The Fascinating Stories Behind California’s Place Names

My mom and I are both learning Spanish on Duolingo. We were talking about how many Spanish place names there are in California and how it would be interesting to learn about the origins of all the place names. It turns out my local library has a number of interesting books on the subject. I checked out two: California’s Spanish Place Names: What They Mean and the History They Reveal and California Place Names: The Origin and Etymology of Current Geographical Names. Affiliate links here and below. 

The two books are both fascinating yet very different, making them good companions for each other. California’s Spanish Place Names is essentially a detailed narrative history of California, starting with Spanish exploration in the 1500’s. It’s a book you’d read cover-to-cover (which I did). California Place Names is a reference book, with an alphabetical listing of places that includes a pronunciation guide, etymology, and interesting facts. You certainly COULD read it cover-to-cover, just the way you could read a dictionary that way. But considering that it is 467 pages long with an average of 20 entries on each page, I’m guessing most people look up specific places they’re curious about. 

If you're interested in the topic, I recommend getting your hands on one or both of these books. Here are some things I found particularly interesting: 

• Place-name scholars are called toponymists. 
• All place names can be classified in five basic groups. These include: 

1. Descriptive. Examples include: Palo Alto (tall tree), Sausalito (small willow grove), Arroyo Seco (dry creek), La Brea (tar)
2. Dramatic. These are named for memorable events or occurrences, like Calaveras (skulls), Cañada Verruga (wart valley), Oso Flaco (lean bear).
3. Commemorative. This includes `everything in California that starts with San/Santa (saint), as well as places like Martinez, Amador, Vallejo, Benicia, which are all first or last names.
4. Transported. Alhambra, Cordova, Malaga, Sonora are all place names in Spain or Mexico.
5. Contrived. These made-up places sound Spanish, but they're not. Examples include Calexico, Buena Park, Mar Vista, Asilomar, Calistoga, and Coalinga. 

• Early colonists named plenty of places using names or descriptive titles from Spanish, but they also took the existing names the indigenous population used and recorded them using the Spanish phonetic system. That's where we get place names like Tuolumne and Napa. 
• Modern developers, business owners, and government officials often use Spanish names for housing developments, motels, recreation areas, marinas, etc. even when there’s no other connection to anything Spanish. In college, I lived in an apartment complex named ‘Hacienda del Sol’ that was not a ranch nor any sunnier than surrounding apartment complexes (some of which also had Spanish names). It did not have Spanish-style architecture or anything else to justify the name other than that it sounded good. 
• Of California’s 58 counties, 32 of them have Spanish names. This includes two of the three counties in which I’ve lived. (Alameda means ‘grove of shade trees.’ Solano is much more complicated. It was named for Francisco Solano, chief of the Suisun tribe, baptized at Mission San Francisco Solano, who in turn was named for the 15th century apostle Francis Solanus). The third, Yolo, is the Spanish version of the name the native people called the area, meaning 'place abounding with rushes'. California itself is a Spanish place name, as is its capital, Sacramento. Almost all of our major cities have Spanish names. 
• The color that appears in the most place names in California is black. Second is red. Third, white. Most of the ‘Black’ place names are Mountains (over 100), Peaks, Hills, Buttes, and Canyons.They’re not actually black, of course. They appear that way because of the geologic feature, the dark chaparral, and/or atmospheric conditions. 
• Strawberry appears in more California place names than any other fruit, by far. 
• Some Spanish place names sound a lot more appealing if you don't know their translations. Examples: Atascadero (place where one gets stuck in the mud) and Manteca (Lard).

Obviously, it's not just California that has interesting place names. Literally every other state (and country) does as well. Check out this list of the most difficult to pronounce cities in each state - I bet there are some interesting stories behind each of them as well.