Book Reviews
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Names 40.1 (March 1992) 1:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::1 Book Reviews 1001 Kansas Place Names. By Sondra Van Meter McCoy and Jan Hults. University Press of Kansas, 2501 W. 15th St., Lawrence, KS 66049- 3904. 1989. Pp.223. Cloth, $25.00; paper $9.95. On the back cover of its paperback edition the authors of this book are identified, respectively, as a "freelance historian" (whatever that is) and a Kansas University history teacher. The book itself is described as a "handy gazetteer" that gives "the stories behind many of the state's colorful and obscure place. names." If we accept the book as this alone we won't be disappointed. It is interesting, reasonably factual, and fun to read. It is clearly not (nor intended to be) the definitive study of Kansas's placenames, certainly not what the U.S. Placename Commission is expecting someday from that state. So let's take the book for what it is. Actually 1,068 of the 11,700 known Kansas placenames are included: all counties and their seats, all 629 incorporated places (according to the 1980 Census), and other names selected for their historic or geographic significance. Each entry includes the name, the county in which the place it identifies is located (but nothing more precise, so I guess readers are not expected to want to travel there), the source and explanation of the name, the dates of establishment and closing of post offices, and the population of incorporated communities (according to the 1980 Census and the 1987 Commercial Atlas). Pronun- ciations are given for several of the more "unusual" names. A brief introduction for the lay reader, who may not expect much more, presents a fairly good perspective for the naming accounts which follow. With few wasted words, the authors include a good survey history of placenaming in the state, citing observations made by several noted published Kansas onomasticians. The authors certainly 'acknowledge their awareness of and indebtedness to the more systematic investigations of Bill Koch, Karl Rosen, John Rydjord, and others from whom their sample and most of their data are derived. Maps, county histories, and other publications, including newspaper articles, and some manuscripts were also consulted. At the end of the book are a county outline map and a list by counties of the places included in the book. If this were a scholarly volume we would have assumed that data in the entries would be credited to specific sources in a bibliography at the end of the book. Some of us may miss this; I suspect most readers won't. 41 42 Book Reviews One statement in the Introduction the authors may find difficult to prove is that Washington-based postal officials occasionally named Kansas post offices for themselves or their families. While this may have hap- pened on a few isolated occasions, it was highly exceptional; more likely the extra-local influences were those of regional or district postal inspec- tors, railroad company officials, and some administrators of large out-of- state corporations. It's my understanding that this was also true elsewhere, including Kentucky. To show that we Kentuckians aren't alone in having a state name whose derivation is still in dispute, the authors imply that there is no certainty that the name Kansas is of Indian origin. While most people believe that the state was named for the tribe and the river, historian George Morehouse believed that their name is ultimately Spanish in origin and is probably derived from the verb cansar 'to harass or molest' and cansado 'troublesome fellow' and that the name has had over one hundred different spellings. Unfortunately this contention is not elaborated on and we're left to wonder on our own if there's anything to it. Kansas, like other states, probably has its share of "obscure" or unusual place names. But I can't help wondering what makes a name "obscure" or "unusual." Is it that it is rarely found in that state? Or that it is unique to that state? Or is the "unusualness" of a name a subjective thing? What some may find unusual (or odd?) others may be more familiar with. And what makes a name "colorful"? Several names listed in the Introduction-Nonchalanta, Monotony, Discord, Cosmosa, and Hourglass - are identified as "delightful." (Since, of these, only the first has been found in Kentucky, I guess they are rare too.) Since the authors bother to mention these in the Introduction, I wonder why the authors have no entries for any of them in the text. Actually the authors make a point with these names that might be .worth considering: with the closing of old post offices and the decline in the establishment of new offices to almost nothing, so many of these unusual, colorful, or delightful names have disappeared, from usage cer- tainly, and even from the memories of people now living in the areas. Thus we're delighted that a book like this, even if it isn't as scholarly as the readers of this journal would like, will help keep some of these names and the stories behind them alive a little longer while the scholars pursue their more systematic and comprehensive studies. Robert M. Rennick Prestonsburg, Kentucky ***** Names 40.1 (March 1992) Book Reviews 43 A History of British Surnames. By R.A. McKinley. Longman Group UK Ltd., Longman House, Burnt Mill, Harlow, Essex eM 20 2JF, . England. 1990. Pp. viii + 230. Paper, £7.95. Anybody interested in or aware of name studies in England immedi- ately thinks of the excellent, systematic work of the English Place-Name Society which, through its English Place-Name Survey, has in over sixty years produced an impressive set of county volumes covering well over half the country. This is a project which is, happily, still continuing, growing in the process in rigor, scope, and detail. Less well known, so far much more circumscribed but by no means less ambitious in its aims, is the Survey of English Surnames which has found a home at the University of Leicester whereas the English Place-Name Survey has for qu~te a number of years now been associated with the' University of Nottingham. R.A. McKinley, who is now semi-retired, was for twenty-two years the Director of the Survey of English Surnames and is also one of its authors. It is fortunate for us that one of the first fruits of his greater leisure is the recently published History of British Surnames, which both thematically and geographically fills an important gap in the secondary literature dealing with personal names in the British Isles. There are two facets of this book which are particularly noteworthy and welcome, apart from its authoritative treatment: one is the inclusion of all parts of the United Kingdom; the other is the strong emphasis on the significance of surnames in the study of local history. The latter fact is not surprising in view of the Surname Survey's close links with the Department of Local History at Leicester University, whereas the Place-Name Survey has tended to be governed by the majority of its authors' primary interest and training in the method and requirements of language study. As a result, McKinley's History introduces perspectives that open our eyes to aspects of name research which are not normally, or only tangentially, of concern to the linguistic historian. Etymologies, for instance, are largely taken for granted rather than explored in detail, although the book contains numerous signals warning against the pitfalls presenting themselves in the quest for surname origins. The organization of McKinley's presentation is a felicitous one insofar as it makes good use of the well-established major categories into which surnames are normally divided. An informative and thought-provoking "Introduction" and a chapter tracing "The Evolution of Hereditary Surnames" in Britain are followed by chapters on "Locative Surnames," "Topographical Surnames," "Surnames Derived from Personal Names," "Occupational Surnames," and "Surnames Derived from Nicknames." Names 40.1 (March 1992) 44 Book Reviews The volume is rounded off by chapters on "Surnames and Local History" and on "Some General Themes in the History of Surnames," as well as a section providing ''Advice on Further Reading" (in lieu of a bibliography). While there is nothing unusual about these thematic subdivisions, the terminology which is employed to distinguish the two types of surnames which have their origin in the landscape out there, identifying individuals by where they are or where they have come from, is an eyebrow-raising if not confusing one. McKinley uses the term "locative surnames" in reference to surnames which "are derived from the names of specific places," whereas, in his terminology, "topographical surnames" are those which have their source in "terms for features of the landscape, whether natural ... or man- made ... " (10). While the latter designation - "topographical surnames" - is quite apt although it has been used by some scholars as an umbrella term for both kinds of local surnames, the former - "locative surnames" - sug- gests, to the linguist at any rate, a grammatical category, specifically a case in the declension of nouns and would therefore seem to be more appropriate in an account of the syntactic properties and usage of placenames than of the classificatory system of personal names. Unambiguous placenames like London, Doncaster, Pickering, and Kendal or more commonly encountered ones like Norton, Kirby, Drayton, andAshby (to use McKinley's examples) are both indicative of a fundamental process which has often been over- looked or neglected by name scholars, i.e., the transfer of an item from one onomastic category to another - a name turning into a name, so to speak- instead of the more familiar and more frequently investigated process by which a word becomes a name.