Exonyms: Shape-Shifting Place Names

“Munich” is the English exonym for the city that Germans call München. An exonym is a name used in a specific language for a geographical feature situated outside the area where that language is spoken, and differing from the original name (toponym). Another example is “Austria” for Österreich, or “Bavaria” for Bayern.

Not all place names change that dramatically. Many cities in German-speaking Europe keep their original German form in English: Augsburg, Berlin, Frankfurt, Graz, Hamburg, Innsbruck, Regensburg, Stuttgart, and Trier are examples. Others may only lose an umlaut (Zurich, Dusseldorf) or a single letter (Hanover/Hannover; Hessen/Hesse) in English. The Mecklenburg region of Germany keeps that spelling in English, as seen in Mecklenburg County in North Carolina and Virginia, both counties named after Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the German wife of British King George III. (The German name Mecklenburg is Low German for “large castle.”) Queen Charlotte also gave her name to the city of Charlotte, North Carolina (the “Queen City”).

Antiquated Forms of City Names
Time also plays a role in English exonyms for German places. The English terms for some German cities have changed over the centuries. This can be seen in historical documents or in English place names for towns in North America that are named for German cities or regions. When Thomas Jefferson traveled through the Rhineland region from the Netherlands to Strasbourg in 1788, he wrote the names of the towns he visited in his journal, more or less following the traditional spellings of the 18th century. The Francophone Jefferson wrote “Francfort” for Frankfurt, but he wasn’t consistent, reflecting the haphazard spelling of the 18th century. He also spelled Strasbourg “Strasburg,” which is neither the German, English, nor French way to spell that city’s name today (but is the name of a small town of 5,600 residents in the Uckermark region of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern/Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania).

In the past, the English name for Frankfurt has been Francfort, Frankford, and Frankfort. French forms of some German places are still used in English: Cologne for the city known as Köln in German (Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium in Latin), and Alsace for the region called Elsaß in German. An older form of Leipzig in English was “Leipsic,” still seen for communities in two US states that were named in the 1850s – the small town of Leipsic, Ohio (pop. 2,022) and the village of Leipsic on the banks of the Leipsic River in Delaware.

“Germany” in Other Languages
But of course English is not the only language that alters Germanic toponyms. “Germany” is the English exonym for Deutschland, but in other languages Germany is known as Alemania (Spanish), Kelemania (Hawaiian), Allemagne (French), Saksa (Finnish), Germania (Italian, but Tedesco for German), Tyskland (Danish, Norwegian, Swedish), Germania (Latin, Romanian), Alemanha (Portuguese), Almanya (Turkish), and Niemcy (Polish).

The famous European river known as the (blue) Danube in English, is die (blaue) Donau in German. The Rhine comes from der Rhein. (In German, rivers are either feminine [die] or masculine [der], most of those outside of Germany are masculine, but not all: der Amazonas, der Mississippi.) The French call the Rhine le Rhin, while in Spanish it’s el Rin, Italian il Reno, Dutch de Rhijn, Portuguese o Reno (all masculine).

Beijing vs Peking
Have you ever noticed that the Anglophone world calls China’s capital city “Beijing,” while the Germanophone world still uses “Peking.” This happens despite the fact that the Chinese government prefers the newer Pinyin Romanized form “Beijing” for the Mandarin 北京 (literally “northern capital”; the single Chinese character abbreviation for Beijing is 京, which appears on automobile license plates in the city.) But the German media stubbornly cling to the older “Peking” exonym, despite the newer Pinyin term Beijing becoming the international standard in 1982 (ISO) and 1986 (United Nations). The New York Times adopted “Beijing” in 1986, with all major US media not far behind. Elsewhere in the Anglophone world, the BBC switched in 1990. The Times of London was a holdout that didn’t show the white flag until 1997, when it finally dropped “Peking” – after the Chinese government specifically threatened Times correspondents in China with consequences.

But in Deutschland “Peking” is still in use by the German press to this day. China has not reacted in the same way it did with the British. Not even the German Foreign Office (Auswärtiges Amt) website in German uses the Pinyin “Beijing” or any other Chinese city! Even the German Embassy in Beijing still uses Peking! The same is true for many other European languages, including Italian (Pechino), French (Pékin), Portuguese (Pequim), and Spanish (Pekín). Besides German, Dutch, Hungarian, and Swedish also use Peking rather than Beijing. Meanwhile, Peking University still uses its original English name when dealing with foreigners, though it is Beijing Daxue (Beijing University, BeiDa) within China. So far we still speak of Peking duck on a menu, Peking Man, or a Pekingese dog breed.

There are various explanations for why China vigorously insists on “Beijing” in English, but doesn’t appear to get equally worked up about “Peking” still being used in most other world languages. The most plausible justification seems to be the fact that English, as the universal international language, is far more important to the Chinese. They don’t seem to have the time or enough concern to worry about other languages.

A sign post in Vienna, Maine (population 578, pronounced VYE-enna) indicating the distance to other Viennas in the USA and the original in Austria. Maine’s Vienna and nearby North Vienna were named after the Austrian capital. PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons

German Place Names/Toponyms in the USA
Many American villages, towns, counties, and even mountains have German names. But not every “German” place name in the United States is actually German. When I was doing research for my German Place Names in North America project (still a work in progress), I discovered you can’t judge a name by its appearance. I quickly learned that one should not assume that an American place named Lucerne or Vienna is a true exonym named by a homesick Swiss or Austrian immigrant. Although Lucerne is the English exonym for the Swiss city known as Luzern in German-speaking Switzerland, and Vienna is the same thing for the Austrian capital of Wien, appearances can deceive.

In the case of “Lucerne,” I got a lesson in botany. It turns out that the British and people in the Commonwealth nations call the perennial flowering plant in the legume family Fabaceae “lucerne,” while we North Americans prefer to say “alfalfa.” Its scientific name is Medicago sativa. Thus many of the US towns named Lucerne have nothing to do with the Swiss city, and everything to do with alfalfa. They tend to be rural places devoted to growing alfalfa/lucerne.

Vienna seems to be a safe bet – until you realize that it was at one time a name sometimes given to baby girls in the US. Baby name websites provide a variety of meanings supposedly connected to the feminine Latin name “Vienna.” Other than the city name, suggested meanings include “forest stream” and “from wine country.” It cropped up in the US in the 1880s, but has never been highly popular baby name, with 214 recorded christenings in 2012. But it was enough to cast doubt on the origin of the names of several US towns named Vienna. (See the photo above.)

The Maryland villages of Vienna and Berlin were not German settlements originally and the names have nothing to do with the European cities with those names. You might think that Berlin, Maryland would obviously be named for the German city, but that is not the case. The Maryland town, pronounced BUR-lin, with the stress on the first syllable, got its name from the Burley Inn, a tavern located at a busy crossroad. The tavern’s name was shortened and used as the town name when its was incorporated in 1868.

But Maryland is an exception. The following US states have at least one Berlin named after the German original, some even with a West, East or New Berlin: Alabama, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

A Few More Exonym Examples: German > English
Aachen > Aix-la-Chapelle (French; but “Aachen” is also used in English)
Bodensee > Lake Constance
Franken > Franconia
Ostsee > Baltic Sea
Sachsen > Saxony
Schwaben > Swabia
Schweiz > Switzerland
Westfalen > Westphalia

A Few More Exonym Examples: English > German (Original Language)
Florence > Florenz (Firenze)
Genoa > Genua (Genova)
Lisbon > Lissabon (Lisboa)
Milan > Mailand (Milano)
Naples > Neapel (Napoli)
Nice > Nizza (Nice)
Tenerife > Teneriffa (Tenerife)
Venice > Venedig (Venezia)

– HF