Tip-Top Toponymic

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Never mind pleth, suggestions are welcome. Perhaps you'll come up with something another time.

Yes, I saw it just after I posted the comment. I did look before I said it, I must have missed it. My bad.

Berliner's on the list, eighth from the bottom.

Since you've got hamburger and frankfurter, how about berliner?

Thanks Skip! Not sure why frankfurter didn't come to mind when I listed homburg.

Very interesting list! Madras and frankfurter come to mind...

Bilby, I came across another surprising toponym for you: tarantula!

well, it's your gray matter, or course . . . Would there by a dystopia without Utopia? Not sure. I expect that whereas utopian derives from More's fictional world, dystopia derives from (as an antonym to) the literary genre of utopia of which More's Utopia is the eponym. Getting a bit tangled, aren't I?

Once you open the door to fictional places as sources of toponyms, you might consider lilliputian and brobdingnagian, too, of course.

Grey area rollie, I'll think about it. Love the suggestions. I'm wondering if dystopia was also a place in the novel or just formed by derivation from utopia.

Also, if you have serendipity, how about utopian?
And then there's mayonnaise.

If you are being careful about distinguishing between place and people, then cravat (< Hrvat, "Croatian") probably should be elsewhere.

Never mind. On a place like Wordie it pays to be a leetle careful with the connotations :-)

I'm going to be crusty-craniumed about this list and keep it for words that really fit. Even danish I will exclude because it relates to a culture/people, which in turn relates to a place, but the term for the pastry is not derived from the name of the place. Mako senso? Thinko not so :-(

bilby, I just realized that could sound like I was telling you to bugger off, which I'm not at all. I hope you didn't take that the wrong way. (oops, there I go again!)

well, I probably will say more. I was just trying to be, you know, laconic. Now for a really interesting toponym, you could try buggery, though technically, I suppose that's an ethnonym.

!

and then there's laconic. I'll say no more.

A wonderful list!

I, too, was surprised to learn the origin of varnish/vernissage. Thanks!

Here are a few others: damask, damascene, jersey, morocco, and, to go with your finlandisation, balkanisation.

Good point seanahan, I'll send the harvester after those shortly. Food, drink, clothes are all profitable areas here. Items like Finlandisation are priceless because they're so quirky.

There's always champagne. There are of course a whole host of other alcoholic drinks with place names, bordeaux, shiraz, etc.

I've always wanted to go to Donnybrook and have an argument with someone.

All smashing suggestions. Serendipity is fanciful but, hey, so am I.

I learn something on wordie every day - I would never have figured varnish/vernissage to have toponymic origins.

How about serendipity? balaclava? tuxedo? denim? donnybrook?