The newer immigrants, indeed, do not wait for the birth of children to demonstrate their naturalization; they change their own given names immediately they land. I am told by Abraham Cahan that this is done almost universally on the East Side of New York. "Even the most old-fashioned Jews immigrating to this country," he says, "change Yosel to Joseph, Yankel to Jacob, Liebel to Louis, Feivel to Philip, Itzik to Isaac, Ruven to Robert, and Moise or Motel to Morris." Moreover, the spelling of Morris, as the position of its bearer improves, commonly changes to Maurice, though the pronunciation may remain Mawruss, as in the case of Mr. Perlmutter. The immigrants of other stocks follow the same habit. Every Bohemian Vaclav or Vojtĕch becomes a William, every Jaroslav becomes a Jerry, every Bronislav a Barney, and every Stanislav a Stanley. The Italians run to Frank and Joe; so do the Hungarians and the Balkan peoples; the Russians quickly drop their national system of nomenclature and give their children names according to the American plan. Even the Chinese laundrymen of the big cities become John, George, Charlie and Frank; I once encountered one boasting the name of Emil.
The Puritan influence, in names as in ideas, has remained a good deal more potent in American than in England. The given name of the celebrated Praise-God Barebones marked a fashion which died out in England very quickly, but one still finds traces of it in America, e. g., in such women's names as Faith, Hope, Prudence, Charity and Mercy, and in such men's names as Peregrine.[31] The religious obsession of the New England colonists is also kept in mind by the persistence of Biblical names: Ezra, Hiram, Ezekial, Zachariah, Elijah, Elihu, and so on. These [Pg285] names excite the derision of the English; an American comic character, in an English play or novel, always bears one of them. Again, the fashion of using surnames as given names is far more widespread in America than in England. In this country, indeed, it takes on the character of a national habit; fully three out of four eldest sons, in families of any consideration, bear their mothers' surnames as middle names. This fashion arose in England during the seventeenth century, and one of its fruits was the adoption of such well-known surnames as Stanley, Cecil, Howard, Douglas and Duncan as common given names.[32] It died out over there during the eighteenth century, and today the great majority of Englishmen bear such simple given names as John, Charles and William—often four or five of them—but in America it has persisted. A glance at a roster of the Presidents of the United States will show how firmly it has taken root. Of the ten that have had middle names at all, six have had middle names that were family surnames, and two of the six have dropped their other given names and used these surnames. This custom, perhaps, has paved the way for another: that of making given names of any proper nouns that happen to strike the fancy. Thus General Sherman was named after an Indian chief, Tecumseh, and a Chicago judge was baptized Kenesaw Mountain[33] in memory of the battle that General Sherman fought there. A late candidate for governor of New York had the curious given name of D-Cady.[34] Various familiar American given names, originally surnames, are almost unknown in England, among them, Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Columbus and Lee. Chauncey forms a curious addition to the list. It was the surname of the second president of Harvard College, and was bestowed upon their offspring by numbers of his graduates. It then got into [Pg286] general use and acquired a typically American pronunciation, with the a of the first syllable flat. It is never encountered in England.
In the pronunciation of various given names, as in that of many surnames, English and American usages differ. Evelyn, in England, is given two syllables instead of three, and the first is made to rhyme with leave. Irene is given two syllables, making it Irene-y. Ralph is pronounced Rafe. Jerome is accented on the first syllable; in America it is always accented on the second.[35]
§ 3
The original English settlers, it would appear, displayed little imagination in naming the new settlements and natural features [Pg287] of the land that they came to. Their almost invariable tendency, at the start, was to make use of names familiar at home, or to invent banal compounds. Plymouth Rock at the North and Jamestown at the South are examples of their poverty of fancy; they filled the narrow tract along the coast with new Bostons, Cambridges, Bristols and Londons, and often used the adjective as a prefix. But this was only in the days of beginning. Once they had begun to move back from the coast and to come into contact with the aborigines and with the widely dispersed settlers of other races, they encountered rivers, mountains, lakes and even towns that bore far more engaging names, and these, after some resistance, they perforce adopted. The native names of such rivers as the James, the York and the Charles succumbed, but those of the Potomac, the Patapsco, the Merrimack and the Penobscot survived, and they were gradually reinforced as the country was penetrated. Most of these Indian names, in getting upon the early maps, suffered somewhat severe simplifications. Potowánmeac was reduced to Potomack and then to Potomac; Unéaukara became Niagara; Reckawackes, by the law of Hobson-Jobson, was turned into Rockaway, and Pentapang into Port Tobacco.[38] But, despite such elisions and transformations, the charm of thousands of them remained, and today they are responsible for much of the characteristic color of American geographical nomenclature. Such names as Tallahassee, Susquehanna, Mississippi, Allegheny, Chicago, Kennebec, Patuxent and Arkansas give a barbaric brilliancy to the American map. Only the map of Australia, with its mellifluous Maori names, can match it.
The settlement of the American continent, once the eastern coast ranges were crossed, proceeded with unparalleled speed, and so the naming of the new rivers, lakes, peaks and valleys, and of the new towns and districts no less, strained the inventiveness of the pioneers. The result is the vast duplication of names that shows itself in the Postal Guide. No less than eighteen imitative [Pg288] Bostons and New Bostons still appear, and there are nineteen Bristols, twenty-eight Newports, and twenty-two Londons and New Londons. Argonauts starting out from an older settlement on the coast would take its name with them, and so we find Philadelphias in Illinois, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee, Richmonds in Iowa, Kansas and nine other western states, and Princetons in fifteen. Even when a new name was hit upon it seems to have been hit upon simultaneously by scores of scattered bands of settlers; thus we find the whole land bespattered with Washingtons, Lafayettes, Jeffersons and Jacksons, and with names suggested by common and obvious natural objects, e. g., Bear Creek, Bald Knob and Buffalo. The Geographic Board, in its last report, made a belated protest against this excessive duplication. "The names Elk, Beaver, Cottonwood and Bald," it said, "are altogether too numerous."[39] Of postoffices alone there are fully a hundred embodying Elk; counting in rivers, lakes, creeks, mountains and valleys, the map of the United States probably shows at least twice as many such names.
A study of American geographical and place names reveals eight general classes, as follows: (a) those embodying personal names, chiefly the surnames of pioneers or of national heroes; (b) those transferred from other and older places, either in the eastern states or in Europe; (c) Indian names; (d) Dutch, Spanish and French names; (e) Biblical and mythological names; (f) names descriptive of localities; (g) names suggested by the local flora, fauna or geology; (h) purely fanciful names. The names of the first class are perhaps the most numerous. Some consist of surnames standing alone, as Washington, Cleveland, Bismarck, Lafayette, Taylor and Randolph; others consist of surnames in combination with various old and new Grundwörter, as Pittsburgh, Knoxville, Bailey's Switch, Hagerstown, Franklinton, Dodge City, Fort Riley, Wayne Junction and McKeesport; and yet others are contrived of given names, either alone or in combination, as Louisville, St. Paul, Elizabeth, Johnstown, Charlotte, Williamsburg and Marysville. The number of towns in the United States bearing women's given names is enormous. [Pg289] I find, for example, eleven postoffices called Charlotte, ten called Ada and no less than nineteen called Alma. Most of these places are small, but there is an Elizabeth with 75,000 population, an Elmira with 40,000, and an Augusta with nearly 45,000.
The names of the second class we have already briefly observed. They are betrayed in many cases by the prefix New; more than 600 such postoffices are recorded, ranging from New Albany to New Windsor. Others bear such prefixes as West, North and South, or various distinguishing affixes, e. g., Bostonia, Pittsburgh Landing, Yorktown and Hartford City. One often finds eastern county names applied to western towns and eastern town names applied to western rivers and mountains. Thus, Cambria, which is the name of a county but not of a postoffice in Pennsylvania, is a town name in seven western states; Baltimore is the name of a glacier in Alaska, and Princeton is the name of a peak in Colorado. In the same way the names of the more easterly states often reappear in the west, e. g., in Mount Ohio, Colo., Delaware, Okla., and Virginia City, Nev. The tendency to name small American towns after the great capitals of antiquity has excited the derision of the English since the earliest days; there is scarcely an English book upon the states without some fling at it. Of late it has fallen into abeyance, though sixteen Athenses still remain, and there are yet many Carthages, Uticas, Syracuses, Romes, Alexandrias, Ninevahs and Troys. The third city of the nation, Philadelphia, got its name from the ancient stronghold of Philadelphus of Pergamun. To make up for the falling off of this old and flamboyant custom, the more recent immigrants have brought with them the names of the capitals and other great cities of their fatherlands. Thus the American map bristles with Berlins, Bremens, Hamburgs, Warsaws and Leipzigs, and is beginning to show Stockholms, Venices, Belgrades and Christianias.
The influence of Indian names upon American nomenclature is quickly shown by a glance at the map. No less than 26 of the states have names borrowed from the aborigines, and the same thing is true of most of our rivers and mountains. There was an effort, at one time, to get rid of these Indian names. Thus [Pg290] the early Virginians changed the name of the Powhatan to the James, and the first settlers in New York changed the name of Horicon to Lake George. In the same way the present name of the White Mountains displaced Agiochook, and New Amsterdam, and later New York, displaced Manhattan, which has been recently revived. The law of Hobson-Jobson made changes in other Indian names, sometimes complete and sometimes only partial. Thus, Mauwauwaming became Wyoming, Maucwachoong became Mauch Chunk, Ouabache became Wabash, Asingsing became Sing-Sing, and Machihiganing became Michigan. But this vandalism did not go far enough to take away the brilliant color of the aboriginal nomenclature. The second city of the United States bears an Indian name, and so do the largest American river, and the greatest American water-fall, and four of the five great Lakes, and the scene of the most important military decision ever reached on American soil.
The Dutch place-names of the United States are chiefly confined to the vicinity of New York, and a good many of them have become greatly corrupted. Brooklyn, Wallabout and Gramercy offer examples. The first-named was originally Breuckelen, the second was Waale Bobht, and the third was De Kromme Zee. Hell-Gate is a crude translation of the Dutch Helle-Gat. During the early part of the last century the more delicate New Yorkers transformed the term into Hurlgate, but the change was vigorously opposed by Washington Irving, and so Hell-Gate was revived. The law of Hobson-Jobson early converted the Dutch hoek into hook, and it survives in various place-names, e. g., Kinderhook and Sandy Hook. The Dutch kill is a Grundwort in many other names, e. g., Catskill, Schuylkill, Peekskill, Fishkill and Kill van Kull; it is the equivalent of the American creek. Many other Dutch place-names will come familiarly to mind: Harlem, Staten, Flushing, Cortlandt, Calver Plaat, Nassau, Coenties, Spuyten Duyvel, Yonkers, Hoboken and Bowery (from Bouvery).[40] Block Island was originally Blok, and Cape May, according to Schele de Vere, was Mey, both Dutch. [Pg291] A large number of New York street and neighborhood names come down from Knickerbocker days, often greatly changed in pronunciation. Desbrosses offers an example. The Dutch called it de Broose, but in New York today it is commonly spoken of as Dez-bros-sez.
French place-names have suffered almost as severely. Few persons would recognize Smackover, the name of a small town in Arkansas, as French, and yet in its original form it was Chemin Couvert. Schele de Vere, in 1871, recorded the degeneration of the name to Smack Cover; the Postoffice, always eager to shorten and simplify names, has since made one word of it and got rid of the redundant c. In the same way Bob Ruly, a Missouri name, descends from Bois Brulé. "The American tongue," says W. W. Crane, "seems to lend itself reluctantly to the words of alien languages."[41] This is shown plainly by the history of French place-names among us. A large number of them, e. g., Lac Superieur, were translated into English at an early day, and most of those that remain are now pronounced as if they were English. Thus Des Moines is dee-moyns, Terre Haute is terry-hut, Beaufort is byu-fort, New Orleans is or-leens, Lafayette has a flat a, Havre de Grace has another, and Versailles is ver-sales. The pronunciation of sault, as in Sault Ste. Marie, is commonly more or less correct; the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie Railroad is popularly called the Soo. This may be due to Canadian example, or to some confusion between Sault and Sioux. The French Louis, in St. Louis and Louisville, is usually pronounced correctly. So is the rouge in Baton Rouge, though the baton is commonly boggled. It is possible that familiarity with St. Louis influenced the local pronunciation of Illinois, which is Illinoy, but this may be a mere attempt to improve upon the vulgar Illin-i.[42]
For a number of years the Geographic Board has been seeking [Pg292] vainly to reestablish the correct pronunciation of the name of the Purgatoire river in Colorado. Originally named the Rio de las Animas by the Spaniards, it was renamed the Rivière du Purgatoire by their French successors. The American pioneers changed this to Picketwire, and that remains the local name of the stream to this day, despite the effort of the Geographic Board to compromise on Purgatoire river. Many other French names are being anglicized with its aid and consent. Already half a dozen Bellevues have been changed to Belleviews and Bellviews, and the spelling of nearly all the Belvédères has been changed to Belvidere. Belair, La., represents the end-product of a process of decay which began with Belle Aire, and then proceeded to Bellaire and Bellair. All these forms are still to be found, together with Bel Air. The Geographic Board's antipathy to accented letters and to names of more than one word[43] has converted Isle Ste. Thérèse, in the St. Lawrence river, to Isle Ste. Therese, a truly abominable barbarism, and La Cygne, in Kansas, to Lacygne, which is even worse. Lamoine, Labelle, Lagrange and Lamonte are among its other improvements; Lafayette, for La Fayette, long antedates the beginning of its labors.
The Spanish names of the Southwest are undergoing a like process of corruption, though without official aid. San Antonio has been changed to San Antone in popular pronunciation and seems likely to go to San Tone; El Paso has acquired a flat American a and a z-sound in place of the Spanish s; Los Angeles presents such difficulties that no two of its inhabitants agree upon the proper pronunciation, and many compromise on simple Los, as the folks of Jacksonville commonly call their town Jax. Some of the most mellifluous of American place-names are in the areas once held by the Spaniards. It would be hard to match the beauty of Santa Margarita, San Anselmo, Alamogordo, Terra Amarilla, Sabinoso, Las Palomas, Ensenada, Nogales, San Patricio and Bernalillo. But they are under a severe and double assault. Not only do the present lords of the soil debase them in speaking them; in many cases they are formally displaced by native names of the utmost harshness and banality. Thus, [Pg293] one finds in New Mexico such absurdly-named towns as Sugarite, Shoemaker, Newhope, Lordsburg, Eastview and Central; in Arizona such places as Old Glory, Springerville, Wickenburg and Congress Junction, and even in California such abominations as Oakhurst, Ben Hur, Drytown, Skidoo, Susanville, Uno and Ono.
The early Spaniards were prodigal with place-names testifying to their piety, but these names, in the overwhelming main, were those of saints. Add Salvador, Trinidad and Concepcion, and their repertoire is almost exhausted. If they ever named a town Jesus the name has been obliterated by Anglo-Saxon prudery; even their use of the name as a personal appellation violates American notions of the fitting. The names of the Jewish patriarchs and those of the holy places in Palestine do not appear among their place-names; their Christianity seems to have been exclusively of the New Testament. But the Americans who displaced them were intimately familiar with both books of the Bible, and one finds copious proofs of it on the map of the United States. There are no less than seven Bethlehems in the Postal Guide, and the name is also applied to various mountains, and to one of the reaches of the Ohio river. I find thirteen Bethanys, seventeen Bethels, eleven Beulahs, nine Canaans, eleven Jordans and twenty-one Sharons. Adam is sponsor for a town in West Virginia and an island in the Chesapeake, and Eve for a village in Kentucky. There are five postoffices named Aaron, two named Abraham, two named Job, and a town and a lake named Moses. Most of the St. Pauls and St. Josephs of the country were inherited from the French, but the two St. Patricks show a later influence. Eight Wesleys and Wesleyvilles, eight Asburys and twelve names embodying Luther indicate the general theological trend of the plain people. There is a village in Maryland, too small to have a postoffice, named Gott, and I find Gotts Island in Maine and Gottville in California, but no doubt these were named after German settlers of that awful name, and not after the Lord God directly. There are four Trinities, to say nothing of the inherited Spanish Trinidads. [Pg294]
Names wholly or partly descriptive of localities are very numerous throughout the country, and among the Grundwörter embodied in them are terms highly characteristic of America and almost unknown to the English vocabulary. Bald Knob would puzzle an Englishman, but the name is so common in the United States that the Geographic Board has had to take measures against it. Others of that sort are Council Bluffs, Patapsco Neck, Delaware Water Gap, Curtis Creek, Walden Pond, Sandy Hook, Key West, Bull Run, Portage, French Lick, Jones Gulch, Watkins Gully, Cedar Bayou, Keams Canyon, Parker Notch, Sucker Branch, Fraziers Bottom and Eagle Pass. Butte Creek, in Montana, is a name made up of two Americanisms. There are thirty-five postoffices whose names embody the word prairie, several of them, e. g., Prairie du Chien, Wis., inherited from the French. There are seven Divides, eight Buttes, eight town-names embodying the word burnt, innumerable names embodying grove, barren, plain, fork, center, cross-roads, courthouse, cove and ferry, and a great swarm of Cold Springs, Coldwaters, Summits, Middletowns and Highlands. The flora and fauna of the land are enormously represented. There are twenty-two Buffalos beside the city in New York, and scores of Buffalo Creeks, Ridges, Springs and Wallows. The Elks, in various forms, are still more numerous, and there are dozens of towns, mountains, lakes, creeks and country districts named after the beaver, martin, coyote, moose and otter, and as many more named after such characteristic flora as the paw-paw, the sycamore, the cottonwood, the locust and the sunflower. There is an Alligator in Mississippi, a Crawfish in Kentucky and a Rat Lake on the Canadian border of Minnesota. The endless search for mineral wealth has besprinkled the map with such names as Bromide, Oil City, Anthracite, Chrome, Chloride, Coal Run, Goldfield, Telluride, Leadville and Cement.
There was a time, particularly during the gold rush to California, when the rough humor of the country showed itself in the invention of extravagant and often highly felicitous place-names, but with the growth of population and the rise of civic spirit they have tended to be replaced with more seemly coinages. [Pg295] Catfish creek, in Wisconsin, is now the Yahara river; the Bulldog mountains, in Arizona, have become the Harosomas; the Picketwire river, as we have seen, has resumed its old French name of Purgatoire. As with natural features of the landscape, so with towns. Nearly all the old Boozevilles, Jackass Flats, Three Fingers, Hell-For-Sartains, Undershirt Hills, Razzle-Dazzles, Cow-Tails, Yellow Dogs, Jim-Jamses, Jump-Offs, Poker Citys and Skunktowns have yielded to the growth of delicacy, but Tombstone still stands in Arizona, Goose Bill remains a postoffice in Montana, and the Geographic Board gives its imprimatur to the Horsethief trail in Colorado, to Burning Bear creek in the same state, and to Pig Eye lake in Minnesota. Various other survivors of a more lively and innocent day linger on the map: Blue Ball, Ark., Cowhide, W. Va., Dollarville, Mich., Oven Fork, Ky., Social Circle, Ga., Sleepy Eye, Minn., Bubble, Ark., Shy Beaver, Pa., Shin Pond, Me., Rough-and-Ready, Calif., Non Intervention, Va., Noodle, Tex., Nursery, Mo., Number Four, N. Y., Oblong, Ill., Stock Yards, Neb., Stout, Iowa, and so on. West Virginia, the wildest of the eastern states, is full of such place-names. Among them I find Affinity, Annamoriah (Anna Maria?), Bee, Bias, Big Chimney, Billie, Blue Jay, Bulltown, Caress, Cinderella, Cyclone, Czar, Cornstalk, Duck, Halcyon, Jingo, Left Hand, Ravens Eye, Six, Skull Run, Three Churches, Uneeda, Wide Mouth, War Eagle and Stumptown. The Postal Guide shows two Ben Hurs, five St. Elmos and ten Ivanhoes, but only one Middlemarch. There are seventeen Roosevelts, six Codys and six Barnums, but no Shakespeare. Washington, of course, is the most popular of American place-names. But among names of postoffices it is hard pushed by Clinton, Centerville, Liberty, Canton, Marion and Madison, and even by Springfield, Warren and Bismarck.
The Geographic Board, in its laudable effort to simplify American nomenclature, has played ducks and drakes with some of the most picturesque names on the national map. Now and then, as in the case of Purgatoire, it has temporarily departed from this policy, but in the main its influence has been thrown against the fine old French and Spanish names, and against the [Pg296] more piquant native names no less. Thus, I find it deciding against Portage des Flacons and in favor of the hideous Bottle portage, against Cañada del Burro and in favor of Burro canyon against Canos y Ylas de la Cruz and in favor of the barbarous Cruz island. In Bougére landing and Cañon City it has deleted the accents. The name of the De Grasse river it has changed to Grass. De Laux it has changed to the intolerable Dlo. And, as we have seen, it has steadily amalgamated French and Spanish articles with their nouns, thus achieving such forms as Duchesne, Eldorado, Deleon and Laharpe. But here its policy is fortunately inconsistent, and so a number of fine old names has escaped. Thus, it has decided in favor of Bon Secours and against Bonsecours, and in favor of De Soto, La Crosse and La Moure, and against Desoto, Lacrosse and Lamoure. Here its decisions are confused and often unintelligible. Why Laporte, Pa., and La Porte, Iowa? Why Lagrange, Ind., and La Grange, Ky.? Here it would seem to be yielding a great deal too much to local usage.
The Board proceeds to the shortening and simplification of native names by various devices. It deletes such suffixes as town, city and courthouse; it removes the apostrophe and often the genitive s from such names as St. Mary's; it shortens burgh to burg and borough to boro; and it combines separate and often highly discreet words. The last habit often produces grotesque forms, e. g., Newberlin, Boxelder, Sabbathday lake, Fallentimber, Bluemountain, Westtown, Threepines and Missionhill. It apparently cherishes a hope of eventually regularizing the spelling of Allegany. This is now Allegany for the Maryland county, the Pennsylvania township and the New York and Oregon towns, Alleghany for the mountains, the Colorado town and the Virginia town and springs, and Allegheny for the Pittsburgh borough and the Pennsylvania county, college and river. The Board inclines to Allegheny for both river and mountains. Other Indian names give it constant concern. Its struggles to set up Chemquasabamticook as the name of a Maine lake in place of Chemquasabamtic and Chemquassabamticook, and Chatahospee as the name of an Alabama creek in place of Chattahospee, [Pg297] Hoolethlocco, Hoolethloces, Hoolethloco and Hootethlocco are worthy of its learning and authority.[44]
The American tendency to pronounce all the syllables of a word more distinctly than the English shows itself in geographical names. White, in 1880,[45] recorded the increasing habit of giving full value to the syllables of such borrowed English names as Worcester and Warwick. I have frequently noted the same thing. In Worcester county, Maryland, the name is usually pronounced Wooster, but on the Western Shore of the state one hears Worcest-'r.[46] Norwich is another such name; one hears Nor-wich quite as often as Norrich.[47] Yet another is Delhi; one often hears Del-high. White said that in his youth the name of the Shawangunk mountains, in New York, was pronounced Shongo, but that the custom of pronouncing it as spelled had arisen during his manhood. So with Winnipiseogee, the name of a lake; once Winipisaukie, it gradually came to be pronounced as spelled. There is frequently a considerable difference between the pronunciation of a name by natives of a place and its pronunciation by those who are familiar with it only in print. Baltimore offers an example. The natives always drop the medial i and so reduce the name to two syllables; the habit identifies them. Anne Arundel, the name of a county in Maryland, [Pg298] is usually pronounced Ann 'ran'l by its people. Arkansas, as everyone knows, is pronounced Arkansaw by the Arkansans, and the Nevadans give the name of their state a flat a. The local pronunciation of Illinois I have already noticed. Iowa, at home, is often Ioway.[48] Many American geographical names offer great difficulty to Englishmen. One of my English acquaintances tells me that he was taught at school to accent Massachusetts on the second syllable, to rhyme the second syllable of Ohio with tea, and to sound the first c in Connecticut. In Maryland the name of Calvert county is given a broad a, whereas the name of Calvert street, in Baltimore, has a flat a. This curious distinction is almost always kept up. A Scotchman, coming to America, would give the ch in such names as Loch Raven and Lochvale the guttural Scotch (and German) sound, but locally it is always pronounced as if it were k.
Finally, there is a curious difference between English and American usage in the use of the word river. The English invariably put it before the proper name, whereas we almost as invariably put it after. The Thames river would seem quite as strange to an Englishman as the river Chicago would seem to us. This difference arose more than a century ago and was noticed by Pickering. But in his day the American usage was still somewhat uncertain, and such forms as the river Mississippi were yet in use. Today river almost always goes after the proper name.
§ 4
Next to the numbering and lettering of streets, a fashion apparently set up by Major Pierre-Charles L'Enfant's plans for Washington, the most noticeable feature of American street nomenclature, as opposed to that of England, is the extensive use of such designations as avenue, boulevard, drive and speedway. Avenue is used in England, but only rather sparingly; it is seldom applied to a mean street, or to one in a warehouse district. In America the word is scarcely distinguished in meaning from street.[51] Boulevard, drive and speedway are almost [Pg300] unknown to the English, but they use road for urban thoroughfares, which is very seldom done in America, and they also make free use of place, walk, passage, lane and circus, all of which are obsolescent on this side of the ocean. Some of the older American cities, such as Boston and Baltimore, have surviving certain ancient English designations of streets, e. g., Cheapside and Cornhill; these are unknown in the newer American towns. Broadway, which is also English, is more common. Many American towns now have plazas, which are unknown in England. Nearly all have City Hall parks, squares or places; City Hall is also unknown over there. The principal street of a small town, in America, is almost always Main street; in England it is as invariably High street, usually with the definite article before High.
I have mentioned the corruption of old Dutch street and neighborhood names in New York. Spanish names are corrupted in the same way in the Southwest and French names in the Great Lakes region and in Louisiana. In New Orleans the street names, many of them strikingly beautiful, are pronounced so barbarously by the people that a Frenchman would have difficulty recognizing them. Thus, Bourbon has become Bur-bun, Dauphine is Daw-fin, Foucher is Foosh'r, Enghien is En-gine, and Felicity (originally Félicité) is Fill-a-city. The French, in their days, bestowed the names of the Muses upon certain of the city streets. They are now pronounced Cal´-y-ope, Terp´-si-chore, Mel-po-mean´, You-terp´, and so on. Bon Enfants, apparently too difficult for the native, has been translated into Good Children. Only Esplanade and Bagatelle, among the French street names of the city, seem to be commonly pronounced with any approach to correctness.
[1] The great Irish famine, which launched the chief emigration to America, extended from 1845 to 1847. The Know Nothing movement, which was chiefly aimed at the Irish, extended from 1852 to 1860.
[2] A. B. Faust: The German Element in the United States, 2 vols.; Boston, 1909, vol. ii, pp. 34 et seq.
[3] Richard T. Ely: Outlines of Economics, 3rd rev. ed.; New York, 1916, p. 68.
[4] Cf. Seth K. Humphrey: Mankind; New York, 1917, p. 45.
[5] Cf. William G. Searle: Onomasticon Anglo-Saxonicum; Cambridge, 1897.
[6] New York World Almanac, 1914, p. 668.
[7] It was announced by the Bureau of War Risk Insurance on March 30, 1918, that there were then 15,000 Millers in the United States Army. On the same day there were 262 John J. O'Briens, of whom 50 had wives named Mary.
[8] Cf. Carlyle's Frederick the Great, bk. xxi, ch. vi.
[9] S. Grant Oliphant, in the Baltimore Sun, Dec. 2, 1906.
[10] Harriet Lane Johnston was of this family.
[11] Cf. Faust, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 183-4.
[12] A Tragedy of Surnames, by Fayette Dunlap, Dialect Notes, vol. iv, pt. 1, 1913, p. 7-8.
[13] Americanisms, p. 112.
[14] Henry Harrison, in his Dictionary of the Surnames of the United Kingdom; London, 1912, shows that such names as Bloom, Cline, etc., always represent transliterations of German names. They are unknown to genuinely British nomenclature.
[15] A great many more such transliterations and modifications are listed by Faust, op. cit., particularly in his first volume. Others are in Pennsylvania Dutch, by S. S. Haldemann; London, 1872, p. 60 et seq., and in The Origin of Pennsylvania Surnames, by L. Oscar Kuhns, Lippincott's Magazine, March, 1897, p. 395.
[16] I lately encountered the following sign in front of an automobile repair shop:
[17] Baltimore Sun, March 17, 1907.
[18] Cf. The Origin of Pennsylvania Surnames, op. cit.
[19] Koch, a common German name, has very hard sledding in America. Its correct pronunciation is almost impossible to Americans; at best it becomes Coke. Hence it is often changed, not only to Cook, but to Cox, Koke or even Cockey.
[20] This is army slang, but promises to survive. The Germans, during the war, had no opprobrious nicknames for their foes. The French were always die Franzosen, the English were die Engländer, and so on, even when most violently abused. Even der Yankee was rare.
[21] Cf. Some Current Substitutes for Irish, by W. A. McLaughlin, Dialect Notes, vol. iv, pt. ii.
[22] Spiggoty, originating at Panama, now means a native of any Latin-American region under American protection, and in general any Latin-American. It is navy slang, but has come into extensive civilian use. It is a derisive daughter of "No spik Inglese."
[23] Cf. Reaction to Personal Names, by Dr. C. P. Oberndorf, Psychoanalytic Review, vol. v, no. 1, January, 1918, p. 47 et seq. This, so far as I know, is the only article in English which deals with the psychological effects of surnames upon their bearers. Abraham, Silberer and other German psychoanalysts have made contributions to the subject. Dr. Oberndorf alludes, incidentally, to the positive social prestige which goes with an English air, and, to a smaller extent, with a French air in America. He tells of an Italian who changed his patronymic of Dipucci into de Pucci to make it more "aristocratic." And of a German bearing the genuinely aristocratic name of von Landsschaffshausen who changed it to "a typically English name" because the latter seemed more distinguished to his neighbors.
[24] The effects of race antagonism upon language are still to be investigated. The etymology of slave indicates that the inquiry might yield interesting results. The word French, in English, is largely used to suggest sexual perversion. In German anything Russian is barbarous, and English education hints at flagellation. The French, for many years, called a certain contraband appliance a capote Anglaise, but after the entente cordiale they changed the name to capote Allemande. The common English name to this day is French letter. Cf. The Criminal, by Havelock Ellis; London, 1910, p. 208.
[25] Cf. The Jews, by Maurice Fishberg; New York, 1911, ch. xxii, and especially p. 485 et seq.
[26] The English Jews usually change Levy to Lewis, a substitution almost unknown in America. They also change Abraham to Braham and Moses to Moss. Vide Surnames, Their Origin and Nationality, by L. B. McKenna; Quincy (Ill.), 1913, pp. 13-14.
[27] For these observations of name changes among the Jews I am indebted to Abraham Cahan.
[28] They arose in England through the custom of requiring an heir by the female line to adopt the family name on inheriting the family property. Formerly the heir dropped his own surname. Thus the ancestor of the present Duke of Northumberland, born Smithson, took the ancient name of Percy on succeeding to the underlying earldom in the eighteenth century. But about a hundred years ago, heirs in like case began to join the two names by hyphenation, and such names are now very common in the British peerage. Thus the surname of Lord Barrymore is Smith-Barry, that of Lord Vernon is Venables-Vernon, and that of the Earl of Wharncliffe is Montagu-Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie.
[29] B. W. Green: Word-Book of Virginia Folk-Speech; Richmond, 1899, pp. 13-16.
[30] The one given name that they have clung to is Karl. This, in fact, has been adopted by Americans of other stocks, always, however, spelled Carl. Such combinations as Carl Gray, Carl Williams and even Carl Murphy are common. Here intermarriage has doubtless had its effect.
[31] Cf. Curiosities of Puritan Nomenclature, by Charles W. Bardsley; London, 1880.
[32] Cf. Bardsley, op. cit., p. 205 et seq.
[33] The Geographic Board has lately decided that Kenesaw should be Kennesaw, but the learned jurist sticks to one n.
[34] Thornton reprints a paragraph from the Congressional Globe of June 15, 1854, alleging that in 1846, during the row over the Oregon boundary, when "Fifty-four forty or fight" was a political slogan, many "canal-boats, and even some of the babies, ... were christened 54° 40′."
[35] The Irish present several curious variations. Thus, they divide Charles into two syllables. They also take liberties with various English surnames. Bermingham, for example, is pronounced Brimmingham in Ireland.
[36] Issued annually in July, with monthly supplements.
[37] The latest report is the fourth, covering the period 1890-1916; Washington, 1916.
[38] The authority here is River and Lake Names in the United States, by Edmund T. Ker; New York, 1911. Stephen G. Boyd, in Indian Local Names; York (Pa.), 1885, says that the original Indian name was Pootuppag.
[39] P. 17.
[40] Cf. Dutch Contributions to the Vocabulary of English in America, by W. H. Carpenter, Modern Philology, July, 1908.
[41] Our Naturalized Names, Lippincott's Magazine, April, 1899. It will be recalled how Pinaud, the French perfumer, was compelled to place advertisements in the street-cars, instructing the public in the proper pronunciation of his name.
[42] The same compromise is apparent in the pronunciation of Iroquois, which is Iro-quoy quite as often as it is Iro-quoys.
[43] Vide its Fourth Report (1890-1916), p. 15.
[44] The Geographic Board is composed of representatives of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, the Geological Survey, the General Land Office, the Post Office, the Forest Service, the Smithsonian Institution, the Biological Survey, the Government Printing Office, the Census and Lighthouse Bureaus, the General Staff of the Army, the Hydrographic Office, Library and War Records Office of the Navy, the Treasury and the Department of State. It was created by executive order Sept. 4, 1890, and its decisions are binding upon all federal officials. It has made, to date, about 15,000 decisions. They are recorded in reports issued at irregular intervals and in more frequent bulletins.
[45] Every-Day English, p. 100.
[46] I have often noted that Americans, in speaking of the familiar Worcestershire sauce, commonly pronounce every syllable and enunciated shire distinctly. In England it is always Woostersh'r.
[47] The English have a great number of such decayed pronunciations, e. g., Maudlin for Magdalen College, Sister for Cirencester, Merrybone for Marylebone. Their geographical nomenclature shows many corruptions due to faulty pronunciation and the law of Hobson-Jobson, e. g., Leighton Buzzard for the Norman French Leiton Beau Desart.
[48] Curiously enough, Americans always use the broad a in the first syllable of Albany, whereas Englishmen rhyme the syllable with pal. The English also pronounce Pall Mall as if it were spelled pal mal. Americans commonly give it two broad a's.
[49] Our Street Names, Lippincott's Magazine, Aug., 1897, p. 264.
[50] Ch. i.
[51] There are, of course, local exceptions. In Baltimore, for example, avenue used to be reserved for wide streets in the suburbs. Thus Charles street, on passing the old city boundary, became Charles street-avenue. Further out it became the Charles street-avenue-road—probably a unique triplication. But that was years ago. Of late many fifth-rate streets in Baltimore have been changed into avenues.