The girl from … Stinking Pond – the true meaning of Ipanema and other place names, and their linguistic origin
- You might know Singapore as ‘the Lion City’, but with no evidence the animal ever lived there, do you know why?
- What about the meanings behind the names given to Thailand, Rio de Janeiro and its ‘stinky’ Ipanema suburb?
Until now, you might not have given much thought to the literal meaning of the names of countries, cities and towns, but many have fascinating historical explanations, cultural references or are steeped in myths and legends.
Khartoum, for example, comes from the Arabic word al-kartoüm, meaning “the end of an elephant’s trunk”, and probably refers to the narrow strip of land in the Sudanese capital between the Blue and White Niles. Scholars suspect the name Toronto derives from the Mohawk word tkaronto, or “where there are trees standing in the water”, while accra (the name of the Ghanaian capital) means “ants” in the local Akan language – a reference to the area’s many anthills.
Here’s an alphabet’s worth of names translated into English from their original language.
Aotearoa is Maori for “land of the long white cloud”, while “New Zealand” was coined by explorer Abel Tasman, who named the territory after the Dutch province of Zeeland, meaning “sea land” or “land reclaimed from the sea”.
In 1984, the West African country of Upper Volta was renamed Burkina Faso, or “land of the honest people”.