“There is no part of the world,” said Robert Louis Stevenson, “where nomenclature is so rich, poetical, humorous and picturesque as in the United States of America.”

H. L. Mencken said the English settlers lacked imagination naming new settlements. They used names familiar at home: Plymouth Rock, Jamestown. They filled the coastline with Bostons and Cambridges.

The Dutch place names are confined around New York: Brooklyn (Breuckelen) and Hell Gate (Helle Gat), for example.

French place-names were especially corrupted: Bois Brulé became Bob Ruly; L’Eau Froid - Low Freight. Many remain still uncorrupted: Terre Haute, Boisé, Coeur d’Alene, Grand (s) Tetons (meaning large breasts).

Names mutated as the land changed hands.

The Spanish Rio de las Animas was renamed Riviere du Purgatoire by the French.

American pioneers renamed it Picketwire.

Early Spaniards named places reflecting their religion and saints: Salvador, Trinidad, San Diego and San Francisco.

Dr. Serge Lecomte graduated from Vanderbilt University with a degree in linguistics. He taught Russian and Spanish at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He has lived in the Homer area since 1999 and writes plays and novels for fun.