Mexico: Navel of the Moon
Sapporo, Japan: Pavilion of Banknotes
Namibia: Place where there is Nothing
Israel: Struggling with God
Great Britain: Great Land of the Tattooed
Amazon River: The Boat Destroyer
Vladivostock: Dominate the East!
New Wild Boar Village. St. Heraldwolf’s Stone. Sibling Love. Stink Onion. All major American cities by another name.
You’d recognize them as New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago.
But in a fascinating new book, The Atlas of True Names, the traditional names of the world’s major cities, countries, rivers and mountains have been changed to reflect their etymological origins.
New York becomes New Wild Boar Village — after the Old English “Eoforwic” (wild boar) and the Latin “vicus” (village or trading place) which combined, form the modern “York.”
Boston is said to be a contraction of St. Botolph’s Stone, which in medieval form breaks down in to boto (herald or envoy) and ulf (wolf) — or St. Heraldwolf’s Stone.
Philadelphia is simpler, happily it means “sibling love” from the ancient Greek phil (sibling) and adelphia (love).
Chicago is derived from an Algonquian word: checagou, meaning “wild onions” or “skunk.”
The maps are being distributed by a British company, Outstanding Map Distributors (www.outstandingmd.co.uk/truenames/index.shtml) whose managing Director Sean Quigley yesterday told Metro: “This map is not a definitive work on the etymological roots of geographical names but more of a stimulus, and a very amusing one at that, to make us think about why places are called as they are.”
METRO