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User:Satyadasa/NYEtym

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Brooklyn

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  • Coney Island: from Dutch Conyne Eylandt [1] (modern spelling: Konijn Eyland), ‘rabbit island’, attested to 1636. Coney, an archaic word for rabbit, and konijn are both from Latin cunīculus, possibly from Celtiberian *cunic-, a diminutive of cun-dog’. Classical authors such as Aristophanes, Strabo, and Catullus either spoke directly of an Iberian origin for the words cuniculus and Greek κόνικλος koniklos or otherwise associated the peninsula with rabbits [2] (PDF) - indeed, the word Hispania itself may be derived from Phoenician אי שפנים ʾî-šəpānîm, ‘island of hyraxes’. Cuniculus, also meaning ‘rabbit hole’ ‘passageway’, ‘mine’, has also been explained as a Latin diminutive, from cunnuscunt’, but given its incidence in other languages in a similar form, a derivation from Celtiberian with influence from the Latin sense seems more likely. Spanish has conejo, which could be said to be closer to the Celtiberian than to the Latin.
  • Gravesend: after Gravesend, Kent.
  • Sheepshead Bay: for the sheepshead, a fish once abundant in its waters.

Manhattan

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Great Britain and Ireland