Synopses & Reviews
Absco, a Southern Pacific station, was coined in the 1920s from the name of the American Beet Sugar Company, which had a factory in Oxnard.
Pochea is an Indian village site in Riverside County, said to mean "where the rabbit went in."
Siskiyou was the Chinook word for 'bobtailed horse,' originally taken over from the Cree language. From Abadi Creek to Zzyzyx Spring, thousands of discoveries await the reader of California Place Names. This is the fourth edition, extensively revised and expanded, of a classic work of Californiana. The curious traveler or resident, as well as the serious student, will find a wealth of description and history in these names, as rich and various as the California landscape itself.
Like its predecessors, this edition concentrates on the origins of the names currently used for the cities, towns, settlements, mountains, and streams of California, with engrossing accounts of the history of their usage. It has been updated to incorporate the latest research on California place names published by regional historians and to include new names that have been added to the California map since 1969. Readers will appreciate the local pronunciation of place names with unusual spellings; anyone curious about how to say La Jolla or Weitchpec can find the information here, in phonetic transcriptions. Finally, the many California place names of American Indian originand#151;such as Yreka, Shasta, Napa, Sonoma, Tamalpais, Yosemite, Lompoc, Mugu, Coachella, or Powayand#151;receive particular attention from editor William Bright. The dictionary includes a Glossary and a Bibliography.
Synopsis
Like its predecessors, this edition concentrates on the origins of the names currently used for the cities, towns, settlements, mountains, and streams of California, with engrossing accounts of the history of their usage. It differs from its predecessors in three important ways: . First, the dictionary has been updated to incorporate the latest research on California place names published by regional historians and to include new names that have been added to the California map since 1969, with particular reference to the current place name files of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, a section of the U.S. Geological Survey. Second, particular attention has been given to local pronunciations of place names with unusual spellings. Third, the many California place names of American Indian origin - such as Yreka, Shasta, Napa, Sonoma, Tamalpais, Yosemite, Coachella, or Poway - receive special coverage, based on recent fieldwork carried out by linguists and anthropologists among the California tribes. The book includes a Glossary and Bibliography that credits all the sources from which information has been obtained and indicates the resources available for readers who wish to do further research.
About the Author
Erwin G. Gudde, at his death in 1969, was an emeritus member of the University of California faculty. William Bright is Professor Adjoint in Linguistics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and author of numerous books including A Coyote Reader (California, 1993). He supplied a new foreword plus maps and itinerary for the Fourth Edition of Up and Down in California in 1860-1864: The Journal of William H. Brewer (California, 2003).