American county names

While English county names just ooze tradition, coziness, history etc., US county names tend to be really boring, like Scott county, Jones county, Hamnilton county. Are all US county names so boring and unimaginative?

Depends on the area. At least up here in Wisconsin, a good amount of county names, like city names, are after words taken from the native languages once spoken here, but the rest, besides them, are rather boring, like those you describe.

No surprise, but same here in Minnesota as in Wisconsin. They are mostly named after either Native American words (sometimes translated, like Big Stone) and they rest are mostly named after dead French guys (like Hennepin). Unlike American county names, English county names are just that, names.

Yeah, we've got a number of county and city names here in Wisconsin which're French in origin as well, which I'd forgotten to mention in my original post.

In New York, New Jersey and Connecticut there are some interesting county names like Nassau, Suffolk, Dutchess, Bergen, etc.

>> Are all US county names so boring and unimaginative?

Not necessarily. California has some cool-sounding county names like Trinity and El Dorado (don't they just paint a picture of the Old West in your mind?), and some boring, unimaginative ones like Lake, Glenn, and Orange (aka "The O.C." or "The Orange Curtain" to us Angelenos).

Counties of California:
Alameda
Alpine
Amador
Butte
Calaveras
Colusa
Contra Costa
Del Norte
El Dorado
Fresno
Glenn
Humboldt
Imperial
Inyo
Kern
Kings
Lake
Lassen
Los Angeles
Madera
Marin
Mariposa
Mendocino
Merced
Modoc
Mono
Monterey
Napa
Nevada
Orange
Placer
Plumas
Riverside
Sacramento
San Benito
San Bernardino
San Diego
San Francisco
San Joaquin
San Luis Obispo
San Mateo
Santa Barbara
Santa Clara
Santa Cruz
Shasta
Sierra
Siskiyou
Solano
Sonoma
Stanislaus
Sutter
Tehama
Trinity
Tulare
Tuolumne
Ventura
Yolo
Yuba

"The Orange Curtain" -- funny! I never heard that one.

I do like our California county names, especially El Dorado, Mariposa and Tuolumne.

Here is a list of English county names:

http://www.2hwy.com/eg/e/egcounty.htm


Now compare them to the names of the counties here in New Jersey:

http://www.state.nj.us/counties.htm



Since NJ was one of the original colonies, most of the names are very English (Note: Middlesex County on both). I don't really see too much of a difference, Fredrik. Passaic, incidentally, comes from an Indian word.

This whole question kind of puzzles me.

I just looked it over again...we have Sussex and Somerset here in NJ as well. There is also a Suffolk County in Long Island, NY.

Well, I happen to think my county name "oozes tradition, coziness, history etc."

MILWAUKEE (taken from http://www.milwaukee.org/FAQ/)
Long before the first settlers came to this area, the Algonkian Indians had a special name for the land: Millioki, which means "gathering place by the waters." The Indians may have picked the name because they used the area for tribal gatherings or because they observed how three rivers (the Menomonee, the Kinnickinnic and the Milwaukee) met before flowing into the waters of Lake Mie-sit-gan (Michigan).

mjd, I agree. The question is somewhat puzzling as especially the Northeast shares many of the same county names.

sorry . . . as the Northeast shares many of the same county names as England.

How many counties does England have? 50? The US has over 3000, so there needs to be some duplication and some boring names. Oh well.

Hey, how about SCOTLAND?

We have Counties too.....some just as well known as those down in England! Perthshire, Fifeshire, Stirlingshire, Aberdeenshire, Inverness-shire, Angus, Lanarkshire, Argyllshire, Berwickshire, Ayrshire, etc etc.

Check out:

http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/sct/

Scotland is the RED bit at the top of the map!

AS in England, there has been a great deal of Local Government reorganistion, and some of the old Counties have been amagamated with others but the former names remain as constituent Districts within the Counties.

Tiny wee Counties like Clackmannan, Kinross, Dumbarton, Bute are a few examples.

Scotland is now divided into Regions, and the former self governing Counties are now amagamated into these Regions. For instance, here in Edinburgh (now a self governing City in its own right) used to be in Midlothian. Now the Counties of Midlothian, East Lothian and West Lothian form the big Lothian Region.

SHIRE.....a County.

Here in Scotland we pronounce it "Sh-ire" to rhyme with "fire".

In England it's pronounced either "Sheer" or "Shur"...as in York-sheer or York-shur for Yorkshire.

The Royal County of Berkshire is "BARK-sheer" or "BARK-shur". It's entitled to call itself "Royal" because the Queen has her main country residence there at Windsor Castle.

BERKELEY. In London, Berkeley Square is pronounced the same way: "BARKLEY", unlike the American "BURKLEY" for their University of the same name.

Typo: Dumbarton = Dunbarton

I'm not going to leave out our Celtic brothers stuck down there to the left of England...

WALES

They've had a big change around in Local Government too and the old County names are now Districts within a larger area.

Former set up:

http://www.institutions.org.uk/counties/WAL/welsh_counties

Present set up:

http://www.walesdirectory.co.uk/counties.htm


There...my Welsh mate down in Anglesey (now part of the new County of Gwynedd) will be proud of me posting those links!