Place Names

 Jennifer Burton

Geog. 101

2/9/2021

Response paper #4

Place Names

Place names are an important part of earth writing in geography. Places are named so that they can be identified from other places and so that they can become a part of earth's history. A place is not a place until it is named, which often gives the place value to the people on earth.  Places are named for experiences that happened there, characteristics of the place, or how people want the place to be perceived by others. Different people have different points of reference when it comes to place names, which can often be confusing.

 In the article “Naming Place” by Paul Carter, he talks about a poem by a man named Baron Fields who feels very frustrated by the names chosen for some of  Australia's mountains and valleys. In Fields' experience, England’s mountains and deciduous trees were ever changing from season to season. That was something he knew and understood and that he felt was poetic. Australia, to him, was never changing.  Eucalyptus trees were eternally unchanging, and to him seemed to not be poetic.

He also talks about a place in Australia called Tabletop Mountain.  In my own experience if someone told me about a tabletop mountain I would think of Utah’s red mesas, such as in  Zions National Park. Others, like Fields, could think of Mountains in England with gray cliffs and leaves that are constantly changing with the seasons. Yet the people in Australia would think of their eucalyptus covered black mountains.  This makes it hard for people to relate to places that are foreign, despite similar names.

People often associate place names with their own experiences. Fields’ experiences suggest that the names picked for Australia  did not fit. This does not make the names misnomers for the people in Australia, Utah, or England.. Everyplace is its own, and is understood by those who live there. Fields did not understand Australia or experience Australia in the same way someone from Australia would. Each person brings their own experiences when choosing a name, knowing why and taking the time to understand a name is important in order to experience the same love for someone else's homeland.