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List of Maryland placenames of Native American origin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The following list includes settlements, geographic features, and political subdivisions of Maryland whose names are derived from Native American languages.

Listings

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Counties

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Settlements

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Bodies of water

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  • Chesapeake Bay - named after the Chesapeake tribe of Virginia. "Chesapeake" is derived from the Algonquian word Chesepiooc referring to a village "at a big river." It is the seventh oldest surviving English place-name in the U.S., first applied as "Chesepiook" by explorers heading north from the Roanoke Colony into a Chesapeake tributary in 1585 or 1586.[18] In 2005, Algonquian linguist Blair Rudes "helped to dispel one of the area's most widely held beliefs: that 'Chesapeake' means something like 'Great Shellfish Bay.' It does not, Rudes said. The name might actually mean something like 'Great Water,' or it might have been just a village at the bay's mouth."[19]
  • Nassawango Creek - older variations on the same name include Nassanongo, Naseongo, Nassiongo, and Nassiungo meaning "[ground] between [the streams]";[20] early English records have it as Askimenokonson Creek, after a Native settlement near its headwaters (askimenokonson roughly translated from the local Algonquian word meaning "stony place where they pick early [straw]berries").[21]
  • Patapsco River - the name "Patapsco" is derived from pota-psk-ut, which translates to "backwater" or "tide covered with froth" in Algonquian dialect.[22]
  • Monocacy River - The name "Monocacy" comes from the Shawnee name for the river, Monnockkesey, which translates to "river with many bends." (However, another local tradition asserts that "Monocacy" means "well-fenced garden" in an Indian language.)

Other places

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This is a list of Native American place names in the U.S. state of Maryland.

See also

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References

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Citations

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  1. ^ "welhik". Lenape Talking Dictionary. Archived from the original on 2012-09-11. Retrieved 2011-12-14.
  2. ^ Russell, Erret (1885). "Indian Geographical Names". The Magazine of Western History. 2 (1): 53–59. Retrieved 2011-12-14.
  3. ^ Trumbull, J. Hammond (1870). The Composition of Indian Geographical Names. Hartford, Conn. pp. 13–14. Retrieved 2011-12-14.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  4. ^ Maryland: A Colonial History. p. 22
  5. ^ "Peco's Hydroelectric Station Marks 65th Anniversary -- 'A Symbol of Progress' in 1928 One of the World's Largest Power Projects".
  6. ^ Scharf, John Thomas (1879). History of Maryland from the Earliest Period to the Present Day. Baltimore, MD: John B. Piet. pp. 137. matapeake.
  7. ^ Runkle, Stephen A. Native American Waterbody and Place Names within the Susquehanna River Basin and Surrounding Subbasins Publication 229. Susquehanna River Basin Commission, September 2003.
  8. ^ Quesada-Embid, Mercedes (2004), Five Hundred Years on Five Thousand Acres: Human Attitudes and Land Use at Nassawango Creek, Native Americans of the Delmarva Peninsula, Salisbury, MD: Edward H. Nab Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, retrieved 2008-08-26
  9. ^ "Ghosts of industrial heyday still haunt Baltimore's harbor, creeks". Chesapeake Bay Journal. Retrieved 2012-09-08.
  10. ^ "The Pocomoke River". Pocomoke River Events. Pocomoke City. 2006. Retrieved 2006-12-26. [dead link]
  11. ^ cf. Ojibwe: Baadimaag-ziibi, from biidimaw "bring something to somebody" Freelang Ojibwe Dictionary
  12. ^ Legends of Loudoun: An account of the history and homes of a border county of Virginia's Northern Neck, Harrison Williams, p. 26.
  13. ^ cf. Odawa: ikagookaanitoo-ziibi "river that is abundant with geese" Freelang Ojibwe Dictionary
  14. ^ Bright (2004:469)
  15. ^ Kohn, Diana (November 2008). "Takoma Park at 125" (PDF). Takoma Voice. pp. 14–15. Retrieved 2013-01-03.
  16. ^ "tùkwsit". Lenape Talking Dictionary. Delaware Tribe of Indians Lenape Language Preservation Project. Archived from the original on February 3, 2015. Retrieved February 3, 2015.
  17. ^ "Tuxedo". Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 2012-09-25.
  18. ^ Also shown as "Chisupioc" (by John Smith of Jamestown) and "Chisapeack", in Algonquian "Che" means "big" or "great", "sepi" means river, and the "oc" or "ok" ending indicated something (a village, in this case) "at" that feature. "Sepi" is also found in another placename of Algonquian origin, Mississippi. The name was soon transferred by the English from the big river at that site to the big bay. Stewart, George (1945). Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States. New York: Random House. p. 23.
  19. ^ Farenthold, David A. (2006-12-12). "A Dead Indian Language Is Brought Back to Life". The Washington Post. p. A1. Retrieved 2013-01-05.
  20. ^ Runkle, Stephen A. Native American Waterbody and Place Names within the Susquehanna River Basin and Surrounding Subbasins Publication 229. Susquehanna River Basin Commission, September 2003.
  21. ^ Quesada-Embid, Mercedes (2004), Five Hundred Years on Five Thousand Acres: Human Attitudes and Land Use at Nassawango Creek, Native Americans of the Delmarva Peninsula, Salisbury, MD: Edward H. Nab Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, retrieved 2013-01-05
  22. ^ "Ghosts of industrial heyday still haunt Baltimore's harbor, creeks". Chesapeake Bay Journal. Retrieved 2013-01-05.

Sources

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  • Kenny, Hamill. The origin and meaning of the Indian place names of Maryland, Waverly Press, 1961.