The people that named those places were still European
Checkmate
Coming up with new names is hard
Submitted 8 months ago by The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world to memes@sopuli.xyz
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/278fda31-69ec-4b7f-ba12-1c931a5ebfd9.jpeg
Comments
criitz@reddthat.com 8 months ago
JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
But if it’s a French place, they’ll pronounce it wrong.
variants@possumpat.io 8 months ago
There’s no right way to pronounce french
TheBrideWoreCrimson@sopuli.xyz 8 months ago
Wulle wu kuschee awek mwa?
DerisionConsulting@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
Fortier pronounced “Forty-er” as in “my fort is fortier than your fort”.
Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
Ohio: Versailles (locally pronounced vur-sales)
baltakatei@sopuli.xyz 8 months ago
Utah: Monticello (Italian, but locally pronounced “monta sell-oh”)
Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Same in PA, but they get Duquesne right.
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
They pronounce it like its French but it turns out to be Spanish
GraniteM@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I grew up near Calais, Barre, and Charlotte, and none of them are pronounced how you’d think.
RoidingOldMan@lemmy.world 8 months ago
They just named it after the place they were from and put “new” in the front.
JackLSauce@lemmy.world 8 months ago
New Niu York
funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Those European names: the word “Hill” in 3 different languages mashed together
leisesprecher@feddit.org 8 months ago
Most names are essentially just landmarks of some sort.
Hamburg is derived from Hammer Burg, simply meaning hammer castle.
Part of Hamburg is Altona, which is lower German for all too near, because it’s really close to Hamburg.
East of Hamburg is Lübeck, which is means “settlement of the lub”, whoever the lub were.
Even farther east is Warnemünde, which is located at the mouth (Mund) of the river Warnow.
Said river is getting pretty wide a bit upstream, which gave the city of Rostock its name (“where the river gets wider”).
East of that: Stralsund. It’s the sound (the water kind) of Strela.
And so on and so on.
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
Tom Scott had some more info on that
teft@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Wait until you learn a second language and start learning town names in a new country. Here we have such amazing town names like “The Eyebrow” and “Camp”.
(I just chose the silliest ones I know, there are normal town names too)
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 8 months ago
rockerface@lemm.ee 8 months ago
There’s a city in Ukraine named, literally, “The Curved Horn” (Кривий Ріг)
leisesprecher@feddit.org 8 months ago
Germany has Katzenhirn - cat brain.
andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
I like this more than toponyms ending with -pol, -tsk, -nsk, -rsk, and to a lesser extent -iv. It sounds unique and original, not following a template, and somehow fantasy-books-like as it suggests what people probably did there.
On the other hand, Ukraine has it’s own New York too, just like in OP, and it inspired a lot of memes.
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
A lot of place names in English speaking countries are just names of natural or man-made features, but the etymology isn’t obvious. Like Portsmouth or Waterford are pretty understandable, but -don, -den, -ton (valley, hill, farm) are all just things.
The Eyebrow’s pretty cool though. Japan’s also got some good ones, like Thousand Leaves, Oak (just oak), or (loosely translated) Noodle Hill. They like numbers too, like Eight Door or Lake Twelve. There’s even a Silent Hill, but it’s not too silent these days with almost 700,000 people there.
lemonmelon@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Noodle Hill.
Ah, yes, Ramenfuji!
AdNecrias@lemmy.pt 8 months ago
We got dead cow, toast meat, nose, of the blacks, beautiful old lady, triangle, burnt car and drowned kids.
SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social 8 months ago
Ixonia, Wisconsin solved that problem by just drawing random letters from a hat until they came up with something pronounceable: Ixonia.
But I’m always amused by the street Oxford Place near my house. It’s a street named after a university, named after a city, named after a shallow spot where cattle could cross the river.
thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 8 months ago
most of the city names in Washington State are native in origin. Just and FYI
baltakatei@sopuli.xyz 8 months ago
You’re telling me there is no Walla Walla, England?
cmbabul@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I feel like Puyallup had to have been named by a drunken southerner
pingveno@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Place names in general in the Pacific Northwest. Alaska is from an Aleut phrase. Out of the 36 Oregon counties, 10 have roots in indigenous language or culture.
Dagnet@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Yep, just Americans look over to New Zeland nobody else for sure
Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Or Australia. If it isn’t something from europe, or a indigenous name, it’s something really imaginative, like calling Northern Territory, Western Australia, and South Australia
Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Americans didn’t name these places. There were no Americans when these places were named
TrousersMcPants@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Nah we definitely have had places like this named by Americans, too
Annoyed_Crabby@monyet.cc 8 months ago
New Penistone
wanderer@lemmy.world 8 months ago
The Phoenicians founded a new city in North Africa and called it ‘New City’ (Qart Hadasht), we now call it Carthage. The Carthaginians founded a new city in Spain and called it ‘New City’ (Qart Hadasht). The Romans conquered both of these cities, and found that having cities with the same confusing so called the second one ‘New New City’ (Carthago Nova).
superkret@feddit.org 8 months ago
In Alaska there’s a town called Chicken. They wanted to name it after the Ptarmigan that were abundant in the area, but couldn’t agree on the correct spelling.
Default_Defect@midwest.social 8 months ago
In Iowa, we have a Madrid, but its pronounced like MADrid. And a town named Nevada, but pronounced NeVAYda.
dan@upvote.au 8 months ago
There’s a Brisbane in California, pronounced like “Briz-bain” (the Aussie pronunciation is more like “Briz-bn”)
OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Around Rochester NY theres a Chili but they pronounce it Chai-lie.
bamfic@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Aggravates the shit out of me. I was reading about some famous person, and it said he’s from Bayonne. And I thought, no shit, he’s from Jersey?
No, not that Bayonne, and not that Jersey either.
Jesus fuck why couldn’t people have made up new names, or just used more of the native names that already existed?
RebekahWSD@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I see Camden in the news, and go through many emotions figuring out which one!
Hadriscus@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Bayonne, SW France ?
bamfic@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Yes, or Bayonne, New Jersey, which is what I thought they meant
sanpedropeddler@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
There’s a small town in Missouri I visited named Versailles and its pronounced ver-sails.
AFC1886VCC@reddthat.com 8 months ago
There’s a Derry and Londonderry in New Hampshire right beside each other. Being from Northern Ireland, that is incredibly amusing to me.
frezik@midwest.social 8 months ago
Not around here. We named towns after terms from native tribes who were kicked out of the area.
steal_your_face@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
Also after wildlife we killed and nature we destroyed to build it.
ThePantser@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Michigan?
frezik@midwest.social 8 months ago
Wisconsin, but it applies to a lot of the Midwest and Plains and… Kinda everywhere in the US.
doctordevice@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
Could be a lot of places. Washington is full of them, too.
chicagohuman@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Like Chicago
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
That’s actually kind of offensive
frezik@midwest.social 8 months ago
It’s fine. Ayn Rand said it’s OK because they’re not real people or something.