The influence of Indian names upon American nomenclature is obvious. No fewer than twenty-six of the States have names borrowed from the aborigines,145 and the same thing is true of large numbers of towns and counties. The second city of the country bears one, and so do the largest American river, and the greatest American water-fall, and four of the five Great Lakes, and the scene of the most important military decision ever reached on American soil. “In a list of 1,885 lakes and ponds of the United States,” says Louis N. Feipel,146 “285 are still found to have Indian names; and more than a thousand rivers and streams have names derived from Indian words.” Walt Whitman was so earnestly in favor of these Indian names that he proposed substituting them for all other place-names, even the oldest and most hallowed. “California,” he said in “An American Primer,”147 “is sown thick with the names of all the little and big saints. Chase them away and substitute aboriginal names.… Among names to be revolutionized: that of the city of Baltimore.… The name of Niagara should be substituted for the St. Lawrence. Among places that stand in need of fresh, appropriate names are the great cities of St. Louis, New Orleans, St. Paul.” But eloquent argument has also been offered on the other side, chiefly on the ground that Indian names are often hard to pronounce and even harder to spell. In 1863 R. H. Newell (Orpheus C. Kerr), a popular humorist of the time, satirized the more difficult of them in a poem called “The American Traveler,” beginning:
To Lake Aghmoogenegamook,
All in the State of Maine,
A man from Wittequergaugaum came
One evening in the rain.148
I can find neither of these names in the latest report of the Geographic Board, but there are still towns in Maine called Anasagunti-cook, Mattawamkeag, Oquossoc and Wytopitlock, and lakes called Unsuntabunt and Mattagomonsis. But many Indian names began to disappear in colonial days. Thus the early Virginians changed the name of the Powhatan to the James, and the first settlers in New York changed the name of Horicon to Lake George. In the same way the present name of the White Mountains displaced Agiochook; and New Amsterdam (1626), and later New York (1664), displaced Manhattan, which survived, however, as the name of the island, and was revived in 1898 as the name of a borough. In our own time Mt. Rainier has displaced Tacoma (or Tahoma).149 By various linguistic devices changes have been made in other Indian names. Thus, Mau-wauwaming became Wyoming, Maucwachoong became Mauch Chunk, Ouemessourit became Missouri, Nibthaska became Nebraska, Rarenawok became Roanoke, Asingsing became Sing-Sing, and Machihiganing became Michigan.
The Dutch place-names of the United States are chiefly confined to the vicinity of New York, and a good many of them have become greatly corrupted. Brooklyn, Wallabout and Gramercy offer examples. The first-named was originally Breuckelen, the second was Waale Bobht, and the third was De Kromme Zee. Hell-Gate is a crude translation of the Dutch Helle-Gat. During the early part of the last century the more delicate New Yorkers transformed the term into Hurlgate, but the change was vigorously opposed by Washington Irving, and Hell-Gate was revived. The Dutch hoek was early translated into the English hook, and as such is found in various place-names, e.g., Kinderhook, Sandy Hook, Corlaers’s Hook and Hook Mountain. The Dutch kill, meaning channel, is in Kill van Kull, Peekskill, Catskill and Schuylkill. Dorp (village) is in New Dorp.150 Kloof (valley, ravine) survives, in the Catskills, in Kaatersill Clove, North Clove and Clove Valley. Bosch (corrupted to bush), wijk (corrupted to wick) and vlei (usually written vly or fly) are also occasionally encountered. The first means a wood, the second a district, and the third either a valley or a plain. Very familiar Dutch place-names are Harlem, Staten, Flushing (from Vlissingen), Cortlandt, Nassau, Coenties, Spuyten Duyvel, Yonkers, Barnegat and Bowery (from bouwerij, a farmstead). Block Island was originally Blok, and Cape May, according to Scheie de Vere, was Mey. The French place-names have suffered even more severely than the Dutch. Few persons would recognize Smackover, the name of a small town in Arkansas, as French, and yet in its original form it was Chemin Couvert. Schele de Vere, in 1871, recorded the degeneration of the name to Smack Cover; the Postoffice, always eager to shorten and simplify names, has since made one word of it and got rid of the redundant c. In the same way Bob Ruly, a Michigan name, descends from Bois Brulé; Glazypool, the name of an Arkansas mountain, from Glaise à Paul; Low Freight, the name of an Arkansas river, from L’Eau Frais; Loose creek, in Missouri, from L’ours; Swashing creek from San Joachim; Baraboo, in Wisconsin, from Baribault; Picketwire, in Arkansas, from Purgatoire; and Funny Louis, in Louisiana, from Funneleur. A large number of French place-names, e.g., Lac Supérieur, were translated into English at an early day, and nearly all the original Bellevues are now Belleviews or Bellviews. Belair, La., represents the end-product of a process of decay which began with Belle Aire, and then proceeded to Bellaire and Bellair. All these forms are still to be found, together with Bel Air and Belle Ayr. The Geographic Board’s antipathy to names of more than one word has converted La Cygne in Kansas, to Lacygne. Lamoine, Labelle, Lagrange and Lamonte are among its other improvements, but Lafayette for La Fayette, long antedated the beginning of its labors.151 Sheer ignorance has often been responsible for the debasement of French place-names. Consider, for example, the case of Grande Ronde. It is the name of a valley and a river in Eastern Oregon, and it used to be the name of a town in Yamhill county. But then a big lumber company came along, enlarged the town-site, put a mortgage on it, and issued bonds against it. On these bonds, as in the incorporation papers of the company, the name was spelled Grand Ronde. The Oregon Geographic Board protested, but when it was discovered that rectifying the blunder would cost many hundreds of dollars, the lumber company refused to move, and so the place is now Grand Ronde — in French, a sort of linguistic hermaphrodite.152
According to Harold W. Bentley153 no less than 2000 American cities and towns have Spanish names, and thousands more are borne by rivers, mountains, valleys and other geographical entities. He says that there are more than 400 cities and towns of Spanish name in California alone. They are numerous all over the rest of the trans-Mississippi region, and, curiously enough, are even rather common in the East. The Mexican War was responsible for many of the Eastern examples, but others e.g., Alhambra, Altamont and Eldorado, seem to reveal nothing more than a fondness for mellifluous names. The map of California is studded with lovely specimens: Santa Margarita, San Anselmo, Alamagordo, Terra Amarilla, Sabinoso, Las Palomas, Ensenada, San Patricio, Bernalillo, and so on. Unfortunately, they are intermingled with horrifying Anglo-Saxon inventions, e.g., Oakhurst, Ben Hur, Drytown, Skidoo, Susanville, Uno and Ono, including harsh bastard forms, e.g., Sierraville, Hermosa Beach, Point Loma and Casitas Springs. Many names originally Spanish have been translated, e.g., Rio de los Santos Reyes into Kings river, and Rio de las Plumas into Feather river, or mauled by crude attempts to turn them into something more “American,” e.g., Elsinore in place of El Señor, and Monte Vista in place of Vista del Monte. Probably a fifth of the Spanish place-names in California are the names of saints. The names of the Jewish patriarchs and those of the holy places of Palestine are seldom, if ever, encountered: the Christianity of the early Spaniards seems to have concerned itself with the New Testament far more than with the Old, and with Catholic doctrine even more than with the New Testament. There are no Canaans or rivers Jordan in the Southwest, but Concepcions, Sacramentos and Trini-dads are not hard to find.
The Americans who ousted the Spaniards were intimately familiar with both books of the Bible, and one finds copious proofs of it on the map of the United States. There are no less than eleven Beulahs, nine Canaans, eleven Jordans and twenty-one Sharons. Adam is sponsor for a town in West Virginia and an island in the Chesapeake, and Eve for a village in Kentucky. There are five postoffices named Aaron, two named Abraham, two named Job, and a town and a lake named Moses. Most of the St. Pauls and St. Josephs of the country were inherited from the French, but the two St. Patricks show a later influence. Eight Wesleys and Wesleyvilles, e
ight Asburys and twelve names embodying Luther indicate the general theological trend of the plain people. There is a village in Maryland, too small to have a postoffice, named Gott, and I find Gotts Island in Maine (in the French days, Petite Plaisance) and Gottville in California, but no doubt these were named after German settlers of that awful name, and not after the Lord God directly. There are four Trinities, to say nothing of the inherited Trinidads. And in Arkansas and New York there are Sodoms.
Names wholly or partly descriptive of localities are very numerous throughout the country, and among the Grundworter embödied in them are terms highly characteristic of American and almost unknown to the English vocabulary. Bald Knob would puzzle an Englishman, but the name is so common in the United States that the Geographic Board has had to take measures against it. Others of that sort are Council Bluffs, Patapsco Neck, Delaware Water Gap,154 Walden Pond, Sandy Hook, Key West, Bull Run, Portage, French Lick, Jones Gulch, Watkins Gully, Cedar Bayou, Keams Canyon, Poker Flat, Parker Notch, Sucker Branch, Frazier’s Bottom and Eagle Pass. Butte Creek, in Montana, a small inland stream, bears a name made up of two Americanisms. There are thirty-five postoffices whose names embody the word prairie, several of them, e.g., Prairie du Chien, Wis., inherited from the French. There are seven Divides, eight Buttes, eight town-names embodying the word burnt, innumerable names embodying grove, barren, plain, fork, cove and ferry, and a great swarm of Cold Springs, Coldwaters, Summits, Middletowns and Highlands. The flora and fauna of the land are enormously represented. There are twenty-two Buffalos beside the city in New York, and scores of Buffalo Creeks, Ridges, Springs and Wallows. The Elks, in various forms, are still more numerous, and there are dozens of towns, mountains, lakes, creeks and country districts named after the beaver, martin, coyote, moose and otter, and as many more named after such characteristic flora as the paw-paw, the sycamore, the cottonwood, the locust and the sunflower. There is an Alligator in Mississippi, a Crawfish in Kentucky and a Rat Lake on the Canadian border of Minnesota. The endless search for mineral wealth has besprinkled the map with such names as Bromide, Oil City, Anthracite, Chrome, Chloride, Coal Run, Goldfield, Telluride, Leadville and Cement.
There was a time, particularly during the gold rush to California, when the rough humor of the country showed itself in the invention of extravagant and often highly felicitous place-names, but with the growth of population and the rise of civic spirit they have tended to be replaced by more seemly coinages. Catfish creek, in Wisconsin, is now the Yakara river; the Bulldog mountains, in Arizona, have become the Harosomas. As with natural features of the landscape, so with towns. Nearly all the old Boozevilles, Jackass Flats, Three Fingers, Hell-For-Sartains, Undershirt Hills, Razzle-Dazzles, Cow-Tails, Yellow Dogs, Jim-Jamses, Jump-Offs, Poker Citys and Skunk-towns have yielded to the growth of delicacy, but Tombstone still stands in Arizona, Goose Bill remains a postoffice in Montana, and the Geographic Board gives its imprimatur to the Horsethief trail in Colorado, to Burning Bear in the same State, and to Pig Eye lake in Minnesota. Various other survivors of a more lively and innocent day linger on the map: Blue Ball, Pa., Hot Coffee, Miss., Cowhide, W. Va., Dollarville, Mich., Oven Fork, Ky., Social Circle, Ga., Sleepy Eye, Minn., Bubble, Ark., Shy Beaver, Pa., Shin Pond, Me., Gizzard, Tenn., Rough-and-Ready, Calif., Non Intervention, Va., T.B., Md., Noodle, Tex., Vinegar Bend, Ala., Matrimony, N. C., Wham, La., Number Four, N. Y., Oblong, Ill., Stock Yards, Neb., Stout, Iowa, and so on.155 West Virginia, the wildest of the Eastern States, is full of such place-names. Among them I find Affinity, Annamoriah (Anna Maria?), Bee, Bias, Big Chimney, Bille, Blue Jay, Bulltown, Caress, Cinderella, Cyclone, Czar, Cornstalk, Duck, Halcyon, Jingo, Left Hand, Raven’s Eye, Six, Skull Run, Three Churches, Uneeda, Wide Mouth, War Eagle and Stumptown. The Postal Guide shows two Ben Hurs, five St. Elmos and ten Ivanhoes, but only one Middlemarch. There are seventeen Roosevelts, six Codys and six Barnums, but no Shakespeare. Washington, of course, is the most popular of American place-names. But among names of postoffices it is hard pushed by Clinton, Centerville, Liberty, Canton, Marion and Madison, and even by Springfield, Warren and Bismarck. A number of charming double names dot the American map, e.g., Perth Amboy, Newport News, Front Royal, Wilkes-Barré, Princess Anne, Port Tobacco, The Dalles, Baton Rouge, Walla Walla, Winston-Salem. In the older States they are supported by some even more charming names for regions and neighborhoods, e.g., Dame’s Quarter, My Lady’s Manor and Soldiers’ Delight in Maryland.
Many American place-names are purely arbitrary coinages. Towns on the border between two States, or near the border, are often given names made of parts of the names of the two States, e.g., Pen-Mar (Pennsylvania + Maryland), Del-Mar and Mar-Dela (Maryland + Delaware), Texarkana (Texas + Arkansas + Louisiana), Kanorado (Kansas + Colorado), Texhoma (Texas + Oklahoma), Dakoming (Dakota + Wyoming), Texico (Texas + New Mexico), Nosodak (North Dakota + South Dakota), Calexico (California + Mexico).156 Norlina is a telescope form of North Carolina. Ohiowa (Neb.) was named by settlers who came partly from Ohio and partly from Iowa. Penn Yan (N. Y.) was named by Pennsylvanians and New Englanders, i.e., Yankees. Colwich (Kansas) is a telescopic form of the name of the Colorado and Wichita Railroad. There are twelve Delmars in the United States. The name of one of them is a blend of Delaware and Maryland; the name of another (in Iowa) was “made by using the names (i.e., the initials of the names) of six women who accompanied an excursion that opened the railroad from Clinton, Iowa.”157 The lower part of the peninsula separating Chesapeake Bay from the Atlantic is known locally as Delmarva, a blend of the first three syllables of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. A part of the area is in each of these States.158 Benld (Ill.) is a collision form of Benjamin L. Dorsey, the name of a local magnifico; Cadams (Neb.) is a collision form of C. Adams; Wascott (Wis.) derives from W. A. Scott; Eleroy (Ill.) from E. Leroy; Bucoda (Wash.) is a blend of Buckley, Collier and Davis; Caldeno, a waterfall of the Delaware Water Gap, got its name in 1851 from the names of three visitors, C. L. Pascal, C. S. Ogden, and Joseph McLeod;159 Pacoman (N. C.) derives from the name of E. H. Coap-man, a former vice-president of the Southern Railway; Gilsum (N. H.) is a blend of Gilbert and Sumner; Paragould (Ark.) is a blend of W. J. Paramore and Jay Gould; Marenisco (Mich.) is named after Mary Relief Niles Scott; Miloma (Minn.) derives its name from the first syllable of Milwaukee, in the name of the Milwaukee, Chicago, Minneapolis & St. Paul Railroad, and the first two syllables of Omaha, in the name of the Chicago, Minneapolis & Omaha Railroad; Gerled (Iowa) is a blend of Germanic and Led-yard, the names of two nearby townships; Rolyat (Ore.) is simply Taylor spelled backward; Biltmore (N. C.) is the last syllable of Vanderbilt plus the Gaelic more, signifying great.
The Geographic Board, in its laudable effort to simplify American nomenclature, has played ducks and drakes with some of the most picturesque names on the national map. Thus, I find it deciding against Portage des Flacons and in favor of Burro canyon, against Cañons y Ylas de la Cruz and in favor of the barbarous Cruz island. The name of the De Grasse river it has changed to Grass. De Laux it has changed to the intolerable D’Llo. It has steadily amalgamated French and Spanish articles with their nouns, thus achieving such barbarous forms as Duchesne, Degroff and Eldorado. But here its policy is fortunately inconsistent, and so a number of fine old names have escaped. Thus, it has decided in favor of Bon Secour and against Bonsecours, and in favor of De Sota, La Crosse and La Moure, and against Desoto, Lacrosse and Lamoure. Its decisions are confused and often unintelligible. Why Laporte, Pa., and La Porte, Ind. and Iowa; Lagrange, Ind., and La Grange, Ky.? Here it would seem to be yielding a great deal to local usage.
The Board proceeds to the shortening and simplification of native names by various devices. It deletes such suffixes as town, city, mills, junction, station, center, grove, crossroads and courthouse.160 It removes the apostrophe and often the genitive s from such names as St. Mary’s; it shortens burgh to burg161 and borough to boro; and it combines separate and often highly discrete words. The last habit of
ten produces grotesque forms, e.g., Newberlin, Fallentimber, Bluehill and Threetops. It apparently cherishes a hope of eventually regularizing the spelling of Allegany. This is now Allegany for the Maryland county, the Pennsylvana township and the New York and Oregon towns, Alleghany for the Colorado town and the Virginia county and springs, and Allegheny for the mountains, the Pittsburgh borough and the Pennsylvania county, college and river. The Board inclines to Allegheny for all. Other Indian names give it constant concern. Its struggles to set up Chemquasabamticook as the name of a Maine lake in place of Chemquasabamtic and Chem-quassabamticook, and Chatahospee as the name of an Alabama creek in place of Chattahospee, Hoolethlocco, Hoolethloces, Hoolethloco and Hootethlocco are worthy of its learning and authority.
The American weakness for spelling pronunciations shows itself in the case of geographical names. Richard Grant White, in 1880,162 recorded an increasing tendency to give full value to the syllables of such borrowed English names as Worcester and Warwick. In Worcester county, Maryland, the name is usually pronounced Wooster, but on the Western Shore of the State one hears Worceste’r. Norwich is another such name; one hears Nor-witch quite as often as Norrich. Another is Delhi; one often hears Del-high. Yet another is Birmingham; it is pronounced as spelled in the United States, and never in the clipped English manner. Greenwich as the name of a Connecticut town is pronounced Grennidge as in England, but as the name of a San Francisco street it is Green-witch. Thames as the name of a Connecticut river is pronounced as spelled, but is Temz in England. Houston as the name of the Texas city is Hyewston, but as the name of a New York City street it is Howston. White said that in his youth the name of the Shawangunk mountains, in New York, was pronounced Shongo, but that the custom of pronouncing it as spelled had arisen during his manhood.163 So with Winnipiseogee, the name of a lake; once Winipisuakie, it gradually came to be pronounced as spelled. There is frequently a considerable difference between the pronunciation of a name by natives of a place and its pronunciation by those who are familiar with it only in print. Baltimore offers an example. The natives always drop the medial i and so reduce the name to two syllables; in addition, they substitute a neutral vowel, very short, for the o. The name thus be-becomes Baltm’r. Maryland, at home, is always Mare-l’nd. Anne Arundel, the name of a county in the State, is Ann’ran’l. Calvert county, also in Maryland, is given a broad a, but in Calvert street, Baltimore, it is flat. Staunton, Va., the birthplace of Woodrow Wilson, is Stanton to its people, but Taunton, Mass., has acquired an r-sound. Arkansas, as everyone knows, is pronounced Arkansaw by the Arkansans.164 The local pronunciation of Illinois is Illinoy. Missouri, at home, is Mizzoora, though efforts have been made for many years by the local schoolmarms and other purists to unvoice the z’s and to convert the final a into y.165 In the early days the pronunciation of Iowa was always Ioway, but the schoolmarm has brought in Iowuh, with the accent on the first syllable. St. Louis, to the people of the city, is St. Lewis, but Louisville, to its denizens, is Louie-ville, with the first syllable French and the second American. Des Moines, locally, is Day-moin, but Dee-moin is also heard; the two s’s are always silent. Terre Haute is Terry-hut. Beaufort is Byu-furt in South Carolina but Bo-furt in North Carolina. New Orleans is New Oar-lins, with a heavy accent on the first syllable, but when New is omitted and Orleans is used as an adjective modifying a following noun it becomes Or-leens, with the accent on the second syllable. In Baltimore Orleans street is always Or-leens. Coeur d’Alene is Kur-da-lane, with the accent on the lane, and the vowel of kur lying between that of cur and that of poor.166 Cairo, Ill., is always Care-o locally, never Ky-ro. Raleigh, N. C., is Rolly, rhyming with jolly. Honolulu, in the original native speech, was Ho-nolulu, but now it is Hon-olulu. San Antonio, Tex., is Santonyo, though the second an is often inserted by the fastidious. The name of Taos, N. Mex., is pronounced to rhyme with house. Albuquerque, N. Mex., is Al-bu-ker-ky, with the accent on the first syllable, the a of which is American, not Spanish. Laramie, Wyo., is often reduced to two syllables locally, and pronounced Lormie or Lahrmie. Beatrice, Neb., is accented on the second syllable. Wichita is Witch-i-taw. The first syllable of Akron rhymes with jack, not with jake. Spokane is Spo-can, not Spo-cane. Bonne Terre, an old town near St. Louis, is Bonnie-tar. Portage, Wis., is pronounced as an English word. Lafayette, a frequent town name, is Laugh-y-et. Havre de Grace is pronounced Haver de Grass, with two flat a’s. Versailles, in Indiana, is Versales. In Northern Michigan the pronunciation of Sault in Sault Ste. Marie is commonly more or less correct; the Minneapolis, St. Paul & Sault Ste. Marie Railroad is called the Soo, and there is a Soo canal. This may be due to Canadian example, or to some confusion between Sault and Sioux. The Rouge in Baton Rouge gets its French value locally, but the Baton becomes bat’n, with the bat rhyming with cat, and the o reduced to a neutral vowel. The local pronunciation of Tucson, according to the Tucson Sunshine-Climate Club, is Tu-sahn, with the accent on the second syllable, but most Americans make it Too-s’n, with the accent on the first syllable. It is a great point in San Francisco to pronounce the name of Geary street Gary, that of Kearny Karny, and that of Sutter with the u of put: doing so proves that one is an old-timer.167 The Spanish place-names of California offer difficulties to natives and strangers alike. For years the Los Angeles Times has printed a standing notice that the name of the city should be pronounced Loce Ahng-hayl-ais, but the resident boosters and Bible-searchers continue to say Loss Angle-iss, Loss Anjell-iss, Loce-Angle-iss, Loce Angle-ez, and even Sang-lis. The common local abbreviation is L. A.; Los is seldom heard.168 The name of the Indian village that originally occupied the site of the city was Yang-na; the Spaniards, in 1769, changed this to El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Angeles (The Town of Our Lady, Queen of Angels). Many other California towns have shortened their Spanish names in the same way. What is now Ventura was formerly San Buena Ventura, San José was San José de Guadalupe, and Santa Clara was Santa Clara de Asis. Santa Fe, in New Mexico, was originally the Villa Real de Santa Fé de San Francisco. Some of the Spanish place-names in the Southwest have been shortened for daily use. Frisco for San Francisco is frowned upon locally, but is used elsewhere. San Bernardino is San Bernardino, San B’rdino, San B’rdoo, or B’rdoo, San Pedro is Pedro, Santa Monica is Santa Mon, San Jacinto is San Jack, and Sacramento is Sacto or Sac.169 In New Mexico and Arizona, where the Spanish-speaking population is relatively large, the Spanish pronunciation is preserved, but in the adjoining States it is fast succumbing to Americanization. The name of the Raton pass, separating New Mexico from Colorado, is pronounced Rah-ton in New Mexico but Ra-toon in Colorado. Similarly, Costilla, a border-town, is Koas-tee-yah in New Mexico and Kos-til-la in Colorado. San Luis, in Colorado, is San Loo-is, Garcia is Gar-shah, Saguache is Sigh-watch, La Junta is La Hunta instead of La Hoonta, Buena is Bew-nah, Salida is Sa-lye-dah and Cerro is Sir-ro.170 Even the name of the State is often Color-ray-do. The Spanish a, says Joseph B. Vasché of the State Teachers College at San José, Calif.,171 appears to be doomed, and the o and i are going with it. There are frequent pedagogical efforts to restore the old pronunciations, but Mr. Vasché believes that any return to them is impossible. The value of ñ has been preserved only by changing it to ny, as in canyon. Another change in spelling is the abandonment of the accent in such place-names as San José and Santa Fé. It does not appear on the letterhead of the San José State Teachers College, just mentioned, and the Geographic Board omits it from the name of the capital of New Mexico, though retaining it on the name of the city in Argentina. The accents in French and Scandinavian names are sloughed off in the same way. Every Belvédère of the early days is now a Belvidere, and every Ste. Thérèse has become a St. Therese. In Minnesota the Swedish Skåne has become Skane, and Malmö is Malmo.172 If there were any considerable number of German place-names on the American map their umlauts would be sacrificed. The German ch-sound, when it appears in Loch, a Scottish word, is always converted into ck.173 The Holston river in Tennessee was originally the Holstein.
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