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California Place Names: The Origin and Etymology of Current Geographical Names
 
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California Place Names: The Origin and Etymology of Current Geographical Names [Hardcover]

Erwin G. Gudde (Author)
4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)


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There is a newer edition of this item:
California Place Names: The Origin and Etymology of Current Geographical Names, Fourth edition California Place Names: The Origin and Etymology of Current Geographical Names, Fourth edition 4.9 out of 5 stars (11)
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Book Description

October 1, 1969
Absco, a Southern Pacific station, was coined in the 1920s from the name of the American Beet Sugar Company, which had a factory in Oxnard.
Pochea is an Indian village site in Riverside County, said to mean "where the rabbit went in."
Siskiyou was the Chinook word for 'bobtailed horse,' originally taken over from the Cree language. From Abadi Creek to Zzyzyx Spring, thousands of discoveries await the reader of California Place Names. This is the fourth edition, extensively revised and expanded, of a classic work of Californiana. The curious traveler or resident, as well as the serious student, will find a wealth of description and history in these names, as rich and various as the California landscape itself.
Like its predecessors, this edition concentrates on the origins of the names currently used for the cities, towns, settlements, mountains, and streams of California, with engrossing accounts of the history of their usage. It has been updated to incorporate the latest research on California place names published by regional historians and to include new names that have been added to the California map since 1969. Readers will appreciate the local pronunciation of place names with unusual spellings; anyone curious about how to say La Jolla or Weitchpec can find the information here, in phonetic transcriptions. Finally, the many California place names of American Indian origin--such as Yreka, Shasta, Napa, Sonoma, Tamalpais, Yosemite, Lompoc, Mugu, Coachella, or Poway--receive particular attention from editor William Bright. The dictionary includes a Glossary and a Bibliography.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Western history buffs will enjoy this sizable guide to California place-names . . . . An up-to-date, authoritative, and interesting book." -- The Bloomsbury Review --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Erwin G. Gudde, at his death in 1969, was an emeritus member of the University of California faculty. William Bright is Professor Adjoint in Linguistics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and author of numerous books including A Coyote Reader (California, 1993). He supplied a new foreword plus maps and itinerary for the Fourth Edition of Up and Down in California in 1860-1864: The Journal of William H. Brewer (California, 2003). --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 416 pages
  • Publisher: University of California Press; 3rd edition (October 1, 1969)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0520015746
  • ISBN-13: 978-0520015746
  • Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 6.8 x 1.7 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,754,843 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

11 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.9 out of 5 stars (11 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars 4th Edition and 40th anniversary edition are the same!, April 30, 2010
By 
I bought the 40th Anniversary Edition of "California Place Names" because I had to find out what difference there was between it and the 4th edition. There is no difference! They are exactly the same books with the same pagination and the same copyright date of 1998 (with the same 1st paperback year of 2004). The verso information is the exact same (down to the same ISBN number) inside the two books.

The only differences are the covers: the 40th anniversary edition has the illustration of a mountain on it and the 4th Edition has the orange "old timey" map on it. As well, the 40th anniversary edition has "Revised and Expanded by William Bright" on the cover, but inside on the title page it says "Revised and Enlarged by William Bright"---which is the same wording on the 4th edition cover and title page.

With a description that states "This anniversary edition concentrates on the [blah blah blah]" it's hard not think that the publishers are trying to mislead consumers into thinking this is different in some way from the 4th edition. It is not in any way different on the inside, only the outside. I don't know if the 4th edition is being "replaced" by the 40th anniversary edition, but anyone with a 4th edition should be aware nothing has changed with this "new" edition (which is not a 5th edition as Amazon's info states).

Other than that, this a great reference book!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars For anyone who wondered about the name "Los Banos", December 28, 2009
By 
Elizabeth (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
If you live in the Bay Area, you've probably driven past Los Banos at some point and thought about the fact that "baños" can refer both to bathrooms and baths themselves. You probably wondered if there were actually baths there at some point.

And that's where this book comes in: if you wonder where something got its name, you look it up. Some of them may surprise you. Learning why and how things were named actually teaches you a lot about California history, so this is a good book for that curious 11-year-old in your life.

It's no trivial guide, though: it has ample information and hefty research, but it's also lovingly detailed, too (I love the entry on the way the Yuba River's parts used to be named).

You could spend hours looking things up. I did, and so has everyone else I've given this book to.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Authoritative and Accurate, September 20, 2011
By 
Picfactory (California, USA) - See all my reviews
If you are interested in California place names, this is the book you need. Other books of this sort are sometimes filled with inaccuracies or local legends passed off as true etymologies. Not here. William Bright's impeccable scholarship as a place name expert and linguist, combined with the original work of Erwin Gudde, make this the source you can trust. Bright's work on place names that originated from California Indian languages is especially valuable.
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