Exist geographical names, which we use in everyday life in a different meaning. There are many such words that came into our language from maps and geography textbooks. Let's look at the most interesting of them.
The name of alabaster, which is a valuable building material, comes from the name of the city of Basra in Iraq. Translated from Arabic, the word “al-basra” means “soft” and is associated with the characteristics of the local soil. The word “kaolin” is associated with the Kaolian area in China, where white clay was first mined for the purpose of making porcelain. The name of the city of Faenza in Italy is associated with the word “faience”. The rock is intended as a facing material during the construction process and during the construction of monuments. The rock is called labradorite from the name of the peninsula of the same name in North America.
If we turn to the periodic table of chemical elements D.I. Mendeleev, then you can see a large number of names that attest to certain parts of the world, for example, americium, europium, and certain countries, gallium ( ancient name France), ruthenium, translated from Latin meaning Russia, francium, polonium, meaning Poland. The element lutetium (from the Latin “lutetia”) is named in honor of Paris, and the element magnesium is named in honor of the Greek city of Magnesium. Chemical elements such as californium and scandium also indicate the geographical name of the same name.
The names of the four chemical elements - ytterbium, yttrium, erbium and terbium - come from the small town of Ytterby, which is located on the Swedish island of Roslagen. In 1787, in the vicinity of this city, an unusual heavy mineral containing these rare earth elements was found. The town of Ytterby became famous thanks to this miracle of nature.
An example of a chemical named after a city is veronal (from the Italian city of Verona); cologne, which means "water from Cologne". In 1972, cologne was first produced in Cologne. Cologne today is the largest industrial center in Germany, where various kinds of machine tools, cars, television and radio equipment are produced. However, Cologne is known throughout the world for “Cologne water.”
The name of the valuable topaz stone comes from the island of the same name in the Red Sea.
What about the names of the fabrics? Not everyone knows that the name tulle fabric comes from the French city where it was first made. In the state of northwestern India, the name of fine woolen fabric - cashmere - was born, from the name of the state of Kashmir. Madepolam fabric is also of Indian origin. It got its name from a small town of the same name.
A city in Scotland is Cheviot, the name of the ridge in the Pennine Mountains of Great Britain duplicates Covercott. Jersey fabric owes its name to the English island of Jersey from the group of Channel Islands near France. The city of the same name in the USA is the birthplace of Boston wool fabric. The name Waltz-Boston comes from here. Translated from French, the name of the silk fabric crepe de Chine means “Chinese crepe.” Crepe Moroccan means “Moroccan crepe”. In the 60-60s. In the Italian city of Bologna, raincoats made of synthetic material, which received the same name, first appeared. The name of the breed of indoor dogs has the same origin. In the old spelling, the capital of Turkey sounds like Angora, hence the origin of Angora cats.
From the name of the city of Bruges, in a slightly modified pronunciation, came the word trousers. In this city, a special “Bruggish” fabric was produced for sewing trousers. The city of Bruges itself comes from the ancient Norwegian language of the Normans and is translated as bridge (“brygia”).
The origin of the word jeans also has a connection with geography. The appearance of the first jeans dates back to the 50s. last century, and San Francisco (USA) is their homeland. Jeans in those days were made only for laborers. The material was tarpaulin. The country that supplied the fabric for sewing was the Italian city of Genoa. The names were somewhat distorted by the Americans, so the end result was the emergence of the word jeans.
From the name of the city of Fez, which is located in Morocco, the name of the men's fez hat was formed, made of red felt in the shape of a truncated cone with a tassel, until recently common in the countries of North America and the Middle East. The name of a hat with a feather - Tyrolean - comes from the Austrian province of Tyrol.
Geographical sound is also inherent in a large number of food products. In the city of Mayon on the island of Menorca, part of the Spanish Balearic Islands, mayonnaise, widely known today, was made for the first time.
The name of the ice cream variety - ice cream - was derived from the French city of Plombieres. The name Torto, which flows on the island of Sicily, is derived from the river Torto.
The same name French city Roquefort cheese owes its name. The names of such cheeses as Dutch, Poshekhonsky, Uglich, Kostroma, Swiss have a similar origin. And also sausages: Hamburg, Odessa, Krakow, Lviv, Moscow, Odessa, Minsk, etc.
Buckwheat came from Greece, and peach came from Persia. Orange means “Chinese apple”.
In the names of refrigerator brands, mineral waters, motorcycles, televisions, cars, there are also a large number of geographical names. For example, the horse-drawn carriage of a landau got its name from the Bavarian city of Landau. It was there that it was first made.
To this day, the name landau has come down to the name of the body of a passenger car with a convertible top. The closed body of a high-class passenger car received its name from the historical French province of Limousin.
From a geographical point of view, the name US dollar will also be interesting. The name of this monetary unit is not of American origin and is not at all associated with the English language. In the small German town of Joachimsthal (present-day Czech Republic), they minted a large silver coin called the Joachimsthaler. The name was later shortened to "thaler", which later became "dollar" in English pronunciation. The village of Dollar is located in Great Britain.
For the most part, place names have a meaning that corresponds to them.
But there are a large number of them that appeared on the geographical map by accident and were the result of errors and misunderstandings.
In fact, there are a huge number of such unusual and funny names throughout Russia. Who comes up with them, I wonder?
I present to your attention some of them.
In the city of Myshkin, everything is truly imbued with the mouse spirit. Not in terms of smell, no. The mouse is everywhere present as a symbol. Firstly, the city itself is quite mouse-sized: 6 thousand people live in it. Secondly, there is a wonderful Mouse Museum here. And thirdly, the city, like a mouse, hid from the present and quietly exists somewhere between Uglich and Rybinsk. There is a city called Koshki, it is located in the Samara region.
A village with the exotic name Polovinka (located in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, 30 km from UrAI).
I suggest you visit the village of Chuvaki, in the Perm region. It’s a bit far, of course, but what a name.
Somewhere in the water basin of the Lukhovitsky district flows a river with the breathtaking name Voblya. And the old embassy road from the time of Boris Godunov ran along the banks of the Potudan and Ublya rivers. The names have been preserved to this day.
More recently, residents of the village of Lokhovo, Cheremkhovo district, Irkutsk region, decided to change the name of their settlement. The villagers even held a competition for a new geographical name. But in vain! In fact, “sucker” is the name of a shrub with strong-smelling flowers and edible berries, and ichthyologists use the term “sucker” to refer to salmon during the period after spawning. In Vladimir Dahl’s explanatory dictionary there is a word close to the current jargon, but only in the feminine gender - “lokha” in the old days was the name for a stupid woman.
Do not snooze. The name of this place near the city of Artemovsky Sverdlovsk region, they say, appeared after 1914, when a railway line was built there. There were no buildings, and therefore the train slowed down slightly there. Future passengers had to jump onto the train literally on the move when the driver shouted: “DON’T YAWN!”
In the Sverdlovsk region there is a settlement called Gazeta. Nobody remembers where the name came from.
The village of Rassol got its name not from the famous drink, but from the Rassolka river. The river was named in connection with the steel industry that existed here in the old days.
The village of Kosyakovka, Sterlitamak district, Bashkiria.
Bolshaya Pyssa is a settlement in the Komi-Udora region. Of course, there is also Malaya Pysa nearby. And you would be in vain to refuse to live here! This is where the unique holiday “Chechchalan Lun” is celebrated. On Annunciation, they place chocks near the walls of houses, put boards on them and jump for a whole week. Children, youth and unmarried women participate in this action. They compete to see who can jump the highest and not fall off the board. The higher you jump, the longer and happier your life will be.
For travelers, the key role is most often played by the vacation spot, its characteristics and features, rather than the name. In this case, the principle “it’s not the name that makes the place beautiful, but the place that makes the name” applies, and in connection with this we often fall in love with the names of those cities in which we had the best time. Beautiful city names are most often found in Europe; they are pleasant and melodious to our ears. But many Russians also fall into this category. settlements, the names of which sound charming in our native language.
Romanesque museum cities
It is believed that the most beautiful names of cities in the world are concentrated in historical region, in the Mediterranean. It is noteworthy that this region is located between two parts of the world - Europe and Asia, and all the settlements that have ever been here or still exist here have very beautiful names. Many cities of the former Roman Empire have survived to this day. Among them are Rome, Florence, Venice. Along with them, we can highlight very beautiful names of regions: Liguria, Tuscany, Sicily. A delight for the ears, don't you agree?
Italy's neighbor, Greece, also has beautiful names of cities that are located on its territory. These are Athens, Kallithea, Heraklion. It is noteworthy that, in addition to the most beautiful names, these settlements managed to preserve architectural monuments of stunning beauty on their territories. You can admire them forever, and gradually they will become synonymous with the names of cities.
Ancient East - sophistication and beauty
It’s surprising that beautiful names were much more sweet in the Middle East. Firstly, it is the center of the birth of the Akkadian civilization. Several centuries later, it was replaced by the majestic Nineveh. In the south of the same Mesopotamia was located the king of all powers of that time - Babylon with its famous tower, which has not yet been excavated from the golden sands. On the territory of Egypt, two megacities with beautiful names can be distinguished - Memphis and Alexandria. In present-day Turkey, which once bore the names of Anatolia and Cappadocia (also very attractive names to the ear), there was legendary city Troy, famous for its history with the wooden horse.
Well, Syria has such beautiful city names as Damascus, Alalakh, Amarna and others. It is noteworthy that most of the above names have survived to this day. An exception can be considered Memphis, which changed its name to the no less beautiful one - Cairo.
Spain is a modern storehouse of uniqueness
The country, located in the southwest of the European continent, is famous for having beautiful city names. We will not list them, but will only go through the most famous ones, which are unique not only for their sound, but also for their architecture.
It’s probably worth starting your trip to Spain from Catalonia, where the metropolis of Barcelona is located. This name has been thundering throughout the world for many centuries and appears either in the creative sphere of life, or in sports, or in tourism.
Below is Valencia, and regions stretch even closer to the south. Among the cities of this country, one can distinguish a complex but very beautiful name - La Manga del Mar Menor. It is important to note that Spanish colonization caused the spread of this culture to more vast territories. Thus, beautiful city names that are pronounced and written in this language can be found in Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and many other countries.
Distant and mysterious North
The names of Scandinavian settlements are also recognized as the most beautiful. It is important to note that Romano-Germanic and Finno-Ugric peoples coexist on this peninsula, so the names of local geographical units are fundamentally different. The city of Stockholm is filled with severity and grandeur. Along with it are Östersund, Malmö, Skellefteå and Sundsvall. Finland is famous for the famous cities of Helsinki, Viitasaari, Tornio, Rovaniemi and Nilsiä. The most important thing is that in many settlements of these cold countries, even in the smallest ones, the primitive traditions and culture of these peoples have been preserved, which gives them even more charm and charm.
Surprise of the new century - South Africa and its assets
Who would have thought that in the vastness of southern point The African continent will grow into real urban jungles that will bear beautiful names. Among the cities that are more reminiscent of America with their panoramas, we highlight Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria, Port Elizabeth and East London. These settlements owe these unique names to the synthesis of local dialects and the English language, which appeared here after British colonization.
Russia and its uniqueness
For our compatriots, the most beautiful are the names of Russian cities and mainly the native one, which is unique and individual in every letter.
St. Petersburg is an ancient and incredibly beautiful city.
Remote megacities also have beautiful names: Vladivostok, Yekaterinburg, Astrakhan, Arkhangelsk, Kaliningrad. We can say with complete confidence that in Russia there are many more places, regions and cities with beautiful names, but it is simply impossible to list them in one article.
Great pleasure is experienced by people who travel on own car. They receive vivid impressions not only from contemplating the beauty of the surrounding area, but also from the names of settlements, rivers, and lakes.
If you plan to drive your car a significant distance, then take a pen and notepad with you to write down the names of cities, towns, villages and rivers you encounter along the way. In the future, you will not only be guaranteed victory in the game “Cities,” but you will also be able to amuse your friends and family with funny and unusual place names.
To start with, I would like to offer you the following: interesting names real geographical objects:
- Cocaine Mountains - a river in the Perm region;
- Lysaya Balda is a river in the Ukrainian village of Zaryanoye;
- Dno is the name of a city not far from Pskov;
- The Hare Bubble is a river in the Kemerovo region;
- IN Ulyanovsk region- village of Musorka;
- Krasnaya Mogila is a village in Donetsk region;
- Chuvaki - a village in the Perm region;
- Tukhlyanka - a river on Sakhalin;
- Bolshiye Pupsy is a village in the Tver region;
- Machekhin Konets is a village in the Tver region;
- Krutiye Khutora is a village in the Lipetsk region;
- Tsatsa is a village in the Volgograd region;
- The village of Kurilovka in the Saratov region;
- Yes, yes - a village in the Khabarovsk Territory;
- This is a village on Sakhalin Island;
- Kuyoknulo is a village in the Tver region.
If you are traveling to Omsk, then you will meet on your way:
the rivers Bernyazhka, Nyukhalovka, Byzovka, Ingaly, Avlukha;
the villages of Pochekuevo, Shchuevoz, Takmyk, Kurnosovo, Bolshiye Murly, Chebakly, Uvalnaya Bitiya and others.
These are some interesting geographical names! Each such name, of course, has its own origin story. What seems funny to us now had a completely different meaning in ancient times. You can ask around local residents where did the name of their village or village or river come from. Old people will tell you a lot of interesting things, however, there are fewer and fewer of them every day.
It’s a pity that our history flows like a river into oblivion.
It's a pity that we are ready to laugh at unusual name, without inquiring about the history of its origin.
Fortunately, there are enthusiasts who collect bits and pieces of this information and save it. After all, a people who does not know their history, their roots, is weak and vulnerable. Esotericists, clairvoyants and healers say that strength is given to living people by their ancestors, the so-called family tree or family egregor.
Don't forget to take a notepad and pen with you when traveling!
And perhaps only people with a good sense of humor can live in the city of Swastika or in the city of the Kingdom of Satan. And it should be noted that these are not the strangest names out there.
1. Swastika
Swastika city in Ontario, Canada.
Swastika town in Ontario, Canada - pretty strange place. In fact, this is not a Nazi haven at all - the city was founded almost 30 years before Adolf Hitler began using the swastika. The name of the city was chosen in honor of the ancient Indian sign of prosperity and fertility.
2. Kingdom of Satan
Two cities in the United States (in the states of Vermont and Massachusetts) are called the Kingdom of Satan.
What's funny and strange is that there are cities and geographical places, named after hell. For example, two cities in the United States (in the states of Vermont and Massachusetts) are called the Kingdom of Satan.
3. Peniston
Penistone town in Yorkshire, England.
The name of the town of Peniston in Yorkshire, England, probably derives from older forms of Welsh and English languages. The name originally meant "Hilltop Village". Today, everyone is giggling at him.
4. Nothing
The village of Nothing in Arizona, USA.
The previously populated (although very few people lived in it) village of Nothing in Arizona, was completely abandoned in 2005. The sign at the entrance to the city reads: “The dedicated citizens of Nothing are full of hope and faith in the necessity of work. For many years these people believed in Nothing, hoped for Nothing and worked in Nothing."
5. North Pole
The North Pole city is located in the states of Alaska and New York, USA.
There are cities named North Pole in the states of Alaska and New York. New York's North Pole has theme park with live reindeer and Santa Claus.
6. Nameless
Town in Colorado, USA.
Nameless is a small town in Colorado, which got its name when a highway was planned to be built in this place with a turn to a city that does not yet exist. During the construction of the road, a temporary sign with the inscription “Unnamed” was installed at the bend. As a result, the name stuck.
7. Moon
The town of Luna is located northwest of Pittsburgh.
Northwest of Pittsburgh there is a town called Luna, which was probably so named because it is located in a crescent-shaped bend of the river.
8. Mars
City of Mars in Pennsylvania, USA.
Tourists have recently often visited the city of Mars in Pennsylvania. Not only is there a non-working former spaceship installed in the city, but you can also say that you visited the Martians (that’s what the locals are called).
9. George Washington
George Washington is the only city named by its full name.
George Washington is the only city in the United States that bears the full name of its founding father.
10. Ganja
City in Azerbaijan.
The city with the most Rastafarian name can be found in Azerbaijan. Moreover, this is not even a village that was named as a joke, but the second largest city in the country.
11. Chinatown
Chinatown is a city in Wisconsin, USA.
Chinatowns or Chinatowns exist in major cities all over the world, but in Wisconsin there is the whole city, which bears a similar name.
12. Batman
The city of Batman in the province of Batman on the banks of the Batman River, Türkiye.
Everyone knows the famous comic book hero, but few people know that in Turkey, in the province of Batman, on the banks of the Batman River (a tributary of the Tigris River) there is a city called Batman. The main local attractions are oil refineries and a large military air base.
13. Bastardtown
Bastardtown in County Wexford, Ireland.
Bastardtown in County Wexford, despite its name, is a picturesque Irish seaside village.
14. Å
Å is a village in the very north of Norway.
The settlement with such a laconic name is a beautiful seaside village in the very north of Norway. Six other Norwegian towns, a Swedish and a Danish town also have a similar name.
15. Accident
The town of Accident in Western Maryland, USA.
Interestingly, the town of Casualty was built in the 1770s in Western Maryland by accident. Two surveyors marked out the ground, randomly choosing the same oak tree as a reference point. It was on that spot that the city was founded.
