WHAT'S IN A NAME ? 



LOCAL names, whether they belong to cities, provinces, villages, 

 rivers, mountains or head-lands, are never mere arbitrary 

 sounds, but records of the past, always inviting and rewarding a 

 careful historical interpretation. 



The original import of ancient names has often faded away, but, 

 whenever the primeval meaning may be sifted out, and recovered, 

 we generally gain a symbol that proves itself full-fraught with in- 

 struction ; for the name of a district or of a. town may speak to us 

 of emigrations, immigrations, the commingling of races by war and 

 conquest, or through the processes of commerce and discovery, thus 

 •noting events which written history has failed to commemorate. 



Local names and names of people might often be adduced as 

 evidence of the common origin and close brotherhood of men whom 

 ignorance and petty interests would have at daggers drawn. 



Lastly, names of places stand as the noble ruins of a once living 

 language, in a very remote and dark age. 



Topographic words are more secure than other elements of a 

 people's speech from the modifying influences of grammatical in- 

 flexion, because they share, so to speak, in the permanency of nature. 

 Their special peril arises only from attempts at accommodating their 

 forms to the requirements of popular etymological speculation. 



Indeed, it seems that invading hosts may trample down, burn or 

 extirpate whatever grows upon a soil; they may slay the people — 

 high born and low born — but if one poor outcast be forgotten to till 

 the land anew, to bear witness that a brook, a hill, a hamlet ever 

 existed there, to which those of his race gave a name, whatever else 

 he may forget, even his mother's tongue, the name of his home shall 

 never disappear. 



Ancient local names have for the most part a descriptive import ; 

 they tell us something of the physical features of the land. Thus 

 many a mountain has been designated by that natural phenomenon, 

 the snowy covering of its lofty summit: — Ben Nevis, Mont Blanc, 

 Sierra Nevada, Snafell, Sneekoppe, Weisshorn, etc. Not. only do 

 these appellations give aid to the philologist when the aspect of the 

 country has remained the same, but where the face of nature has 

 undergone changes, they become evidence of physical mutations, as 



