113 A distinction seems to be growing up between the use of Roman and Arabic numerals. The latter tend to be reserved for individuals in the direct line of descent. Thus, John Smith 3rd is the son of John Smith, Jr., who was the son of John Smith. But John Smith II may be a nephew of either John Smith or John Smith, Jr. However, these lines are not yet clearly marked. In the Groton School Catalogue for 1934–35 there are, among 180 boys, 6 II’s, 9 III’s and 51 Jr.’s.
114 Christian Names in the Cumber-lands, by James A. Still, American Speech, April, 1930.
115 Christian Names in the Blue Ridge of Virginia, by Miriam M. Sizer, American Speech, April, 1933.
116 Stunts in Language, English Journal, Feb., 1920, p. 92; Blends, Anglistische Forschungen, heft 42, p. 16.
117 Christian Names, American Speech, Oct., 1933.
118 The Texas specimens are from a list of high-school students competing in interscholastic games and debates at the University of Texas, May 4, 5 and 6, 1922.
119 The Sideshow, Providence Journal, May 29, 1935.
120 List of Qualified Voters of Talladega County, Ala., Sylcauga News, April 25, 1935.
121 This last is the given-name of a lady professor in the University of California. Apparently her parents were fond of the California poppy (Eschscholtzia californica). I am indebted here to Mr. Henry Madden of Palo Alto, to Dr. H. E. Rollins of Cambridge, Mass., to Miss Esther Smith of Lonaconing, Md., and to Mr. H. L. Davis.
122 Christian Names, American Speech, Oct., 1933.
123 Christian Names in the Cumber-lands, American Speech, April, 1930.
124 Christian Names in the Blue Ridge of Virginia, American Speech, April, 1933.
125 The only inquiry into early Negro names that I am aware of has been made by Miss Blanche Britt Arm-field, of Concord, N. C., who has kindly placed her observations at my disposal. From Southern newspapers of the period from 1736 to the end of the Eighteenth Century (chiefly notices of runaway slaves) she has unearthed Annika, Boohum, Boomy, Bowzar, Cuffee, Cuffey, Cuffy, Habella, Kauchee, Mila, Minas, Monimea, Pamo, Qua, Quaco, Qua-mana, Quamina, Quash, Quod, Yonaha and Warrah, and in the files of Catterall’s Judicial Cases, running from 1672 to 1848, she has found Ails, Ama, Anaca, Aphnah, Cato Sabo, Cavannah, Comba, Con-der, Cotica, Cuffy, Cush, Dunke, Grizzy, Guela, Isom, Juba, Liceta, Limus, Matha, Mealy, Miley, Minda, Mingo, Mood, Moos a, Mozingo, Naneta, Paya, Quash, Quashey, Quay, Quico, Quomana, Sabany, Sambo, Sauny, Sawney, Seac, Silla, Syphax, Tamer, Temba and Tenah. Some of these were probably Indian rather than Negro names. Others were of French or Spanish origin. Mingo was the name of an Indian tribe, and it survives as a place-name. Juba was the name of two Numidian kings who played parts in the contest between Pom-pey and Julius Caesar, but it is also the name of a river in Africa.
126 A Study in Negro Onomastics, American Speech, Aug., 1930.
127 See the American Mercury, March, 1927, p. 303.
128 See Name-Lore From New Orleans, by Marion E. Stanley, American Speech, June, 1927, p. 412.
129 Negro Names, American Speech, April, 1929.
130 I am especially indebted here to Miss Lenora Lund of Greensburg, Pa., Mr. Beverly Entzler of Golds-boro, N. C., Mr. George Macready of Wakefield, R. I., Mr. Donald Moffat of Brookline, Mass., and Dr. Henry H. Haines of Buffalo, N. Y.
131 Hartford Courant, Sept. 25, 1935
132 In Across the Plains; New York, 1892.
133 Issued annually, with monthly supplements.
134 The sixth report, embracing decisions down to 1932, was issued in 1933, and pamphlet supplements come out frequently. The board is composed of representatives of the State, War, Treasury, Commerce, Interior, Navy, Postoffice and Agriculture Departments, and of the Government Printing Office, the Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian Institution. It was created by an executive order of President Harrison, Sept. 4, 1890, and its decisions as to spelling are binding on all Federal departments. In the sixth report more than 26,000 geographical names are listed, covering the whole world, but with the continental United States pre-dominating. There is a valuable preface on the spelling of geographical names.
135 National Nomenclature, Vol. XIV, p. 158.
136 Aboriginal Names and Geographical Terminology of the State of New York, Proceedings of the New York Historical Society, 1844.
137 Portland, 1928. The material was first printed in the Oregon Historical Quarterly, beginning in Dec., 1925.
138 Missouri Historical Review, Jan. See also Introduction to a Survey of Missouri Place-Names, by Robert L. Ramsay, Allen Walker Read and Esther Gladys Leech; Columbia, Mo., 1934. Mr. Read’s Observations of Iowa Place-Names, American Speech, Oct., 1929, is an excellent discussion of the subject: what he says about Iowa names might be applied to the place-names of any other State. In The Basis of Correctness in the Pronunciation of Place-Names, American Speech, Feb., 1933, he makes another valuable contribution to the subject.
139 A bibliography running down to 1922 will be found in A Bibliography of Writings on the English Language from the Beginning of Printing to the End of 1922, by Arthur G. Kennedy; Cambridge and New Haven, 1927, p. 349 ff. For the period since 1925 the bibliographies printed in each issue of American Speech may be consulted. Unfortunately, most of the published studies of American place-names are amateurish, and it is unusual for a philologian as competent as Mr. Read to be concerned with the subject. In England the English Place-Name Society has been carrying on an elaborate and well coördinated survey of English place-names since 1922. It has the coöperation of linguists, historians, paleographers, archeolo-gists, topographers and other experts, and under the editorship of Dr. Allen Mawer, provost of University College, London, and Professor F. M. Stenton, of Reading University, it has already published a dozen valuable volumes. There is a statement of its plans and aims in the Literary Supplement of the London Times, May 3, 1923.
140 The authority here is River and Lake Names in the United States, by Edmund T. Ker; New York, 1911. Stephen G. Boyd, in Indian Local Names; York (Pa.), 1885, says that the original Indian name was Pootuppag.
141 The best discussion of Mississippi that I have found is in Louisiana Place Names of Indian Origin, by William A. Read; Bulletin of the Louisiana State University, Feb., 1927. The name comes from two Algonkian words, misi, great, and sipi, water. The early Spaniards and French called the river the Rio Grande, the Buade, the Rivière de la Conception, the Colbert and the St. Louis. “The first European to use the Indian name,” says Dr. Read, “was Peñolosa, the Governor of New Mexico, who in 1661 wrote it Mischipi.… The modern spelling occurs as early as 1718.” The Southern Choctaws called the lower river the Malbanchya, meaning a place of foreign languages, a reference to the early European settlements.
142 The bard here is the ineffable Lydia Huntley Sigourney (1791–1865), the Amy Lowell and Edna St. Vincent Millay of a more seemly era. She wrote 40 books; and contributed 2000 poems to 300 periodicals. The lines I quote are from Indian Names, c. 1822.
143 See Classical Place-Names in America, by Evan T. Sage, American Speech, April, 1929. Mr. Sage says that Pennsylvania shows more classical place-names than any other State, with Ohio ranking second, New York third, Texas fourth, and Connecticut last. He calls attention to the pseudo-classical names: Demopolis (Ala.), Cosmopolis (Wash.), Gallipolis (O.), Indianapolis (Ind.), Thermopolis (Wyo.), Coraopolis (Pa.), and Opolis (Kans.). See also Origin of the Classical Place-Names of Central New York, by Charles Maar, Quarterly Journal of the New York State Historical Association, July, 1926.
144 See Amerikanska Ortnamn af Svenskt Ursprung, by V. Berger; New York, 1915. The Swedish names listed by Mr. Berger are chiefly to be found in Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas. See also Scandinavian Place-Names in the American Danelaw, by Roy W. Swanson, Swedish-American Historical Bulletin (St. Peter, Minn.), Aug., 1929.
145 In most of the States local antiquaries have investigated the State names. See, for example, The Origin and Meaning of the Name California,
by George Davidson; San Francisco, 1910; California, the Name, by Ruth Putnam; Berkely, 1917; Arizona, Its Derivation and Origin, by Merrill P. Freeman; Tucson, 1913; Ohio, 1803–1903, by Maria Ewing Martin; New Straits-ville, 1903; the Naming of Indiana, by Cyrus W. Hodgin; Richmond (Ind.), 1903; Idaho, Its Meaning, Origin and Application, by John E. Rees; Portland (Ore.), 1917. See also The Origin of American State Names, by F. W. Lawrence, National Geographic Magazine, Aug., 1920. The literature on the names of cities is rather meager. A model contribution to the subject is Baltimore — What Does the Name Mean?, by Hermann Collitz, Johns Hopkins Alumni Magazine, Jan., 1934. Baltimore, of course, gets its name from the title of the Barons Baltimore, Lords Proprietor of Maryland. Dr. Collitz shows that the name comes from the Irish ballti-more, signifying “the place of the great lord.”
146 American Place-Names, American Speech, Nov., 1925, p. 79.
147 Atlantic Monthly, April, 1904, pp. 468–9.
148 It is reprinted in Local Discolor, by Mamie Meredith, American Speech, April, 1931.
149 This substitution, I am informed, was due to the jealousy of Seattle, the citizens of which objected to having the greatest American peak south of Alaska bear the name of the rival city of Tacoma. But it is still called Tacoma in Tacoma.
150 The name of Jamaica, L. I., was originally Rustdorp and that of Westchester was Ostdorp. To this day Schenectady is commonly called The Dorp locally, and its people pass as Dorpians. See Dialectical Evidence in the Place-Names of Eastern New York, by Edward E. Hale, American Speech, Dec., 1929. Mr. Hale’s errors in Dutch are corrected by A. E. H. Swaen, in Dutch Place-Names in Eastern New York, American Speech, June, 1930.
151 The Geographic Board of Canada is naturally more tender with French names, but some of them are so long that it is forced to shorten them. Le Petit Journal of Montreal reported on Nov. 22, 1931 that there was a Coeur-Très-Pur-de-la-Bienheureuse-Vierge-Marie-de-Plaisance (commonly reduced to Plaisance) in Quebec, and a Ste. Marie-Madeleine-du-Cap-de-la-Madeleine to keep it company. The board also makes war on the numerous k’s in Canadian Indian names on the ground that k is not a French letter. Examples: Kapiki- kikakik, Kakekekwaki. In general, the board opposes the abandonment of French names. Thus it has decided for Matissard (lake) as against Horsetail, and for Laberge (creek) as against Lizard. Some of the Canadian names show strange combinations. When the French-speaking rustics found a village they commonly give it a saint’s name and then tack on the name of the district. The result is such marvels as St. Evariste de Forsyth, St. Hippolyte de Kilkenny and St. Louis du Ha Ha.
152 I am indebted here to Mr. Lewis A. McArthur, secretary to the Oregon Geographic Board. He tells me also of the fate of Psyche, a town in Clallam county. The local residents, baffled by the name, called it Pysht, and in the end the Postoffice succumbed, and Pysht it is today.
153 A Dictionary of Spanish Terms in English; New York, 1932, p. 17.
154 Gap occurs in England, but it is very rare. There is a Goring Gap between the Chiltern Hills and the Berkshire Downs, on the railway from London to Oxford.
155See Picturesque Town-Names in America, by Mamie Meredith, American Speech, Aug., 1931; American Towns Bear Odd Names, New York Times, Feb. 7, 1932; and Strangers in Mississippi Find Hot Coffee is Place, Baltimore Evening Sun, Oct. 21, 1932. During the Winter of 1934–5 the Evening Sun printed a series of lists of odd place-names on its editorial page. Some grotesque English names, almost fit to match the specimens above, are listed in Queer Names, American Church Monthly, Sept., 1931, p. 173, e.g., Upper Swell, Little Snoring, Nether Peover, Appledram, Swaffham, Eye Over, Fetcham, Snailwell, High Easter, Wooton, Wawen, Mutford.
156 In State Border Place-Names, by Henry J. Heck, American Speech, Feb., 1928, 51 such names are listed.
157 Louise Pound: Blends, Anglistische Forschungen, Heft XLII, p. 10. The origin of the names of the other Delmars I do not know. Mr. Donald L. Cherry of Watsonville, Calif., suggests that some of them may derive from the Spanish del mar, signifying of the sea.
158 The proposal that it be made a separate State is frequently made by local politicians and boosters. This proposal gets some support in Baltimore, where the Delmarvian Kultur is not greatly admired.
159 The Delaware Water Gap, by L. W. Brodhead; Phila., 1870, p. 274.
160 The addition of courthouse to a place-name to indicate a county-seat (it is commonly abbreviated to C. H.) seems to be a Southernism. “The county-towns of Virginia,” said John R. Bartlett in his Glossary (2nd ed., 1859) “are often called courthouses without regard to their proper names. Thus, Providence, the county-town of Fairfax, is unknown by that name, and passes as Fairfax Court-House, and Culpepper Court-House has superseded its proper name of Fairfax. The same practise has existed to some extent in Maryland. Thus, after the Battle of Bladensburg, and the dispersion of our forces, they were ordered to assemble at Montgomery Court-House.” John S. Farmer, in his Americanisms Old and New (1889), said that the practise also extended to South Carolina. It survives in the names of a few Virginia county-towns, and of one town in Ohio, but is going out.
161 Now and then it encounters a stout local resistance. When it tried to shorten Pittsburgh to Pittsburg that resistance was sufficient to preserve Pittsburgh, which is now official.
162 Every-Day English, p. 100. See also American English, by Gilbert Tucker; New York, 1921, p. 33, and American Pronunciation, by J. S. Kenyon; Ann Arbor, Mich., 1932, pp. 135–6.
163 This spelling-pronunciation seems to have disappeared. The local pronunciation today is Shongum. I have often noted that Americans, in speaking of the familiar Worcestershire sauce, commonly pronounce every syllable and enunciate shire distinctly. In England it is always Woostersh’r. The English have a great number of decayed pronunciations, e.g., Maudlin for Magdelen, Sissiter for Cirencester, Merrybone for Marylebone. Their geographical nomenclature shows many corruptions due to faulty pronunciation and folk etymology, e.g., Leighton Buzzard for the Norman Leiton Beau Desart.
164 The Legislature of the State, by an act approved March 15, 1881, decided that the name “should be pronounced in three syllables, with the final s silent, the a in every syllable with the Italian sound, and the accent on the first and last syllable.” But the Italian a in the second syllable has been flattened. In Kansas the Arkansas river is called the Arkansas, with the last two syllables identical with Kansas. The people of Arkansas City in the same State use the same pronunciation. See The Basis of Correctness in the Pronunciation of Proper Names, by Allen Walker Read, American Speech, Feb., 1935.
165 Pronunciation of the Word Missouri, by Allen Walker Read, American Speech, Dec., 1933.
166 I am indebted here to Mr. Marshall Ballard, editor of the New Orleans Item, and to Mr. H. F. Kretchman, editor of the Coeur d’Alene Press.
167 Private communication from Miss Miriam Allen de Ford of San Francisco.
168 So far as I can find, no one has ever investigated the local abbreviations for town-names. A few suggest themselves: Jax for Jacksonville, Balto for Baltimore, Philly for Philadelphia, K. C. for Kansas City, and Chi for Chicago. In the familiar ballad, Casey Jones, Casey was originally K. C.
169 I am indebted here to Dr. Joseph M. Prendergast, of Burlingame, Calif.
170 Spanish Place-Names in Colorado, by Eleanor L. Ritchie, American Speech, April, 1935, and Some Spanish Place-Names of Colorado, by George L. Trager, the same, Oct., 1935. See also Arizona Place-Names, by W. C. Barnes; Tucson, 1935.
171 Trends in the Pronunciation of the Spanish Place-Names of California, American Speech, Aug., 1931, p. 461.
172 For a list of other changes see Scandinavian Place-Names in the American Danelaw, by Roy W. Swanson, Swedish-American Historical Bulletin (St. Peter, Minn.), Aug., 1929, p. 16.
173 The Pennsylvania Germans, in return, make a frightful hash of certain familiar “American” names. In an appendix, to his Dictionary of the Non-English Words of the Pennsylvania-German Dialect; Lancaster, Pa., 1924, M. B. Lambert l
ists Nei Jarrick for New York, Baer-ricks for Berks, Daerm for Durham, Iesdaun for Easton, Heio for Ohio, Lenggeschder for Lancaster, Phil-delphi for Philadelphia, Redden for Redding, and Tschaertschi for Jersey, In New York, according to Arthur Livingston (La Merica San-emagogna, Romanic Review, Vol IX, No. 2, April–June, 1918), the Italians convert Jersey City into Gerseri, Hoboken into Obochino, and Flatbush into Flabussce. In Canada, according to Adjutor Rivard (Études sur les Parlers de France au Canada; Quebec, 1914, p. 167) the French-Canadians change Somerset to Saint-Moris-sette, Sutherland to Saint-Irlande, and Sandy Brook’s Point to Saint-Abroussepoil. In Cleveland, so I am told by Dr. Joseph Remény of Cleveland College, the Hungarians call the Buckeye road the Bakrud, which has a silly meaning in Hungarian, where baka is a soldier and rud is a pole.
174 A curious bastard form is Anaheim, the name of a town near Santa Ana. It was founded by a German winegrower in the 80’s. In Pennsylvania such forms as Schultzville and Schaefferstown are common.
175 Our Street Names, Lippincott’s Magazine, Aug., 1897, P.264.
176 New York, 1891, Ch. I.
177 Here Kipling made two errors. The the would never be omitted before corner, and Sutter and Sixteenth streets do not meet.
178 But I am reminded by Mrs. Pieter Juiliter, of Scotia, N. Y., that “true Oxonians always speak of the Broad, the High, the Turl and the Corn instead of Broad street, High street, Turl street, and Cornmarket street.” The article, however, is always used; it is never used in the United States.
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