Place Names

This Place Names page of my web site describes works on toponymy, i.e., studies of place names that I have found useful enough to cite; they are listed alphabetically. If you are aware of other works not listed here that you think should be, please so notify me using the address in the footer below.

Place Names of Atlantic Canada

Place Names of Atlantic Canada by William B[aillie] Hamilton, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1997 reprinting of a work originally published in 1996, paperback, 502 pages. ISBN 0-8020-7570-3.

This book describes the provenance of names used to identify places and geographical features in Atlantic Canada. It is subdivided into four sections, one for each of the Maritime provinces; each section is a dictionary of place names, organized alphabetically. A bibliographic essay concludes the work.

This book makes for interesting reading, incorporating a good deal of geographical, historical, and cultural information in its short, but to-the-point articles on the place names covered. Not every place name in Cape Breton has an entry, but the coverage is nevertheless surprisingly good.

The book was priced at $27.95 when I bought it on-line in early 2008 from Amazon (US). I have not seen it in bookstores in Cape Breton, but became aware of it while searching for information using Google.