US residents, what language is the name of your town/city/etc derived from?
The language of the Indigenous people that lived in this area originally
Spanish
French
German
Dutch
Latin
Greek
English
Another language not listed here
I've looked it up/researched it and it's unknown where the name came from
I don't know and I can't be bothered to look it up
Not from the US, show results
Voting ended onFeb 23
Get as specific as you can! For example, New York has an English origin, but Manhattan is Lenape (indigenous) and Brooklyn is Dutch. If multiple apply, feel free to elaborate in the tags! Just don't give too much personal information about where you live in the tags/comments.
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Visiting friends in Turku, we came across two street names.
Tarkk'ampujankatu and Tarkkàmpujankatu (both Skarpskyttegatan in Swedish!)
The first compound word in this street name is the old form of the word tarkka-ampuja (sniper). Even so, these street names are written differently from each other!
This is a word that has had multiple spellings throughout its history. If we look at the Wiktionary entry for this word, we can see that 'tarkkampuja' and 'tarkk'ampuja' are given as alternative forms.
This blog dives deeper into the word and how its meaning may change depending on its written form.
Googling alternative forms for this word uncovers more non-standard spellings; 'tarkkámpuja' and 'tarkkàmpuja' both give results (the version with á was even used in a scientific text)
Helsinki also has a Tarkk'ampujankatu, however, it does not have alternative spellings. It is also very short and lowkey irrelevant for me so I cannot be bothered to go outside to get pictures of the road signs there...
BoTW/TotK Hyrule Settlements - But With Mennonite Names
Today in Canada is the last day of Mennonite Heritage Week 2024 so I thought I'd bridge together a few of my interests together for this fun little project of mine!
Process (skip 2 paragraphs if you want to cut to the chase)
So basically, places (in the real world) settled by ethnic Russian Mennonites usually follow x rules in terms of naming. They: 1) have two components, where the second is almost always a geographical term, 2) have the first component of the names either an adjective, another geographical term or a personal name, and 3) are officially named in High German (AKA Standard German) and have a vernacular name in Plautdietsch (Mennonite Low German) which uses direct translation of the High German name. More on this, including the real-world cities I analyzed to come to this conclusion!
Disclaimer: the process of coming up with these involved visiting the location on my Switch, looking component candidates in my Plautdietsch-English-High German dictionary written by Jack Thiessen using his orthography system in the Bergthal dialect, after which I searched up the High German translation so apologies for any inconsitencies!
Without further ado, let's dive right in, formatted "[actual name]: [High German name] | [Plautdietsch name]!
This one may be my most liberal interpretation of the city as it takes the name "New Castle Town," as this seems to be the most bustling city since the destruction of Hyrule Castle Town in the Calamity. This name is reminiscent of Neubergthal, Canada which was named after the Bergthal colony is present day Ukraine. This is basically the only exception to a Mennonite place name having more than 2 parts in it - when it is "new."
2. Kakariko Village: Gruenthal | Jreendohl
This one, meaning "green valley" is also a place in real life! The only difference is that the German ü is written without the umlaut in real life while my version adds the e after the umlautless vowel. This practice is also occasionally done in real life (such as the former village of Schoenfeld in the Russian Empire,) and I prefer it better. Also, my definition of "valley" here is a little shaky, but you can't deny that it is quite Green!
3. Gerudo Town: Sandfeld | Saundfeld
Geographically, one of the most defining features Gerudo Town is that it is located in a desert. However, I could not find any sources of Mennonites settling deserts (could not find enough information about the names of Mennonite settlements in Mexico) so I opted to use the extremely common "feld," meaning "field," and "sand"/"saund," meaning "sand," because that is basically what this kind of desert is.
4. Goron City: Heissberg | Heetboajch
This one means "hot mountain." The "berg" part is super common in real-world Mennonite place names, while the "heiss" part, less so as it is an adjective. Still could've been possible though! However, I sort of had the same issue naming this as I did with Gerudo Town, Mennonites did not settle volcanoes. I initially wanted to name it the equivalent of "Lavariver," but then I remembered that the Lava turned into hot spring water in TotK (?!) or something to do with "volcano," but the Plautdietsch word for "volcano" is the already lengthy and compounded "fieaspieenda boajch." So I settled for Heissberg.
5. Hateno Village: Weidethal | Weiddohl
Meaning: "pasture valley" - maybe this one is a little farfetched since you could argue for the little pastures being irrelevant/not pastures at all technically (admittedly did not think too hard about the definition of a pasture) but the "thal" (meaning "valley") component is super common!
6. Korok Forest: Waldheim | Woohldheim
Meaning: "forest home." Both are common components in place names, though I personally have never seen them together. There are many forests in Hyrule, though none are both a Forest and a settled home and thus the name was born!
7. Lurelin Village: Fischerdorf | Feschadarp
Kind of weird to use "dorf," which means "village" in a world where Ganondorf exists I know...but "Fischer" means "fisher" (don't any of you dare hit anyone with a "this post transcends language" real ones know what a cognate is) so I thought it could fit. I was also iffy about using the name of an occupation, but there are sometimes personal names used in place names (especially in former towns of Mennonite colonies in Ukraine) so maybe in another world, it could've happened.
8. Rito Village: Saeuleinsel | Stendainsel
Naming this one really threw me for a loop because it made me question..what the heck kind of landform is Rito Village? I later decided it was a "pillar island" though I have never seen either terms used in a place name so I suppose you could say I am the least proud of this one.
9. Zora's Domain: Zoraheim
This means "Zora home," which I basically decided was what they meant by naming the original Zora's Domain that in 1998. Technically this would be incorrect as "Zora" is not a proper German given name, but it will have to do. Again, this whole project is hypothetical...
And that's the end! I know the demographic that would probably enjoy this the most is incredibly niche but if you made it this far, great job! Here's another TotK screenshot from me as thanks 🫶💚
TIL that somewhere in the UK there is a street literally called "The Street" so just keep that in mind if you're ever worried your worldbuilding isn't creative enough
ok - but imo, dramatic place-names in fantasy books aren't that unrealistic. we named a desert "death valley" after all. if there were car-sized (and larger) spiders living there, we might have actually called it "the valley of dreadful death". (see: nan durgotheb in the silmarillion)
Warum heißt Berlin eigentlich Berlin und warum gibt es Orte namens "Elend"? Testen Sie Ihr Wissen zu deutschen Städtenamen
Ich habe bei diesem Quiz nicht sonderlich gut abgeschnitten, aber ich fand es super interessant! Habe unter dem Readmore zwei Screenshots aus den Antworten, die sich auf Ortsnamen mit slavischer Etymologie beziehen, weil, naja, ist eben mein Interessengebiet :D nicht klicken, falls ihr das Quiz noch machen und euer Wissen erstmal testen wollt!
"Turkey" says it's now "Türkiye" in English, Spanish, and French. We take an in-depth look at how and why it changed.
New free article! Since two years ago, Turkey's government wants you to call it "Türkiye". Check out our plain English guide to what happened and why, how it started, and how it's going.
