Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States (New York Review Books Classics) [Paperback]

George R. Stewart (Author), Matt Weiland (Introduction)

Book Description

Series: New York Review Books Classics | Publication Date: July 1, 2008

George R. Stewart’s classic study of place-naming in the United States was written during World War II as a tribute to the varied heritage of the nation’s peoples. More than half a century later, Names on the Land remains the authoritative source on its subject, while Stewart’s intimate knowledge of America and love of anecdote make his book a unique and delightful window on American history and social life.

Names on the Land is a fascinating and fantastically detailed panorama of language in action. Stewart opens with the first European names in what would later be the United States—Ponce de León’s flowery Florída, Cortés’s semi-mythical isle of California, and the red Rio Colorado—before going on to explore New England, New Amsterdam, and New Sweden, the French and the Russian legacies, and the unlikely contributions of everybody from border ruffians to Boston Brahmins. These lively pages examine where and why Indian names were likely to be retained; nineteenth-century fads that gave rise to dozens of Troys and Athens and to suburban Parksides, Brookmonts, and Woodcrest Manors; and deep and enduring mysteries such as why “Arkansas” is Arkansaw, except of course when it isn’t.

Names on the Land will engage anyone who has ever wondered at the curious names scattered across the American map. Stewart’s answer is always a story—one of the countless stories that lie behind the rich and strange diversity of the USA.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"It chronicles the nomenclatural adventures of explorers, legislators, and common folk and amounts to a fizzy refresher on America's past and her character. It proceeds in a spruce voice that's a model for producing scholarship that doesn't feel leaden, and it further inspires meditations on tricks of rhetoric and laws of euphony...Perhaps most importantly, it is an aid to fighting tedium: You are about to have several hundred conversations touching on the matter of where your interlocutor is from, and Steward gives you a map for navigating this chatter with a bit of style." --Troy Patterson, Slate

"George R. Stewart, midcentury novelist and co-founder of the American Name Society, gave onomastics a good name with his classic Names on the Land (1945), a learned and rollicking act of patriotic toponymy. Its republication, with a graceful introduction by Matt Weiland, is a welcome reminder that the polyglot medley on our maps is, as Mr. Stewart says, 'a chief glory of our heritage'...few authors or books are more American--in every good sense of that word -- than George R. Stewart and Names on the Land." --Wall Street Journal

 

"Stewart's impressive research demonstrates exactly what is in a name." --The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

 

"If the United States is the greatest poem, as Whitman once wrote, then surely the Rand-McNally Road Atlas is our national CliffsNotes. Google Maps are dandy, but there’s nothing like pulling the old coverless atlas off the shelf and pondering a green-dotted scenic route between two unvisited and evocatively named points. It’s too late to plan a summer road trip, but lately I’ve been supplementing my insomniac atlas-reading with George R. Stewart’s Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States.” --Jennifer Schuessler, The New York Times Papercuts blog

 

"Names on the Land was first published in 1945 and has remained a classic in the field of onomastics--the study of proper names and their meanings." --Los Angeles Times

 

A "masterwork." --Minneapolis Star-Tribune

 

"A classic work on American place names by George R. Stewart. I'm a place-name geek but didn't know about this gem until I read the book recently. First published in 1945 and newly reissued (NYRB Classics) it's a history of the United States told through its place names. Stewart exhaustively surveys our geographic labels, a chaotic but charming blend of anglicized American Indian words (Wisconsin), transplanted place names (Boston), poetic impulse (Martha's Vineyard), twisted foreign phrases (Broadway, from the Dutch Breede Wegh) and salesmanship (Frostproof, Fla)." --Columbus Dispatch

 

"You've likely heard me before on the lost-classic glories of New York Review Books, and this is a reprint of a typically idiosyncratic and cult-beloved World War II-era reference about just what the title says." --OMNIVORACIOUS at Amazon.com

 

"Unusual and excellent...put together in a fascinating manner...The style is also enchanting and leaves an impression that is not quickly forgotten...Here is a book, in short, that may be read frontwards or backwards or from the middle in either direction and be fully enjoyed." -American Speech

 

"As fascinating as the details are the fine accounts of periods and trends: the Royal names of colonial times, the names of heroes of the Revolution, abstract names and the Civil War...Indian names, French names, Spanish names, name-giving by Congress, name-giving by explorers and pioneers, by land-speculators, by railroaders, by rich men, poor men, beggar men, all acting according to the spirit of their times in this wonderful land of accelerated history." -American Literature.

 

"The result of careful research into an absorbing narrative...Interest of Americans in American geographical names as a subject for research is at least as old as our history as a republic." -Geographical Review

 

Encyclopedic in scope, "this book with its satisfactory index will be used as a dictionary. And the disappointment of occasionally not finding what one seeks will be assuaged by the illuminating charm of this remarkable key to our history, our language, our society."

-American Literature

 

"A book so interestingly and delightfully written is certain to have wide appeal...Like all really good books, regardless of subject, it has light to cast: something of which there seems to be never enough to go around." -Journal of American Folkore

About the Author

George R. Stewart (1895—1980) was born in Pennsylvania and educated at Princeton. He received his Ph.D. in English literature from Columbia University in 1922, and joined the English faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1924. He was a toponymist, founding member of the American Name Society, and a prolific and highly successful writer of novels and of popular nonfiction, especially dealing with U.S. history and with the American West.

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: NYRB Classics; Trade Paperback Edition edition (July 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590172736
• ISBN-13: 978-1590172735
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 1.2 x 8.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #91,039 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

80 of 81 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just Plain Fascinating, December 18, 2002

By 

absent_minded_prof (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States (Paperback)

In this unusual little book, George R. Stewart has compiled an endlessly intriguing account of the whys and wherefores of American place-names. The book as a whole provides a haunting, curiously oblique perspective on American history, as he delves into the cultural, historic, and (sometimes) military themes behind the names we use every day. The book goes into the names of cities, states, rivers, mountains, streets, and more.

I think you might get more out of this volume if you are aware of the way it is organized. I myself half-expected this book to be organized by state, perhaps in alphabetical order. This is not the case. Stewart has organized his data by THEMES in naming, and how these themes have emerged in our history. Therefore, the book (very roughly) follows our history chronologically, as various naming trends have come and gone, in the context of various cultural waves. This pattern tends to approximately follow the "peopling" of the continent (by descendants of Europeans) from east to west. Some chapters are mostly devoted to single states, but this is the exception, rather than the rule.

The chapter titles are not necessarily always very helpful, which is the closest thing I have to a caveat about this book. I'm telling you right now that the chapters roughly follow the settling of our continent, from east to west (and from south to north in the far western states). So, this should help you get oriented if you are browsing around... You might want to think of each chapter as a little independent essay. That might help you break the whole text down into digestible parts.

Some themes in naming include: the popularity of the name "Columbus," during and shortly after the Revolution; the tendency to adapt feminine names for the Southern plantations; Greek or Latin names; ancient indian names; English town names given new life on our shores; and many, many more.

One interesting fact I learned, reading this book, is that five of the six states in my native New England should, technically, probably be considered to be spelled wrong. (New Hampshire is the lone, proud exception). Stewart tells the tale of how each state was named, although he doesn't clump the five stories all together. You have to do saome digging... If you happen to harbor an inner, pedantic curmudgeon, who sometimes likes to rail against the stupidity of all humanity apart from him- (your-)self, this is the kind of thing that could give you great, and prolonged, delight. Also, you might be surprised at how many place-names have warm, human stories behind them. This can foster a real sense of human connection to our nation's past -- a connection that is not necessarily to participants in our nation's huge struggles, but simply to quiet, thoughtful people who tried to come up with words that just sounded right.

I would like to post here a private theory I have about George R. Stewart, which may be of interest to you in this context. Professor Stewart taught English at Berkeley, for much of the twentieth century. Concurrently on the faculty at that institution was the great American anthropologist Alfred Kroeber, who today is perhaps best remembered for his work with the last Yahi indian, Ishi, and also for his status as the father of acclaimed science fiction author Ursula Kroeber LeGuin. This last-named person, Ursula K. LeGuin, would have grown up hearing about Professor Stewart, and his odd hobby of place-names. If you read her young adult fantasy trilogy, the Earthsea Trilogy, you will find there a character called the Master Namer, who is a sort of professor in a school for young wizards. He and his classes exhibit many of the traits that we find in evidence within "Names on the Land." I believe that Ursula K. LeGuin probably based this character upon the fascinating George R. Stewart, and his hobby. Therefore, if you enjoy this book, you may wish to read Ursula LeGuin's "A Wizard of Earthsea," to encounter there a thinly disguised fictional version of Professor Stewart.

At any rate, this book is really something special. I recommend that you seek out a copy, and if you know a local history teacher, maybe you could lend it to him and suggest that he fashion some lesson plans from its singularly neato contents. Two thumbs up!

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A VERY interesting book, July 30, 2001

By 

Curtis Price (Rapid City, SD USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States (Paperback)

Names On The Land is narrative almost to a fault but it is a FASCINATING exploration into how and why we name the landscape, and how as we name the land, we give it meaning, just as the landscape give meaning to us.

Anyone that is interested or works with geography (especially historians or natural scientists) will find this book a very powerful perspective.

A very cool book. I think it is a shame it is out of print!

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Names on the Land: A Wallace Stegner Must Read, September 8, 2005

By 

Merl Ledford III (People's Republic of California, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States (Paperback)

Wallace Stegner was not only a great writer ("Angle of Repose") and teacher (Stanford English Dept. who mentored people like Harriet Doerr), he was also a great lover of writing. His UC Berkeley colleague and friend George Stewart appeared on Stegner's list of "must read" Western American writers for "Names on the Land" as classic non-fiction and for fiction ("Earth Abides" that he recommends as reading in tandem with Miller's classic "A Canticle for Leibowitz").

Dr. Stegner points out that Stewart was not prolific as a writer and, for that reason, is sometimes overlooked as a star in Western American literature. "Names on the Land" underscores the painstaking process of good writing as it was practiced by Stewart and very much appreciated by Stegner. The research is incredibly precise and reliable; the language is as clear and fast running as a mountain stream; and the effect on the reader is overwhelming.

In an era of instant gratification and 10 second sound bites, "Names on the Land" doesn't seem "contemporary." But for a thoughtful reader of books, Stewart's masterpiece merits a place of honor in his or her permanent collection and (as Stegner admitted) a lifetime of periodic re-reading and reference.