List of tautological place names

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A place name is tautological if two parts of it are synonymous. This often occurs when a name from one language is imported into another and a standard descriptor is added on from the second language. Thus, for example, New Zealand's Mount Maunganui, where maunga is Māori for mountain. The following list is of place names often used tautologically, plus the languages from which the non-English name elements have originally come.

Since there are sometimes many similar names in one area in many cases where two languages are in common use, this should be noted with one exemplar case.

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Contents

[edit] Rivers

[edit] Lakes and other bodies of water

  • Dal Lake, Kashmir (Lake Lake - Balti)
  • Gaube Lake, Hautes-Pyrénées (Lake Lake - French and Gascon)
  • Hayle Estuary, Cornwall (Estuary Estuary - Cornish Heyl "estuary")
  • Jaurajärvi and Jaurakkajärvi, Finland (Lake Lake - Sami javri "lake", Finnish järvi "lake")
  • Lagos Lagoon, Nigeria - 'lagos' is Portuguese for 'lakes', and 'lagoon' derives from Latin 'lacus' "lake, pond"
  • Laguna de Bay, Philippines - also referred to as Laguna Lake (Lake Lake - Spanish)
  • Laguna Lake, California (Lake Lake - Spanish)
  • Lake Chad, Chad (Lake lake - Bornu word tsade: "lake")
  • Lake Ellesmere, New Zealand (Ella's lake lake - Old Norse. Several English lakes, such as Windermere, are often incorrectly referred to using the incorrect "Lake -mere" form, but New Zealand's has this form as its official name)
  • Lake Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan (Lake Hot Lake - Kyrgyz)
  • Lake Lagunita, Stanford, California (Lake Little Lake - Spanish)
  • Lake Nyassa (now called Lake Malawi), Malawi/Mozambique (Lake Lake - Yao)
  • Lake Rotorua, New Zealand (Lake Lake Second - Māori. Many other New Zealand lakes have the tautological "Lake Roto-" form)
  • Lake Tahoe, Nevada/California (Lake the lake - Washo Native American Tribal language)
  • Lakeville Lake, Michigan, USA - The village is Lakeville, the adjacent lake is Lakeville Lake.
  • Loch Loch, Scotland. Not to be confused with Loch Lochy.
  • Loch Lomond Lake, near Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada.
  • Loch Watten, Scotland, from Gaelic loch, plus Norse vatn
  • Loughrigg Tarn, from Gaelic loch, plus Norse "ridge", and "tarn" meaning a body of water
  • Mille Lacs Lake, Minnesota, USA (Thousand Lakes Lake - French)
  • Østensjøvann is a Norwegian lake name that concatenates sjø ("lake that is not as narrow as a fjord") and vann ("lake"). Similarly Møsvann in Telemark, Norway combines mjøsa meaning lake with vann meaning lake.
  • Tal-y-Llyn lake, Wales (End-of the-lake lake - llyn is Welsh for lake)
  • Vatnshlíðarvatn, Iceland (Lake-slope-lake - The farm Vatnshlíð (Lake-slope) named after the lake, which in turn is named after the farm.)
  • Vatnvatnet, Norway (Lakelake - Norwegian), a lake near Bodø
  • Wast Water, England - 'water's valley water' from Old Norse "vatns dalr" (= Wasdale) and Old English "wæter"

[edit] Mountains and hills

[edit] Islands

[edit] Other

  • Ardtornish Point, Scotland (High/Heights Tor Point Point) - "Aird" from Gaelic, "Nish" from the Norse Ness and Point from English - all referring to some form of cape, point or headland).
  • Barna Gap, Ireland - (Gap Gap - Barna is the Gaelic word for a mountain gap)
  • Beechhurst Holt Wood, England (beech wood wood wood - Anglo-Saxon)
  • Beqaa Valley - biqāʻa, plural of buqʻaht, is Arabic for 'plain' (another "Valley Valley")
  • Carmarthen, Wales (Welsh : Caerfyddin) - (Fort fort by the sea - "Caer"/"Car" = Welsh for fort (from Latin castra), "marthen"/"m(f)yrddin" is Welsh name derived from Latin Moridunum, which itself derived from Brythonic "môr" (sea) and "din"/"dun" (fort))[2]
  • Cartagena, Spain - (New New City - from Latin Carthago Nova, 'New Carthage'; but Carthago itself is from Phoenician Qart-ḥadašt, 'New City')
  • Châteaudun, France (Castle Stronghold - French and Gaulish)
  • Col de Port, Ariège, France (Pass Pass - French and Occitan)
  • Côtes-d'Armor, Brittany, France (Coast of Coast - French and Breton)
  • Eas Fors Waterfall on the Isle of Mull in Scotland (waterfall waterfall waterfall)
  • East Timor, (East east - from the Malay word timur)
  • El Camino Way in Palo Alto, California (The way way - Spanish)
  • El Puente de Alcántara, Toledo, Spain, (The Bridge of the Bridge - Puente from Spanish, Alcántara from Arabic al-qanṭaraht 'the bridge')
  • Forumtorget in Uppsala, Sweden. Forum being the Latin word for square and torget also meaning square. Thus, Square-square.
  • Glendale - Anglicisation of the Gaelic Gleann Dail. Gleann simply means "valley", and dail is a borrowing from the Norse for "valley", which in Gaelic specifically means a valley containing fertile arable land, or any low-lying farmland. The anglicised form appears more tautological as the word dale in English is used to describe any valley.
  • Gobi Desert, central Asia (Very large and dry desert, Gobi means 'very large and dry' in Mongolian)
  • Jiayuguan Pass - (Jiayu Pass Pass - Mandarin Chinese)
  • The La Brea Tar Pits, California (The The Tar Tar Pits - Spanish)
  • Lee Mead - (Meadow Meadow)
  • Milky Way Galaxy (Milky Way milky way — Greek; for this reason some scientists, such as the late Isaac Asimov, have argued that the Milky Way should be renamed the "Home Galaxy" or some such.)
  • Minnehaha Falls, Minnesota (Waterfall Falls - Lakota)
  • Nathu La Pass, Indo-China border, (Listening Ears Pass Pass- Tibetan)
  • Nesoddtangen, Norway - (The Cape cape cape, Norwegian, from nes (promontory or cape), odde (promontory or cape) and tange (promontory or cape))
  • Nyanza Lac, Burundi - ("Nyanza" and "Lac" are the Bantu and French words for "lake" respectively. Interestingly, Nyanza Lac is not a lake - it's a city)
  • Sahara desert, Africa (Deserts desert - Arabic)
  • Sharm Old Harbour (a common English name for the old harbour at Sharm el Sheikh) (harbour old harbour - Arabic)
  • Skarðsskarð, Iceland (Pass's Pass: A mountain pass named after a farm which in turn is named after tha pass to begin with.)
  • Staðarstaður, Iceland (Staður means "a pastor's farm" and is a common suffix to the names of such farms -- this means "Pastors farm which is a pastor's farm")
  • Timor-Leste, East Timor, (East East - Indonesian/Malay, Portuguese) - Note: this is the eastern half of an island that is the easternmost major island in its chain.
  • Trendle Ring earthwork in Somerset, England (Circle Circle)
  • Val d'Aran, Spain (Valley Valley - Gascon and Euskara (Basque))
  • Vista View Elementary School, Minnesota (View View Elementary School - Spanish)


[edit] References

  1. ^ Victor Wadds, ed., The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place Names, 2004, s.n. River AVON
  2. ^ Hywel Wyn Jones, The Place-Names of Wales, 1998

[edit] See also

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tautological_place_names"
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