Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19126 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-01
• Released on: 2008-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Review
"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

"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 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.

Customer Reviews

Fascinating History Lesson in the names we all take for granted.
I learned so much from this book. When I purchased it, I thought it might be like an annotated dictionary of sorts -- perhaps in alphabetical order, so that I could look up Topeka or New York. But it's not like that at all. The author starts with the blank canvas of the American landscape, before recorded history, and describes how a place becomes a name.

The book is arranged chronologically, so the reader moves from pre-history to native Americans to colonists; and from the edges of the country (like Florida, California and New Mexico) to the middle regions; and from colonial governmental debates on names to the Congressional debates on state names in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The information about the place names comes at the reader not as a dry history lesson, but almost as an epic novel in which the main character is the landscape, and the minor characters are the natives, the immigrants, the politicians, the storytellers. The prose is spare and compelling. The depth of research is mind-boggling.

This is a book to be read, re-read and referred to for the rest of your life, especially if you are a traveller or a proud American.

Fascinating Introduction to What We Should Already Know
It is always humbling to discover how limited my education is in key areas, especially geography. Names on a map that I have seen dozens of times, cities and towns I have visited but never given deep thought to, and the evolution of language are all present in this slim volume. I found myself surprised that I had read thirty or forty pages without realizing any passage of time. I lost myself in this book -- like exploring familiar territory for the very first time. An engaging, worthwhile, illuminating book.

Names on the Land is not just about names, it's about history
So far I'm only about 1/3 of the way through "Names on the Land," but I'm enthralled. The sub-title, "A Historical Account of Place Naming..." is right on. The book approaches it subject from a historical perspective. The reader travels with the early explorers as they encounter landmarks on their journeys, so one learns about the namers and their times, as well as about the names they left behind them. Based on my reading so far, I can strongly recommend this book.