California Place Names: The Origin and Etymology of Current Geographical Names - Softcover

Gudde, Erwin G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520242173 ISBN 13: 9780520242173

Publisher: University of California Press, 2004

Synopsis

Absco, a Southern Pacific station, was coined in the 1920s from the name of the American Beet Sugar Company, which had a factory in Oxnard.

Pochea is an Indian village site in Riverside County, said to mean "where the rabbit went in."

Siskiyou was the Chinook word for 'bobtailed horse,' originally taken over from the Cree language. From Abadi Creek to Zzyzyx Spring, thousands of discoveries await the reader of California Place Names. This is the fourth edition, extensively revised and expanded, of a classic work of Californiana. The curious traveler or resident, as well as the serious student, will find a wealth of description and history in these names, as rich and various as the California landscape itself.

Like its predecessors, this edition concentrates on the origins of the names currently used for the cities, towns, settlements, mountains, and streams of California, with engrossing accounts of the history of their usage. It has been updated to incorporate the latest research on California place names published by regional historians and to include new names that have been added to the California map since 1969. Readers will appreciate the local pronunciation of place names with unusual spellings; anyone curious about how to say La Jolla or Weitchpec can find the information here, in phonetic transcriptions. Finally, the many California place names of American Indian origin—such as Yreka, Shasta, Napa, Sonoma, Tamalpais, Yosemite, Lompoc, Mugu, Coachella, or Poway—receive particular attention from editor William Bright. The dictionary includes a Glossary and a Bibliography.

About this title

About the Author:

Erwin G. Gudde, at his death in 1969, was an emeritus member of the University of California faculty. William Bright is Professor Adjoint in Linguistics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and author of numerous books including A Coyote Reader (California, 1993). He supplied a new foreword plus maps and itinerary for the Fourth Edition of Up and Down in California in 1860-1864: The Journal of William H. Brewer (California, 2003).

Review:

"Western history buffs will enjoy this sizable guide to California place-names. . . . An up-to-date, authoritative, and interesting book."--"The Bloomsbury Review"

About this edition

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0520242173
• ISBN 13: 9780520242173
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 4
• Number of pages: 495
• Editor: Bright William