Place Names
Like words meaning "church" in other languages, kirk is found as an element in many place names in Scotland and northern England, and in countries with large Scottish expatriate communities. Examples include Falkirk, Kirkwall or numerous Kirkhills in Scotland, Kirkstall in England and Newkirk, Oklahoma in the United States. What may be slightly surprising is that this element is found not only in place names of Anglo-Saxon origin, but also in some Southern Scottish names of Gaelic origin such as Kirkcudbright (where the second element is the Gaelic form of "Cuthbert"). Here, the Gaelic element cil- (church, monk's cell) might be expected. The reason appears to be that kirk was borrowed into Galwegian Gaelic, though it was never part of standard Scottish Gaelic.
When the element appears in placenames in the former British empire, a distinction can be made between those where the element is productive (the place is named because of the presence of a church) and those where it is merely transferred (the place is named after a place in Scotland). Kirkland, Washington is an exception, being named after a person.
The element kirk is also used in anglicisations of continental European place names originally formed from one of the continental Germanic cognates. Thus Dunkirk (France) is a rendering of an original Dutch form, Duinkerke (West Flemish Duunkerke, French Dunkerque).
Read more about this topic: Kirk
Other articles related to "place names, name, names, place name":
... It showed historical capitals of Chinese dynasties in addition to contemporary place names ... the Ming period book collector Ye Sheng (葉盛) (1420–1474) under the name of Guanglun Jiangli Tu (廣輪疆理圖) ... The extant map was modified, probably by Yan Jie, to catch up with contemporary Ming place names ...
... by the Council of Orthography and Transcription of Geographical Names in Sofia in 1972 and subsequently by the UN in 1977 ... The second system was a French-oriented transliteration of personal and place names in the documents issued by the Bulgarian Ministry of Interior for travel abroad, used until 1999 ... One such system was proposed in Danchev et al.'s English Dictionary of Bulgarian Names of 1989 ...
... Some Tamil place names have been retained in these districts ... District has the highest percentage of place names of Tamil origin in Sri Lanka ... Composite or hybrid place names are also present in these districts ...
... Scottish place names in Australia Scottish place names in Canada Scottish place names in New Zealand ...
... Place names in Louisiana French usually differ from those in International French ... usually use the plural article (les) before the name, instead of the masculine or feminine singular article (le/la) ... movement towards those locations necessitates the plural – aux – before the place name ...
Famous quotes containing the words names and/or place:
“Shut out that stealing moon,
She wears too much the guise she wore
Before our lutes were strewn
With years-deep dust, and names we read
On a white stone were hewn.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
“It has come to be practically a sort of rule in literature, that a man, having once shown himself capable of original writing, is entitled thenceforth to steal from the writings of others at discretion. Thought is the property of him who can entertain it; and of him who can adequately place it. A certain awkwardness marks the use of borrowed thoughts; but, as soon as we have learned what to do with them, they become our own.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)