Toponymy

The toponymy is the Science which studies the place names (toponyms). She proposes to seek their significance, them etymology, but also their transformations with the wire of the centuries. With the Anthroponymy (study of the names of people), it belongs to the Onomastique (study of the proper names), itself connects Linguistique. The name of the inhabitants rising from the toponyms is the Ethnonyme or the Gentilé.

The field of toponymy is vast. This science indeed studies the inhabited place names (Ville S, Village S, Hameau X and variation S) or not inhabited (localities), but also the names related to the Relief, with the Rivière S, the transportation routes (Route S, streets). It can also approach more restricted fields (names of Villa S or Hôtel S, for example).

brief Glossary

• Toponym : proper name of place.
• Hagiotoponyme : the hagiotoponymes form a dérivationnelle category of toponyms; they are the toponyms coming from a name from saint.
• Hydronyme : the hydronymes form a referential category of toponyms; they are the toponyms referring to a space entity comprising the feature “+ water” (such as, water level river, source, falls of water, etc).
• Odonyme (sometimes written Hodonyme ): the odonymes form a referential category of toponyms; they are the toponyms referring to a transportation route.
• Oronyme : the oronymes form a referential category of toponyms; they are the toponyms referring to a space entity comprising the feature “+ relief” (top, small valley, plain, projecting ledge, etc).

Print toponyms

Official names: composed, French or francized official names, comprise one Hyphen between all the terms, except after the initial article or when there is an apostrophe. Examples: Island-Russet-red the, the Roche-sur-Yon, Saint-Vincent-and-Grenadian. Such is not the case of the names belonging to other languages: New York, Los Angeles or Buenos Aires. One does not put either hyphens in the nonofficial part of a toponym: Alexandria of Egypt, Saint-Louis of Senegal, Saint-Paul de Vence or of a geographical nickname: the Riviera… the policy of regrouping of common led in France to names such as Saint-Rémy-in-Bouzemont-Saint-Genest-and-Isson.

Names of the political and administrative entities

The same rules as for the street names (see Noms of ways and organizations) apply to the administrative and political units French or whose name was, partially or completely, francized. The rule also applies to many names of the field of the physical geography.

The “unionization” involves the appearance of a capital letter in all the names and adjectives linked in the expression. Hyphen and capital letter are thus the tools for development of the names made up of the administrative and political units.

E.g.: Loire-Atlantique, Scey-on-Saone-and-Saint-Albin, Basse-Normandie, Coast-with Armor, Rhineland-of-North-Westphalia, Virginia-Western, Chanteloup-the-Vines, Cape Verde, Bohemia-of-South, the United States, etc

The part of the name which “will be unionisée” is what is called the specific one (the “clean” name), in opposition to the credits (“common” name).

Thus, in “Department of the Pas-de-Calais”, “department” is generic, “Pas-de-Calais” is specific. In “Pas-de-Calais”, “not” is credits (synonymous with strait), “Calais” is specific.

In the same way, one will make the difference between:

- the province of the Island-of-Prince-Edouard and the island of the Prince-Edouard who gives his name to the province;

- solid mass of the Mont Blanc and the Mont Blanc;

- the Republic of the Cape Verde and the Cap Verde;

Logic, if the application of this rule were and had always been respected, would like that one makes the difference between South Africa like synonym of “Southern Africa” and Africa-of-South, the State (just like “Eastern” and “Timor-Eastern” Timor, “the Solomon Islands” and “Island-Solomon”). One hardly meets more “Ireland-of-North”. In the same way, Provence-Alp-Coast-D' Azure, Mecklembourg-Poméranie-Western or Friuli-Venezia-Julienne are not always the most current forms. The use either did not retain this rule which would have made it possible to differentiate the Basque Country, human and historical area, and the Country-Basque, the administrative unit which Basque autonomous Communauté is the .

On the mutilation of this rule, to see the notes of Jean-Pierre Lacroux: “III. ∞  the French tradition was of a great limpidity. It was too beautiful. It was gradually degraded, at the point to become disconcerting, quasi unexplainable. It “is today recommended” to treat comparable entities differently, to apply to their names of the rules hitherto reserved for other categories of clean denominations, etc Of the specialists members in official commissions of terminology, ministers, etc) teach us that the forms “Cape Verde, Netherlands”, imposed by the use - insinuation: antiquated and a whimsical bit -, are departures from the “rule” which wants that the placed after adjective preserves the tiny initial one (principle it is true applicable to several categories of clean denominations) and is not bound by a hyphen to the name which precedes it… This “rule” exists only in the chief of those which are ready to complicate “orthotypographic grammar” in the only intention ratifying all the skids of the bad use. “Cape Verde” or “Netherlands” is not exceptions but forms which comply with the French rule. It is necessary to be singularly daring to affirm that only the use (the routine…) imposed, whereas it is the “rule” which gives us {the Samoa Western}.

The trouble… it is that the clerks of the use are of an inconsistency (intern and external) enough disconcerting (for the user).

• ≠Larousse 1992 : {Western Virginia}, Colombia-British.
• ≠  Hatchet 1995, Microphone-Robert 1990: Virginia-Western, {British Columbia}.
• = Robert 1994 is on this point one of rare usual coherent. ”