• leisesprecher@feddit.orgEnglish
      27·
      2 days ago

      If you look deep enough, pretty much every city’s name is actually some banale description of the location or some guy who was relevant to it’s founding.

      • Skua@kbin.earth
        9·
        2 days ago

        Examples of this in the cities of Scotland that we can actually trace the etymologies of:

        • Perth: “Copse”. Perth is in a forested area
        • Aberdeen: “Mouth of Devona’s river”. Devona was an old Celtic goddess, and Aberdeen actually lies between the mouths of two rivers named for her
        • Inverness: “Mouth of the roaring river”. Inver- derives from the Gaelic branch of the Celtic languages, whereas Aber- comes from the Brythonic branch. It’s at the mouth of the river Ness, which is one of the fastest-discharging rivers in the UK
        • Glasgow: “green hollow”. “Hollow” here is in the sense of a small valley. Glasgow is one of the rainiest cities in Europe and also has a remarkably temperate climate for being at the same latitude as Moscow, so it probably was very green before it became a city
    • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz
      3·
      2 days ago

      So is Al-Madinah (literally ‘The City’) in KSA.

      Makes me wish I could register “the pen” as a trademark or something and start selling pens under that name. I wonder if that also makes it impossible for anyone ever find this brand online.

      • Aachen@lemmy.world
        7·
        2 days ago

        Technically, Al-Madinah is shortened for Al-Madinah al-Munawwarah, which means The Luminous City.

        So maybe you could sell ‘the luminous pen’ instead 🤔