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Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States
This beloved classic about place-naming in the United States was written during World War II in a conscious effort to pay tribute to the heritage of the nation's peoples. George R. Stewart's love of the surprising story, and his focus not just on language but on how people interact with their environment, make Names on the Land a unique window into the history and sociology of America.
From the first European names in what would later be the United States; Ponce de León's flowery Florída, Cortez' semi-mythical isle of California, and the red river Rio Colorado; to New England, New Amsterdam, and New Sweden; the French and the Russians; border ruffians and Boston Brahmins: Names on the Land is no dry dictionary but a fascinating panorama of language in action, bursting at the seams with revealing details. In lively, passionate writing, Stewart explains where Indian names were likely to be kept, and why; the fad that gave rise to dozens of Troys and to Athens, Georgia, as well as suburban Parksides, Brookmonts, and Woodcrest Manors; why "Brooklyn" is Dutch but looks English and why "Arkansas" is Arkansaw, except of course when it isn't.
His book has delighted generations of road-trippers, armchair travelers, and anyone who ever wondered how their hometown, or (more likely) the next town over, could be called that. Stewart's answer is always a story; one of the countless stories that lie behind the rich and strange diversity of America.
From the first European names in what would later be the United States; Ponce de León's flowery Florída, Cortez' semi-mythical isle of California, and the red river Rio Colorado; to New England, New Amsterdam, and New Sweden; the French and the Russians; border ruffians and Boston Brahmins: Names on the Land is no dry dictionary but a fascinating panorama of language in action, bursting at the seams with revealing details. In lively, passionate writing, Stewart explains where Indian names were likely to be kept, and why; the fad that gave rise to dozens of Troys and to Athens, Georgia, as well as suburban Parksides, Brookmonts, and Woodcrest Manors; why "Brooklyn" is Dutch but looks English and why "Arkansas" is Arkansaw, except of course when it isn't.
His book has delighted generations of road-trippers, armchair travelers, and anyone who ever wondered how their hometown, or (more likely) the next town over, could be called that. Stewart's answer is always a story; one of the countless stories that lie behind the rich and strange diversity of America.
511 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1945
63 people are currently reading
2397 people want to read
About the author
George R. Stewart
74 books207 followersGeorge Rippey Stewart was an American toponymist, a novelist, and a professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley. He is best known for his only science fiction novel Earth Abides (1949), a post-apocalyptic novel, for which he won the first International Fantasy Award in 1951. It was dramatized on radio's Escape and inspired Stephen King's
The Stand
.
His 1941 novel Storm , featuring as its protagonist a Pacific storm called Maria, prompted the National Weather Service to use personal names to designate storms and inspired Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe to write the song "They Call the Wind Maria" for their 1951 musical "Paint Your Wagon." Storm was dramatized as "A Storm Called Maria" on a 1959 episode of ABC's Disneyland. Two other novels, Ordeal by Hunger (1936) and Fire (1948) also evoked environmental catastrophes.
Stewart was a founding member of the American Name Society in 1956-57, and he once served as an expert witness in a murder trial as a specialist in family names. His best-known academic work is Names on the Land A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States (1945; reprinted, New York Review Books, 2008). He wrote three other books on place-names, A Concise Dictionary of American Place-Names (1970), Names on the Globe (1975), and American Given Names (1979). His scholarly works on the poetic meter of ballads (published under the name George R. Stewart, Jr.), beginning with his 1922 Ph.D. dissertation at Columbia, remain important in their field.
His 1959 book Pickett's Charge is a detailed history of the final attack at Gettysburg.
His 1941 novel Storm , featuring as its protagonist a Pacific storm called Maria, prompted the National Weather Service to use personal names to designate storms and inspired Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe to write the song "They Call the Wind Maria" for their 1951 musical "Paint Your Wagon." Storm was dramatized as "A Storm Called Maria" on a 1959 episode of ABC's Disneyland. Two other novels, Ordeal by Hunger (1936) and Fire (1948) also evoked environmental catastrophes.
Stewart was a founding member of the American Name Society in 1956-57, and he once served as an expert witness in a murder trial as a specialist in family names. His best-known academic work is Names on the Land A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States (1945; reprinted, New York Review Books, 2008). He wrote three other books on place-names, A Concise Dictionary of American Place-Names (1970), Names on the Globe (1975), and American Given Names (1979). His scholarly works on the poetic meter of ballads (published under the name George R. Stewart, Jr.), beginning with his 1922 Ph.D. dissertation at Columbia, remain important in their field.
His 1959 book Pickett's Charge is a detailed history of the final attack at Gettysburg.
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August 2, 2019
If some are born great and some with a gift for laughter, others are born with a love of names, and I believe that i am one of them.
. . . writes our author, to begin. And a good thing, because otherwise I might not have been so richly entertained. For perhaps I was born with an unquenchable thirst for useless facts.
It is my habit to keep loose pieces of paper towards the back of the book, to write notes or point to passages that pleased. Halfway through the book, and six full pages of scratchings, I turned to the update progress instead. Perhaps you noticed.
This might not be a book for everyone, and plenty of other reviewers have said as much. It's scholarly, yes; but also plenty funny. And there are well-turned phrases. And those useless facts.
I learned, or re-learned, about how Wall Street got its name, and Baton Rouge and Cumberland and the Rocky Mountains. I live not too far from Wheeling, West Virginia, and I thought it was just another name, something derived from the Brits, like Reading or Beardsley. But it is really wil-ing, "place of the head," because, as the Indians reported, a captive had been put to death there, and his head stuck upon a sharpened pole. And, I'll never drive by there without knowing that.
I know now that Chesapeake, which is a big bay, means "big river."
I'd always heard of Newport News and thought it an odd name for a city. But now I learned:
Two brothers named Newce came there to make a plantation. Once before, in Ireland, they had founded a town, naming it Newcetown, where it still stands. So now to their second settlement they gave the name New, and since it had an anchorage, they called it Port, and it became New Port Newce. The brothers were unfortunate, and men forgot them soon; but men remembered captain Newport, who had done much to found Virginia. So they began to think and write Newport's Newce, perhaps even to confuse the second part with Neuse River. Then in trying to make sense they wrote Newport News, and so it remained. Thus with men and names, as with fishes in the sea, the greater often swallow up the smaller.
Stuff like that.
There are place names that delighted the author. We know because the same names delighted us:
Kerless Knob, Tate Knob, Teeny Knob. Curry She Mountain. Tomato Creek, Trace Creek, True Love Creek. Traitor's Cove and Tin Garage. Stinking Spring. Pistol Creek and Pigeon Roost and Philanthropy River. Harmony, Hangtown and Hardscrabble. Circle Back, Colt-killed Creek and Chucklehead Diggings.
They changed the name of Cuckold Town but I think Chicken Thief Flat still exists.
But the author thinks the country's name was a disappointment:
Men had often shown much care, and even had carried on disputes, about the name for a colony, or even a little town. But they seemed to have given no thought at all for a whole country, and it grew up merely by common usage--a description, cumbersome and commonplace, like South Fork of Big Creek. . . . It was unwieldy, inexact and unoriginal. Although it rolled well from the tongue of an orator, not even the sincerest patriot could manage it in a poem or song. . . . Moreover: in the very name, the seeds of nullification and secession lay hidden. And: the political mind has contrived to exercise its ineptitude about names. British Commonwealth of Nations is almost as bad as United States of America, and Soyuz Sovietskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Republik is even worse. Rowland Hill remarked that he did not see why the Devil should have all the good tunes.
Still, Columbia would have met its death by political correctness, and Freedonia or Urbania? Come on.
I learned that our post-revolution crush on the French gave us the word bourbon and that the Scotch-Irish brought with their scanty baggage three things of different worth to the new country--whiskey, the Presbyterian Church, and independence from Great Britain.
I spend a good portion of my time amused, usually keeping the reasons to myself. And now, driving through this country, spotting road signs, the names of places and things, I will have more cause than ever to be amused. And I might even share the stories.
. . . writes our author, to begin. And a good thing, because otherwise I might not have been so richly entertained. For perhaps I was born with an unquenchable thirst for useless facts.
It is my habit to keep loose pieces of paper towards the back of the book, to write notes or point to passages that pleased. Halfway through the book, and six full pages of scratchings, I turned to the update progress instead. Perhaps you noticed.
This might not be a book for everyone, and plenty of other reviewers have said as much. It's scholarly, yes; but also plenty funny. And there are well-turned phrases. And those useless facts.
I learned, or re-learned, about how Wall Street got its name, and Baton Rouge and Cumberland and the Rocky Mountains. I live not too far from Wheeling, West Virginia, and I thought it was just another name, something derived from the Brits, like Reading or Beardsley. But it is really wil-ing, "place of the head," because, as the Indians reported, a captive had been put to death there, and his head stuck upon a sharpened pole. And, I'll never drive by there without knowing that.
I know now that Chesapeake, which is a big bay, means "big river."
I'd always heard of Newport News and thought it an odd name for a city. But now I learned:
Two brothers named Newce came there to make a plantation. Once before, in Ireland, they had founded a town, naming it Newcetown, where it still stands. So now to their second settlement they gave the name New, and since it had an anchorage, they called it Port, and it became New Port Newce. The brothers were unfortunate, and men forgot them soon; but men remembered captain Newport, who had done much to found Virginia. So they began to think and write Newport's Newce, perhaps even to confuse the second part with Neuse River. Then in trying to make sense they wrote Newport News, and so it remained. Thus with men and names, as with fishes in the sea, the greater often swallow up the smaller.
Stuff like that.
There are place names that delighted the author. We know because the same names delighted us:
Kerless Knob, Tate Knob, Teeny Knob. Curry She Mountain. Tomato Creek, Trace Creek, True Love Creek. Traitor's Cove and Tin Garage. Stinking Spring. Pistol Creek and Pigeon Roost and Philanthropy River. Harmony, Hangtown and Hardscrabble. Circle Back, Colt-killed Creek and Chucklehead Diggings.
They changed the name of Cuckold Town but I think Chicken Thief Flat still exists.
But the author thinks the country's name was a disappointment:
Men had often shown much care, and even had carried on disputes, about the name for a colony, or even a little town. But they seemed to have given no thought at all for a whole country, and it grew up merely by common usage--a description, cumbersome and commonplace, like South Fork of Big Creek. . . . It was unwieldy, inexact and unoriginal. Although it rolled well from the tongue of an orator, not even the sincerest patriot could manage it in a poem or song. . . . Moreover: in the very name, the seeds of nullification and secession lay hidden. And: the political mind has contrived to exercise its ineptitude about names. British Commonwealth of Nations is almost as bad as United States of America, and Soyuz Sovietskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Republik is even worse. Rowland Hill remarked that he did not see why the Devil should have all the good tunes.
Still, Columbia would have met its death by political correctness, and Freedonia or Urbania? Come on.
I learned that our post-revolution crush on the French gave us the word bourbon and that the Scotch-Irish brought with their scanty baggage three things of different worth to the new country--whiskey, the Presbyterian Church, and independence from Great Britain.
I spend a good portion of my time amused, usually keeping the reasons to myself. And now, driving through this country, spotting road signs, the names of places and things, I will have more cause than ever to be amused. And I might even share the stories.
January 25, 2010
How I wish George R. Stewart was still alive, so that I could actually respond to his request for letters on names of the land. How grateful I am that he found the process of naming so fascinating, and that his passion poured out in every sentence he wrote. A friend of mine recently read Moby Dick, and her review considered -- damn, this guy really likes whales -- and though I don't believe whales topped her list of fascinating obsessions, she appreciated the passion with which Melville spoke of them. The same is here; I do enjoy the contemplations of names, their evolution through history, but Stewart's passion makes the act and process of naming an art form. I cheer with him when he deduces that Oak River (or Creek, Stream, Brook, Valley, whatever) was named because it had few oaks, not many, and thus the descriptor was specific to its uniqueness, not what was common. Or when he leads us through the evidence that Oregon is really a misreading of the word Wisconsin?! I wish I had a photographic memory so that I could recall at a moment the absolute ton of onomatolgy trivia packed in these pages. I am in awe of the goodreads readers who have claimed this book is boring; I have found this book to be the most engaging way to learn my American history, as I can associate historical events through the names they left behind. There is no end to the creativity, ingenuity, and melting-pot amalgamation of the naming of this country -- how can that be boring? It's our story! Thanks to NYRB for keeping this book in print.
June 16, 2015
For some reason I was expecting more charm, more narrative from this. Stewart's pile-of-facts style reminded me of John McPhee, as if this were a 500 page McPhee New Yorker article. It was boring.
But there were some moderately interesting facts, and some bright moments, as in this 1864 Congressional discussion of the naming of Montana:
Mr. Sumner: The name of this new Territory - Montana - strikes me as very peculiar. I wish to ask the chairman of the committee what has suggested that name. It seems to me it must have been borrowed from some novel or other. I do not know how it originated.
Mr. Wade: I cannot tell anything about that. I do not know but that it may have been borrowed from a novel. I would rather borrow from the Indians, if I could find any proper Indian name.
Mr. Sumner: I was going to suggest that in giving a name to this Territory, ...I would rather take the name from the soil, a good Indian name.
Mr. Wade: Suggest one and I will agree to it.
Mr. Sumner: I am not familiar enough with the country to do so.
Mr. Howard: I was equally puzzled when I saw the name in the bill...I was obliged to turn to my old Latin dictionary...
At first it seemed surprising that a primary source would be more entertaining than a secondary source. But it shouldn't be; they usually are.
Later, Stewart made a joke:
Berlin in Alabama, bearing the name of Adolph Hitler's capital, changed it to that of the capital of King Croesus by becoming Sardis. Your author commends this as a prudent selection, scarcely subject to political vicissitudes. The United States is unlikely ever to become involved in a war with Lydia, especially since that once potent kingdom disappeared from the list of independent nations in the sixth century B.C.
January 15, 2010
RATED IN CATEGORY "BOOK" : 1 STAR
RATED IN CATEGORY "SLEEP AID" : 5 STARS
I acknowledge that many goodreads reviewers profess to find this book "fascinating". I understand that it is regarded by some as an "American classic". There is something distinctly impressive about George R. Stewart's sheer stamina.
What I cannot do, based on empirical evidence from extensive trials, is read more than a page of this book without lapsing into prolonged, profound slumber. It may be the most boring book ever written.
On the plus side, the book's soporific effects are remarkably consistent, with a median time to sleep onset of just under a minute. The side-effect profile is quite favorable, with no potential for addiction, or adverse drug interaction with other therapies. The most prevalent adverse effect observed in trials was chronic bruising of the reader's ankle, the most common site of impact when the book slides from the subject's grasp at the moment of sleep onset. Use of the product near an open flame is a distinct fire hazard and is contraindicated.
My experience with this product suggests that repurposing it as a sleep aid, for subjects with mild to moderate insomnia, represents a practical option well worth considering. Viewed as a potential remedy for subjects experiencing insomnia, the risk-benefit ratio is quite favorable.
If you have difficulties falling asleep, and worry about Ambien-induced "sleep-snacking", "sleep-driving" or - God forbid - "abnormal thinking", or the addictive potential of benzodiazepines, you might want to consider "Names on the Land" as an inexpensive, safe, surprisingly effective alternative. I imagine that an audio version of the therapy would be equally efficacious.
RATED IN CATEGORY "SLEEP AID" : 5 STARS
I acknowledge that many goodreads reviewers profess to find this book "fascinating". I understand that it is regarded by some as an "American classic". There is something distinctly impressive about George R. Stewart's sheer stamina.
What I cannot do, based on empirical evidence from extensive trials, is read more than a page of this book without lapsing into prolonged, profound slumber. It may be the most boring book ever written.
On the plus side, the book's soporific effects are remarkably consistent, with a median time to sleep onset of just under a minute. The side-effect profile is quite favorable, with no potential for addiction, or adverse drug interaction with other therapies. The most prevalent adverse effect observed in trials was chronic bruising of the reader's ankle, the most common site of impact when the book slides from the subject's grasp at the moment of sleep onset. Use of the product near an open flame is a distinct fire hazard and is contraindicated.
My experience with this product suggests that repurposing it as a sleep aid, for subjects with mild to moderate insomnia, represents a practical option well worth considering. Viewed as a potential remedy for subjects experiencing insomnia, the risk-benefit ratio is quite favorable.
If you have difficulties falling asleep, and worry about Ambien-induced "sleep-snacking", "sleep-driving" or - God forbid - "abnormal thinking", or the addictive potential of benzodiazepines, you might want to consider "Names on the Land" as an inexpensive, safe, surprisingly effective alternative. I imagine that an audio version of the therapy would be equally efficacious.
July 5, 2012
Have you heard the story about how chocolate chip cookies were invented? Once upon a time there was a lovely young housewife who was going to have company and wanted to make chocolate cookies for them. Lo and behold when she went to the cupboard she found, to her everlasting shame, that she was all out of cocoa powder. Undeterred she broke up a bar of baking chocolate and stirred the chunks into the cookie dough, assuming that in the oven the chunks would melt and mix into the cookie, making it fully chocolate. Obviously that didn't happen but the result was even better and we all lived happily ever after eating the new cookies.
Reading this book was kind of like inventing the chocolate chip cookie. I thought it was going to be a book full of fascinating facts about names famous and obscure throughout the land. What it actually is is chocolate chip nuggets of interesting factoids interspersed within the cookie part. Except the cookie part is some of the dullest, driest prose I've ever read. I'm rather proud of myself for having made it through, but I don't know that I'd encourage anyone else to attempt the project.
Reading this book was kind of like inventing the chocolate chip cookie. I thought it was going to be a book full of fascinating facts about names famous and obscure throughout the land. What it actually is is chocolate chip nuggets of interesting factoids interspersed within the cookie part. Except the cookie part is some of the dullest, driest prose I've ever read. I'm rather proud of myself for having made it through, but I don't know that I'd encourage anyone else to attempt the project.
November 11, 2019
Though the books should be burned and the people themselves cut off, still from the names- as from arrowheads and potsherds- the patient scholar may piece together some record of what we were… After all else has passed, the names may yet remain.
Several years ago, I read of a man’s curiosity and wonder about the naming of a seaside resort called Balbec. I read the titles; Place-Names: the Name and Place-Names: The Place and for the first time I asked myself: what is in a name? Ever since seeing the cover of this book in a NYRB ad, I was drawn to read it. Names on the Land did not disappoint.
George Stewart does not provide a simple glossary of names and give its origin and meaning. Instead, he starts with the early names: California, Cape Fear, and Virginia and shows how the history of America can be read by its naming. Stewart writes in a manner that I can only call inspiring. It reads of a man deeply in love with his subject. It brings to mind an unfortunately now dying tradition of the scholar whose love of their subject shines through in something beyond a bland and exact academic paper. Simply put, Stewart obviously lived for this subject. With real emotion, he discusses his love of the names on the map, even his apprehension about the doubling of Washington (state and D.C.) and his objection to the name “United States of America”.
I loved every minute of this book, but to for me the chapters towards the end of the book shine the best. There is obviously a seriousness to discussing how the “great names” came about. Once the great names have been established I found a real wit to the book. Stewart goes into the comedy and bizarreness of naming and he becomes playful with his speech. With all the big names placed on the map, it was time to focus on the little names— the ones that, for me, possess a real charm. Among the interesting places discussed can be found: Tombstone, Christmas, and Santa Claus.
Would I recommend this book for everyone? Absolutely not. But if you enjoy a good anecdote or ever wondered why it’s spelled Arkansas but called Arkansaw, there are a great variety of things to enjoy in this book.
Several years ago, I read of a man’s curiosity and wonder about the naming of a seaside resort called Balbec. I read the titles; Place-Names: the Name and Place-Names: The Place and for the first time I asked myself: what is in a name? Ever since seeing the cover of this book in a NYRB ad, I was drawn to read it. Names on the Land did not disappoint.
George Stewart does not provide a simple glossary of names and give its origin and meaning. Instead, he starts with the early names: California, Cape Fear, and Virginia and shows how the history of America can be read by its naming. Stewart writes in a manner that I can only call inspiring. It reads of a man deeply in love with his subject. It brings to mind an unfortunately now dying tradition of the scholar whose love of their subject shines through in something beyond a bland and exact academic paper. Simply put, Stewart obviously lived for this subject. With real emotion, he discusses his love of the names on the map, even his apprehension about the doubling of Washington (state and D.C.) and his objection to the name “United States of America”.
I loved every minute of this book, but to for me the chapters towards the end of the book shine the best. There is obviously a seriousness to discussing how the “great names” came about. Once the great names have been established I found a real wit to the book. Stewart goes into the comedy and bizarreness of naming and he becomes playful with his speech. With all the big names placed on the map, it was time to focus on the little names— the ones that, for me, possess a real charm. Among the interesting places discussed can be found: Tombstone, Christmas, and Santa Claus.
Would I recommend this book for everyone? Absolutely not. But if you enjoy a good anecdote or ever wondered why it’s spelled Arkansas but called Arkansaw, there are a great variety of things to enjoy in this book.
June 7, 2012
Warning: My favorable rating may be due to my love of the subject matter. Toponyms fascinate me, and American toponyms are mostly recent enough to shed some light on the naming process. In fact, this book is generally about the naming process. It is not a dictionary of toponyms, but instead a guide through American history and how naming evolved from the first exploration of the now contiguous U.S. through the time of publication: post World War II (and pre-Alaska and Hawai'i statehood).
The book is split into easily digestible pieces. Most sections are under ten pages. This may sound like not a lot for a section, but each section is deliciously dense. And the sections are not artificially inflated nor deflated to keep some size consistency. If a topic only takes three pages, that's what it gets. If a topic needs more than ten pages, though, that happens as well.
I initially looked for this book due to interest in toponyms that originate from American languages. This book lists plenty of those, and often their meanings and particular language (or at least language family) of origin. But it also goes beyond the time when names were taken from American languages, and into other sources of names. Although most of the other names are European in origin, they are given (or sometimes changed) for many different reasons.
One of my favorite things to learn was that the "sippi" in Mississippi and the "sape" in Chesapeake were the same Algonquian root for 'river'. I also like the story of Altadena, which is blatantly American: Romance prefix replacing the "pasa" of Pasadena, which itself is from Chippewa, a language that was spoken nowhere near Pasadena. There are many other gems and vignettes like this one throughout this book that made it totally worth the read.
The book is split into easily digestible pieces. Most sections are under ten pages. This may sound like not a lot for a section, but each section is deliciously dense. And the sections are not artificially inflated nor deflated to keep some size consistency. If a topic only takes three pages, that's what it gets. If a topic needs more than ten pages, though, that happens as well.
I initially looked for this book due to interest in toponyms that originate from American languages. This book lists plenty of those, and often their meanings and particular language (or at least language family) of origin. But it also goes beyond the time when names were taken from American languages, and into other sources of names. Although most of the other names are European in origin, they are given (or sometimes changed) for many different reasons.
One of my favorite things to learn was that the "sippi" in Mississippi and the "sape" in Chesapeake were the same Algonquian root for 'river'. I also like the story of Altadena, which is blatantly American: Romance prefix replacing the "pasa" of Pasadena, which itself is from Chippewa, a language that was spoken nowhere near Pasadena. There are many other gems and vignettes like this one throughout this book that made it totally worth the read.
May 10, 2015
I knew I was in trouble as soon as I picked up this book and saw that it was 400 pages.
There are two ways a book like this could work. You could have a narrative study of the trends in place-naming and how these trends reflected the growth of the United States. Or you could have a bathroom style book of factoids explaining how each place in the United States got its name, something quick and easily digestible. Unfortunately, this book is both. A long narrative story that goes from place to place and explains how each place got its name, occasionally providing historical context. This ends up being less interesting than I'm making it sound. Each of these stories are interesting in and of themselves, but reading them one after the other is deadening and something like being stuck talking to a dull person at a party: you start by thinking "this could be interesting, I'm gonna hear what he has to say," and after a short while you're thinking "dear god in heaven get me out of here."
There are two ways a book like this could work. You could have a narrative study of the trends in place-naming and how these trends reflected the growth of the United States. Or you could have a bathroom style book of factoids explaining how each place in the United States got its name, something quick and easily digestible. Unfortunately, this book is both. A long narrative story that goes from place to place and explains how each place got its name, occasionally providing historical context. This ends up being less interesting than I'm making it sound. Each of these stories are interesting in and of themselves, but reading them one after the other is deadening and something like being stuck talking to a dull person at a party: you start by thinking "this could be interesting, I'm gonna hear what he has to say," and after a short while you're thinking "dear god in heaven get me out of here."
August 6, 2017
Light in tone and deep in content, a fun book to dip into or read cover to cover.
August 31, 2011
A fine tracing of how our nation's landscape was named: natural features, cities, and towns. The author follows the individual strands of explorers and why they named features as they did (reflecting their heritage, religion, country, or for that matter, a whim of the moment.) Then settlers, factions, towns people, the Post Office and finally a Board to settle disputes or "clean up" anomalies - if the locals would allow it.
The book is comprehensive from the opening sentence, "In the beginning, then, the land was without names." On and on and on the book wanders from East to West, taking one all across the continent until ending in Alaska and Hawaii. And much time and detail is given to native Americans, the Choctaw, Iroquois, Seminole whose languages were often musical to the ear, and those names stayed. Waves of French, English, German, Dutch all added their lines, and in many cases renamed features and towns to their liking only to have some return to a former label, or something different altogether.
Along the way, Stewart exhibits a wit and dry humor, and not a little of his own musings. On Pg141, he grieves (one feels) at the mournfulness of statues and battlefields where those in combat died, "[during the French-Indian war near Ticonderoga, NY], many died that day, men who had seen no visions, as men always die when a stupid general flings them against an unshaken fortress." And later, remarking on the "great men" whose names are found from Maine to Georgia, "Sunderland, Walpole, Litchfield, Hardwicke, Bedford, Halifax, Pelham, Newcastle, Carlisle and the rest. What most of them ever did for the colonies to deserve so much as the naming of an out-house would be difficult to discover."
The taking of Indian names was both original, and then rediscovered with a passion in the early to mid 1800s. Stewart quotes a poem on pg 277 by a popular Lydia Sigourney who wrote "Indian Names" -
Ye say they all have pass'd away
That noble race and brave;
That their light canoes have vanish'd,
From off the crested wave;
That, mid the forests where they roam'd,
There rings no hunter's shout;
But their name is on your waters,
Ye may not wash it out ...
Old Massachusetts wears it
Within her lordly crown,
And broad Ohio bears it
Amid his young renown.
Connecticut hath wreath'd it,
Where her quiet foliage waves,
And bold Kentucky breathes it hoarse
Through all her ancient caves.
The author notes regarding African Americans, pg330, "Unfortunately the rich imagination and verbal luxuriance of the race had free play only in the informal names of its own districts. Catfish Alley in Charleston, or Congo Street, Adam and Eve Alley, Solomon Alley, Elysian Fields, and Concrete Quarters" all in the small city of Monroe, Louisiana.
A reference book but a rich and meaningful one.
The book is comprehensive from the opening sentence, "In the beginning, then, the land was without names." On and on and on the book wanders from East to West, taking one all across the continent until ending in Alaska and Hawaii. And much time and detail is given to native Americans, the Choctaw, Iroquois, Seminole whose languages were often musical to the ear, and those names stayed. Waves of French, English, German, Dutch all added their lines, and in many cases renamed features and towns to their liking only to have some return to a former label, or something different altogether.
Along the way, Stewart exhibits a wit and dry humor, and not a little of his own musings. On Pg141, he grieves (one feels) at the mournfulness of statues and battlefields where those in combat died, "[during the French-Indian war near Ticonderoga, NY], many died that day, men who had seen no visions, as men always die when a stupid general flings them against an unshaken fortress." And later, remarking on the "great men" whose names are found from Maine to Georgia, "Sunderland, Walpole, Litchfield, Hardwicke, Bedford, Halifax, Pelham, Newcastle, Carlisle and the rest. What most of them ever did for the colonies to deserve so much as the naming of an out-house would be difficult to discover."
The taking of Indian names was both original, and then rediscovered with a passion in the early to mid 1800s. Stewart quotes a poem on pg 277 by a popular Lydia Sigourney who wrote "Indian Names" -
Ye say they all have pass'd away
That noble race and brave;
That their light canoes have vanish'd,
From off the crested wave;
That, mid the forests where they roam'd,
There rings no hunter's shout;
But their name is on your waters,
Ye may not wash it out ...
Old Massachusetts wears it
Within her lordly crown,
And broad Ohio bears it
Amid his young renown.
Connecticut hath wreath'd it,
Where her quiet foliage waves,
And bold Kentucky breathes it hoarse
Through all her ancient caves.
The author notes regarding African Americans, pg330, "Unfortunately the rich imagination and verbal luxuriance of the race had free play only in the informal names of its own districts. Catfish Alley in Charleston, or Congo Street, Adam and Eve Alley, Solomon Alley, Elysian Fields, and Concrete Quarters" all in the small city of Monroe, Louisiana.
A reference book but a rich and meaningful one.
June 6, 2017
This is only incidentally a book about placenames in the United States. Though Stewart did explain the origin of many names, more or less in historical order, and clearly enjoyed a good story (such as the way that "Wisconsin," through a series of misspellings and displacements, became "Oregon", or the squabbling over the name of Mount Rainier), his real love was the process of naming. The ways that Americans and their predecessors named the landscape are manifold, and much of the style of New England or Ohio or California names derives from the practices that were current when these areas were settled. And unlike so many historians of his time, Stewart did not ignore the American Indians. He concluded by musing on the ways that a good name can become poetic, through romantic, historical, or meaningful connotations.
The pace is slow and I took several weeks to read this book, which is probably the right way to approach it. This is the fourth of Stewart's books that I have read, the others being 'Earth Abides' (a powerful novel about the human and ecological consequences of an epidemic that wipes out nearly all the human race), 'Storm' (a meteorological novel that led to the practice of naming hurricanes), and 'U.S. Route 40' (a travel book about the coast-to-coast highway that includes the old National Road). If you like his style, all of these books are still worth reading, and 'Earth Abides' is one of the few pre-1950 science fiction novels to remain perennially in print.
The pace is slow and I took several weeks to read this book, which is probably the right way to approach it. This is the fourth of Stewart's books that I have read, the others being 'Earth Abides' (a powerful novel about the human and ecological consequences of an epidemic that wipes out nearly all the human race), 'Storm' (a meteorological novel that led to the practice of naming hurricanes), and 'U.S. Route 40' (a travel book about the coast-to-coast highway that includes the old National Road). If you like his style, all of these books are still worth reading, and 'Earth Abides' is one of the few pre-1950 science fiction novels to remain perennially in print.
September 17, 2008
Interesting to read a book on American place-naming written when Alaska and Hawaii weren't even states yet, and when there were people still living whose parents remembered the Civil War. The "historical experience" was probably enhanced by the first-edition copy I'd checked out from the library, brittle pages to match that effusive old prose style, reminding me to be patient even when I skipped some of the longer-winded passages.
Fun read - would love to see the same with tons of maps, just because I'm a nerd like that.
Fun read - would love to see the same with tons of maps, just because I'm a nerd like that.
June 3, 2014
A wonderfully interesting book which begins in ancient naming origins and over time transitions to numerous specific outstanding or intriguing examples, such as Nome, Alaska, which was originally marked on the map as “? Name” because it had none. This then was misread as “Nome” and so it became. “Nome is therefore an authenticated example of the workings of mere error.” I found the early part of the book fascinating, the latter entertaining. If you are at all interested in U.S. place-name nomenclature, Names on the Land is for you.
November 4, 2014
It isn't a bad book, but it's a bit like reading a dictionary. It gives the history of place names in the U.S., and I love that kind of history. However, I didn't make it past the East coast chapters before I decided I wanted to supplement my reading diet with something plot-driven, and eventually I forgot all about this book on my nightstand. I'll be picking this up again, but for now, I'm just going to say I'm done with it.
December 10, 2010
A really great book shows us how everything is great and worth to die for
July 12, 2022
Names on the Land offers a slice of history for the United States of America, by examining how the names of places evolved in the period since the Europeans first began to visit these lands. In the early stages of the book, Stewart focuses on the earliest explorations and the related settlements. So we hear about the lands that would become Massachusetts, Virginia and New York, but also hear stories about the circuitous path where influences of the native Indians and settlers from England, France and the Netherlands all played roles in naming what became well known places. Stewart notes patterns that evolved in various places. For example, the locals in the Massachusetts area were highly influenced by locales from England and hence replicated many of the names used there. French explorers rode the rivers in the Midwest and left behind various names, which in time included Illinois, Niagara and Des Moines.
Stewart likes spinning a tale, but also digs deep into the etymology of various names. A surprising number of places started with the local names per the Indian tribes, but were touched and twisted by the influences of the French or English settlers and migrated into their later forms. In the early days, rivers were often early to be named. Later, several cities would take on the names of those same rivers.
The influence of the English was affected dramatically by the Revolutionary War, but many of the English names were retained nonetheless. Sometimes people were evoked in the names, resulting in numerous places throughout what became the US taking on the name Washington.
The tales continued as the American nation spread further to the west and pulled in new areas such as the Southwest and each area tended to have its own set of conventions that influenced the place names, even as unsettled territories eventually turned into states and then were populated to create cities.
So, if you want to get a much more localized view of these United States than is often found in the history books, read this book and you'll see how broad a swatch of peoples and influences created the names of places, some very well known, others obscure and in some cases only a name as ghost towns went through the cycle from life into fallen and empty locations. Stewart's original version was completed in 1944, but the version I read was published in 1967, so it had been updated to include names found in the newest states of Alaska and Hawaii. It also includes the curious note about Cape Canaveral being changed to Cape Kennedy after the tragic events of 1963, a naming which would be reversed a few years later.
Stewart likes spinning a tale, but also digs deep into the etymology of various names. A surprising number of places started with the local names per the Indian tribes, but were touched and twisted by the influences of the French or English settlers and migrated into their later forms. In the early days, rivers were often early to be named. Later, several cities would take on the names of those same rivers.
The influence of the English was affected dramatically by the Revolutionary War, but many of the English names were retained nonetheless. Sometimes people were evoked in the names, resulting in numerous places throughout what became the US taking on the name Washington.
The tales continued as the American nation spread further to the west and pulled in new areas such as the Southwest and each area tended to have its own set of conventions that influenced the place names, even as unsettled territories eventually turned into states and then were populated to create cities.
So, if you want to get a much more localized view of these United States than is often found in the history books, read this book and you'll see how broad a swatch of peoples and influences created the names of places, some very well known, others obscure and in some cases only a name as ghost towns went through the cycle from life into fallen and empty locations. Stewart's original version was completed in 1944, but the version I read was published in 1967, so it had been updated to include names found in the newest states of Alaska and Hawaii. It also includes the curious note about Cape Canaveral being changed to Cape Kennedy after the tragic events of 1963, a naming which would be reversed a few years later.
July 3, 2021
I went into this expecting an encyclopedia-like approach to place names, with a name listed followed by a brief description of its origin. Instead, Stewart manages to fit a more narrative format, going through phases in American attitudes and relating them to trends in the naming of towns, states, etc. Although it makes the book less useful as a reference, it makes it enjoyable as a strange lens for a retelling of American history and anthropology.
The book was written some time ago, and it shows at various points in the authors attitudes. He at times seems dismissive of the brutality of slavery, and the description of Native Americans seems to fit in the frame of the "noble savage." The book is in some ways an exhortation to the American people as it was written during WWII. Reading it with that in mind, as a historical account with a motivated narrator, I found interesting if biased. If the history of names piques your curiosity, and you get something out of reading things that feel "of a time," you're likely to enjoy this as well.
The book was written some time ago, and it shows at various points in the authors attitudes. He at times seems dismissive of the brutality of slavery, and the description of Native Americans seems to fit in the frame of the "noble savage." The book is in some ways an exhortation to the American people as it was written during WWII. Reading it with that in mind, as a historical account with a motivated narrator, I found interesting if biased. If the history of names piques your curiosity, and you get something out of reading things that feel "of a time," you're likely to enjoy this as well.
November 8, 2021
The process of place-naming in the USA and Canada stands out in comparison with that process in most of Europe, Africa and Asia in that in North America many places, rivers and mountains had no name prior to European settlement due to the fact that native Americans were often nomadic or semi-nomadic and hence didn’t affix a permanent name to many geographic features. Therefore the map of North America was mostly blank until 1600 and the book describes how it was filled-in.
This warrants the writing and reading of the current book, as it contains many interesting stories and explanations, but ultimately the book remains a bit dry despite the best efforts and the mild humour of the writer.
If you are not really into topography, toponyms and etymology, you might find this book hard going.
This warrants the writing and reading of the current book, as it contains many interesting stories and explanations, but ultimately the book remains a bit dry despite the best efforts and the mild humour of the writer.
If you are not really into topography, toponyms and etymology, you might find this book hard going.
December 14, 2024
I've long been interested in place names, and heard this recommended on the podcast "A Way With Words," so I read it. It's quite dense but readable--not written in an academic style. It does a good job of exploring all sorts of ways that places get their names, and there are a lot of ways! I don't know that I retained a huge amount beyond learning about the fabricated controversy over changing Mt. Rainier to Mt. Tacoma, which went on for years and years, and that in New Hampshire there was once a hill named God's Buttocks. I mean, that's a conversation starter right there! I'd recommend this to people who love place names, but if you don't, then probably not your first choice of reading material.
August 17, 2020
What an endeavor. This is a fairly encyclopedic account that delivers exactly what the title promises: a historical account of place-naming in the United States. If your expectation is purely facts and history, then Mr Stewart’s writing adds significant delight. If your expectation is riveting narrative...well, if this could be condensed to long form reporting, it’d probably fit the bill, but as is, you’d probably find it at least 300 pages too tedious. I found myself somewhere between those two camps - pushing myself to continue the book, but often delighted by little facts or clever phrases, and overall just grateful for the monumental effort in compiling this beast.
August 20, 2017
Written back in the 1940s, "Names on the Land" is a collection of stories relating how various places in the United States got their names. Stewart starts out describing how early explorers named natural geographic features and carries the story of place naming through the 20th century.
Readers shouldn't expect a single narrative about place naming, but rather a large selection of anecdotes. Stewart describes the naming of many, many places. My favorites include Portland, OR (determined via a coin flip) and Nome, AK (transcribed from "? Name" on map).
Readers shouldn't expect a single narrative about place naming, but rather a large selection of anecdotes. Stewart describes the naming of many, many places. My favorites include Portland, OR (determined via a coin flip) and Nome, AK (transcribed from "? Name" on map).
January 21, 2017
Excellent! Informative and interesting all the way through. Stewart displays a powerful command of language and story. The amount of research required to produce this work is mind-boggling and yet after Stewart's distillation, the result is more than readable - it's a joy. He punctuates his straightforward delivery with occasional humor and believable (and likely correct) inferences.
The notes are well done too and showcase more of his personality than does the main body.
The notes are well done too and showcase more of his personality than does the main body.
Read
June 19, 2021This potentially dry, bookish, subject is so deftly addressed. George R. Stewart writes well about names, naming, cultural norms in bestowing names, and the norms of maintaining them (and changing them). It’s a fascinating, if still geeky, read. Stewart provides much humor, and dry, sometimes cold, assessments of some historic figures that have managed, oftentimes undeservedly, to be honored with a namesake on the map.
June 2, 2023
This book provides an interesting—at least if, like me, you find such topics interesting—description of place-naming practices throughout the history of what is now the United States, along with explanations of the origins of many names. Its main problem is that, being written in the early 1940's, the author is rather...more racist in his discussions of the Native Americans than one would like, even if he seems to think he is being progressive in this regard.
August 19, 2019
Overall I enjoyed reading the story of how places in the United States got their names. The book is as accurate as it can be when dealing with names that are part folk myth, there is at least one instance where the author was incorrect. However, the book is well-researched and worth the read just to see how place names evolve or are changed.
February 2, 2020
Oh, man, a history nerd’s dream. A naming nerd’s dream, too, assuming there are naming nerds out there, which this book seems to prove. Very readable rundown of how places in America, great and small, got names from the earliest European contact onward (and in some cases before, but as you can imagine, even the native-seeming names got run through the colonizers’ wringers in many cases).
Read
September 19, 2021A history of North American place names. Framing the settling of the continent along these lines offers a fascinating insight into how humans think about land, ownership and community, and a lot of the throw away stories are entertaining in their own right. It drags a bit after Manifest Destiny wraps up but you can't really blame it for that.
March 4, 2018
I'm very happy this book exists, although a newer version or edition might be due at this point. Regardless, if you want to know where the name of every city, state, mountain, river, etc. in the US comes from, and why and how, this is probably the best source.
September 30, 2021
What's in a name? Very much! In a voice reminiscent of Henry Adams, Stewart presents a history of the United States through the names of its physical features: towns and roads and streams and brooks and the state names themselves. Very readable.
January 23, 2023
For all the times I've wondered "why do they call that town (mountain/river/street...) "X", this book has the answers and more. It also displays a remarkable cultural open-mindedness considering it was originally written in 1945.
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