Dr. Universe: How do places get their names?
jstewardOne way a place might get a name is from the person who explored it. The Americas are named after an Italian explorer, Amerigo Vespucci. But Amerigo wasn’t the first person to explore these continents, and people living there when he arrived.
For the most part, people name things because they are claiming possession of a place. Because of that, sometimes the original names of places are lost or erased.
That’s what I found out from my friend Theresa Jordan, a history professor who teaches a geography course at » More …