20 Examples of Toponyms (Explained) - encyclopedia

Video: Nick Waterhouse - Place Names (Official Stream)

Content

How do place names originate?
What are exonyms?
Indigenous topinimia
Examples of place names

The place names they are the proper names that geographical places adopt. For example: San Luis, Segovia, Easter Island.

Toponyms often have their origin in surnames of people, that is, in anthroponyms, but they can also describe or give an idea of some particularly relevant physical feature of the place.

Toponymy is the discipline that delves into the etymological analysis of these names.

It can serve you:

Place nouns
Own names

How do place names originate?

The elements of the landscape, such as the plants that grow there or the animals that live there, as well as the stones, the colors, the water courses and even the personalities that have ever lived or worked there (a priest, a doctor or a teacher , for example) can be the origin of a given place name.

Also national heroes give names to different places. Other times there is no evidence of the origin of a certain place name; in those cases it is believed that these names could be derived from ancient words that have been left aside over time.

What are exonyms?

Exonyms are those toponyms that had graphic adaptations or translations to be introduced into other languages. For example: New York (translation of New York), Saint Paul (translation of Sao Pablo).

Indigenous topinimia

Despite the intense penetration of Spanish culture in our territory, some countries such as Argentina have an important indigenous toponymy, reflected in a number of names of Mapuche, Quechua, Wichí, Guaraní or Aymara origin.

Some relate the origin of the word "Andes”, With the Quechua term anti, which means "raised crest". Others believe that it would derive from another Quechua word, antisuyo, one of the four regions of the Inca Empire. Another version indicates that the word comes from the Aymara voice anta, which would be translated as "copper color", or Qhantir Qullu Qullu, also Aymara voices that describe the sunrise in the high mountains.