Erwin Gustav Gudde

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1500 California Place Names: Their Origin and Meaning

Erwin Gustav Gudde; William Bright; Erwin Gustav 1000 California Place Names Gudde

Synopsis:
This book traces the origins of place names such as California, named after the mythical black queen Califia, and the town of Peanut, named by a postmaster who was fond of this snack. From the exotic to the prosaic, from border to border, from A to Z, 1500 California Place Names explores the heritage of the Indians, explorers, missionaries, settlers, and surveyors who took part in naming the state's cities, rivers, lakes, peaks, valleys, and other geographical features. This revised, expanded handbook includes the names of the major Indian tribes of California, many of them directly or indirectly the source of place names. William Bright incorporates his own recent research and that of other linguists and local historians to give us a deeper appreciation of the tangled ancestry of many California names. Featuring phonetic pronunciations for tongue-twisting locales, this compact guide should accompany anyone who travels the highways, trails, or waterways of the Golden State.

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