Euro-Settler Place Naming Practices for North America through a Gendered and Racialized Lens

Abstract

The rich fabric of place names knitting together the Americas weaves into a complex intercultural network of naming practices that span thousands of years as well as the globe. Indigenous, European, and settler communities each bestowed names upon places near and far whose meanings describe the place, its resources, or one’s experiences there. Names define the people who occupy a place. They commemorate an event or person in ways that evidence the gendered and racialized nature of place naming in the Americas, especially after 1492, through a predominately masculine lens. This study considers how women and people of color are represented in place names and the impacts of masculinist approaches to place nomenclature while contrasting Indigenous approaches to toponymy and the European reception of Indigenous place names in the Americas, with a focus on North America.