What’s in a Name?: Mapping the Development of the United States Through Eponyms, Toponyms, and More

Benjamin Maltz, Columbia University

The United States is home to nearly 200,000 municipalities. Institutions have catalogued their names and scholars have written about their etymologies, both understanding that toponyms can provide valuable insight into local, regional, and national histories. However, place names are only ever studied as products of specific groups (i.e. the Dutch) or individuals (i.e. founders). This paper prioritizes place names over people, advancing an alternate method for studying historical American settlement trajectories. It asks: Instead of first tracing settlers’ movements and then examining the names they chose to use, what if the names themselves were tracked at the outset? By mapping seven representative toponyms (selected from a government database) through time and space and engaging in GIS analysis utilizing historical Census, Post Office, railroad, and USGS datasets, well-known patterns of influence and development like suburbanization and westward expansion are viewed anew.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 240. Settlement and Places