Placenames - Some Background

Mission: Learn Honolulu's placenames

• topographic features
  • peaks, ridges and valleys
  • streams
  • beaches, heads, points
  • canals, channels, ditches etc
• neighboorhoods and districts
• major streets

Why study placenames?

• practical communication of where
• understanding the character of places
• understanding the culture of namers/inhabitants
• insight into politics and history (statements of ownership or identity)

Three dollar words:

Onomastics

The science or study of the origins and forms of words esp. as used in a specialized field. The science or study of the origin and forms of proper names of persons or places. (-Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, 1973)

Perhaps this leads one to: Onomatomania - an uncontrollable obsession with words or names or their meanings or sounds, especially a mania for repeating certain words or sounds.

Toponymy or Toponomy...

1. (... you see both).
2. The place names of a region or language or esp. etymological study of them.
3. The nomenclature of regional anatomy.

bowdlerize

1. To remove or modify the parts (of a book, for example) considered offensive.
2. To modify, as by sortening, simplifying, or distorting in style or content.

... after Thomas Bowdler (English physician, 1754-1825) who "cleaned-up" Shakespeare.

Functions/types of placenames:

See studies by Wilbur Zelinsky, Irene Vasiliev, George Stewart, Renee Lewis and others. They have offered several typologies of placenames, but usually come up with a list about like this:

• Descriptive - due to some distinguishing characteristic
• Association - related to description by association
• Possessive - marking ownership by a person or group
• Incident - something that happened there
• Commemorative - to honor a person or abstarct value
• Commendatory - projecting an image
• Manufactured - made up, perhaps of parts of other names
• Transfer - name moved to a new location from an old one
• Folk-etymology - shaped by changes in language and linguistic reshaping
• Mistake - blunder in rendering or conveying name

NB and NBB

NB: orthography compounds difficulty. My appologies that my wp does not do diacritcals well (yet).

NBB: cultural and linguistic context can also increase the difficulty of understanding placenames. (e.g., missed dipthongs)

E.g.s:

• Wai‘anae (mullet water)
• Ko‘olau (windward)
• iheiheilauakea v. ‘ihi‘ihilauākea
• Kai-muki v. Ka-imu-ki v. Ka-imu-kī
• Hawaii Kai

Some basic Hawaiian words used in placenames:

Land Form & Geographic Feature Terms

wai - stream, river, pond, fresh water
pu`u - hill, mound, 
moku - district, island
lua - pit, crater, hole
lae - cape, point, forehead
mauna - mountain
pali - cliff
ana - cave
one - sand, beach
papa - flats
puna - spring
ahu- heap
awa - bay
kipuka - green area surrounded by lava
loko - pond, lake
mana - branch, fork
lapa - ridge

Other Things in Nature

lani - sky, royal chief
pohaku - stone
kai - sea, seaward
la - sun, day
ua - rain
po - night, dark
kaha - place
ahi - fire
malu - shade, shadow
au - current
ao - clouds
lau - leaf
koko - blood

Quantity

kahi - one
lua - two
kolu - three
hā - four
lima - five
... etc ...
lau - 400 (many)
mano - 4,000 (a great many)
kini - 40,000 (a great great many)
lehu - 400,000 (a great great great many)

Size

loa - long
nui - large, big, great
iki - small

Color

`ula - red
kea - white
`oma`o - green

Some Maps with placenames

here

Some Placename Stories (mo`olelo)

Data & Information Sources:

1. GNIS - USGS (all capitals, no diacritical marks)
2. Place Names of Hawaii by Pukui, Elbert, and Mookini
3. Sites on Oahu, Sterling and Summers