is afforded by the name Clarence. One has only to think of Clarence Strait between Qishm and the mainland of Persia (which has no Persian name), or of the Clarence River in New South Wales, to appreciate its importance in the catalogue of English geographical names. But, like many other such names, it is one difficult to explain. It commemorates, as a rule, King William IV when Duke of Clarence. But where is Clarence? There is no place of that name in England except Port Clarence on the Tees. I am told, by the College of Arms, that the title relates to Clare in Suffolk and that there is no foundation whatever for the belief that it refers to a supposed ancient duchy of Chiarenza or Glarentza in the Peloponnese. The derivation from Clare in Suffolk is possibly through a Latin genitive (Clarensis) as Isaac Taylor suggested. A comprehensive English or American dictionary records the more important names of persons and places in regular use in English, and most of the English words derived from them. A good English dictionary to a foreign language may also do this, but will at least give a supplementary list of proper names used in English. The dictionaries are not consistent either in choice or presentation of the names (even Murray's 'New English Dictionary' deals with the name Western Ocean under Ocean), but the authorities on our language agree that many places where English is not spoken are known to us in speech or writing, or in both, by names or forms of names which are not identical with the native names.