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What is the origin of your city's/town's name?

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Posted - September 27, 2021

Responses


  • 32527
    My home town was named after the railroad company that went through it. 

    My current town was named after the first person who built a general store in the area. 
      September 27, 2021 11:34 AM MDT
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  • 10450
    Nanoose was a name used by aboriginals to describe the aboriginals that lived in the area over a hundred years ago - it meant friendly. Cheers! 
      September 27, 2021 11:45 AM MDT
    5

  • 6023
    My home town is the first planned city in the Pacific Northwest, and named after the "Lumber Baron" who paid for it to be designed for his "mill town".

    Planned and built in the 1920s, it was named for the founder, Robert A. Long, of Long-Bell Lumber Company.
    One of the 2 local high schools is named R A Long, after him also.  (It's mascot is the Lumberjack.)


      September 27, 2021 11:45 AM MDT
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  • 52903

     

      (It’s Its mascot)

      September 27, 2021 8:57 PM MDT
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  • 2706
    The city I was born in and currently live in was built on the shores of a river called the Grand River. There were originally some sizeable rapids within the city limits. This is why the city is called Grand Rapids.
      September 27, 2021 11:53 AM MDT
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  • 13395
    Out in the middle of the prairie there was a slight rise of land that was most noticeable during springtime floods that people referred to as the 'high bluff'. That was how my hometown village got its name; High Bluff Manitoba.
      September 27, 2021 12:13 PM MDT
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  • 10449
    It was named for the beautiful landscape that used to be here (prior to 1990).
      September 27, 2021 12:18 PM MDT
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  • 3680
    The original Weymouth (England not Massachusets), means "On the Mouth of the R. Wey" - but I don't know the etymology of the name "Wey".

    Across the harbour from Weymouth is what is properly Melcombe, which I think meant "Mill Valley" - the Wey is only 4 miles long from spring to sea but had three mills on it in the past. It became Melcombe Regis after King George III visited it several times, staying with a friend or relative resident there.

    About thirty miles inland is the village with the lovely, lyrical name, Ryme Intrinseca. I don't know why "Ryme", but Intrinseca was simply a church-property administrative term! 

    While not far from that the modest River Piddle has given its curious name to several villages: Piddletrenthide ( = Thirty Hides [Saxon area measure] of Land on the Piddle), Tolpuddle (of the 'Martys' fame), Puddletown (a bit posh there hence the Bowdlerising), Affpuddle, Bryantspuddle.   Some of the prefix name-parts might have been landowners' family names in centuries long ago.

    '

    England has at least three Rivers Avon - perhaps the most famous, and largest, being that which inspired naming the town of Stratford-on-Avon. (Think Shakespeare, but it later became a significant inland port.)

    Errr.... Tautology. Avon (pron. "Ay-von") means "River"! (cf Afon, pron. "avon" with a hard 'a', in Wales.)
      September 27, 2021 2:59 PM MDT
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  • 1919
    Named for Groton, England The ancestral home of the winthrops of whom John Winthrop was the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony. 
      September 27, 2021 4:33 PM MDT
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  • I live in San Francisco, California.  The city is named after Saint Francis of Assisi
      September 27, 2021 5:42 PM MDT
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  • 9777
    It is derived from the name of a city in Scotland. 
      September 27, 2021 6:38 PM MDT
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  • 44175
    careful...randy might read this.
      September 28, 2021 9:49 AM MDT
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  • 52903
    ~
      September 28, 2021 10:08 AM MDT
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  • Sacramento was named after the Sacramento River, whose original Spanish name was Rio de los Sacramentos (River of the Sacraments), referring to the Blessed Sacrament; Spanish explorers tended to give new places Catholic names.
      September 27, 2021 7:02 PM MDT
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  • 17364
    That is a lovely story behind the name. 
      September 27, 2021 9:10 PM MDT
    5

  • 13251
    And for all these years, I thought it was named for tomato juice!
      September 28, 2021 8:15 AM MDT
    3

  • 13251
    Brooklyn was settled in 1634 and named for the Dutch village of Breukelen. Brooklyn is coextensive with Kings County, established in 1683 and named to honor King Charles II of England. Kings County is one of five counties comprising the City of New York, settled in 1624 and consolidated in 1898 to include the former city of Brooklyn as well as Bronx, Queens, and Richmond (Staten Island) counties. NYC and New York state were named to honor James, the Duke of York.
      September 27, 2021 7:53 PM MDT
    5

  • 7776
    Baltimore was established in 1729 and named for the Irish barony of Baltimore (seat of the Calvert family, proprietors of the colony of Maryland). It was created as a port for shipping tobacco and grain, and soon local waterways were being harnessed for flour milling. At the outbreak of the American Revolution, it was a bustling seaport and shipbuilding centre. Baltimore clippers plied the seas, and trade extended to the Caribbean. The U.S. Navy’s first ship, the Constellation, was launched in Baltimore in 1797, and its namesake, the last all-sail warship built (1854) for the navy, has been moored in the city’s harbour since 1955; in the late 1990s the ship underwent extensive restoration. The Continental Congress met in Baltimore (December 1776–March 1777) when it was feared that the British would attack Philadelphia, then the national capital.
      September 27, 2021 8:45 PM MDT
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  • 52903

     

      Randallville is named after me. It exists in my mind.
    ~
      

      September 27, 2021 8:58 PM MDT
    5

  • 44175
      September 28, 2021 10:00 AM MDT
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  • 52903


      Er, um, typo of the year! I meant Randyville. Grrrrrrr.

    ~

      September 28, 2021 10:12 AM MDT
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  • 44175
    https://roadsidethoughts.com/ky/randyville-xx-lewis-profile.htm
      September 28, 2021 10:33 AM MDT
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  • 16197
    Dowager Queen mother. Queen Adelaide (of Saxe-Meiningen) was Queen Victoria's mother, and the city was founded during Victoria's reign.

    This post was edited by Slartibartfast at October 3, 2021 11:22 PM MDT
      September 27, 2021 10:27 PM MDT
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  • 2217
    Fort on the river. Latin version even has a glo'al stop. 
      September 28, 2021 4:28 AM MDT
    3