Place name constituents - Summary

Hello,

On request of a list member who contacted me offlist, here
is a list of what I have collected so far with the list's
help regarding parts of place names that occur very often or
are likely to occur. There may exist several different terms
for each entry, e.g. German has 'Schloss' and 'Burg' for
'castle' (although English also has -burg(h)). Note that a
language doesn't need to use all of the words listed below!

bay
bridge
cape
caravanserai
castle
church
city
clearing
corner
cove
creek
downriver
east
enclosure
family('s home)
fence
field
ford
forest
fort
gravel bank
great
harbour/port
hill
home(stead)
inheritance
island
islet
lake
land
little
loan (-boro(ugh) related to 'to borrow'?)
lower
market
meadow
mill
mountain
new
north
old
point
rapids
reach (stretch of the shore or of a river)
residence
river
river bank
river mouth
saint
sand
sea/ocean
settlement
shore
south
spring
stockade
stream
temple
tower
town
upon, beside, near, along, etc.
upper
upriver
village
water
west
where rivers meet (don't know if there's a term for that)

Of course, it is not necessary to use these. Any special
property of the area can be used as well as a standalone
name, as the posting by Falcata showed. There may also be
descriptive names like "Land's End" of course. Sometimes, an
etymology is barely recognizable due to the many people
having lived there. The meanings above also may be stacked.
Repetitions like in 'Mainstreet Bridge Road' also occur in
real life. I don't know whether place names can also be
victim to this, but it can happen that a place actually may
be called 'Fordfordfordford' due to a couple of people
having lived there who took over the previous name of the
place and added a 'ford' because there is a ford nearby -- a
hypothetical village in GB might thus be called _Sidgeyford_
from Pseudo-Germ. **'sigt', shallow + French 'gué', ford +
Engl. 'ford'.

Hope this helps you.

Yours,
Carsten

--
"Miranayam kepauarà naranoaris." (Kalvin nay Hobbes)
Siruena, Ihaloy 11, 2315 ya 28:49:19 pd

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