Panemunė – Aberneman, based in on the german Übermemel. Aber(refers to a meeting or mouth of a river) + neman (the old-fashioned english term for the nemunas, maybe based on the Russian spelling? idk I don’t speak russian).
Šilainiai – Heathershaw, Šilas could be a miškas or a Viržė. Heather (Viržė) + shaw (a wood, forest).
Centras – Centre, straight forward translation using the British spelling.
Vilijampolė – Willbury, lith. name comes from Sloboda Wiliampolska. One possible shortening of William is Will, Polė is the lithuanisation of the greek Polis, which can be translated to -bury, a suffix referring to a fortification.
Šančiai – allegedly comes from the french le Chantier, I don’t know how true this is or if it’s just a folk etymology but I’ll just go with it and keep it french since 1066 was kinda a big deal for the english speaking world.
Eiguliai – Egolburgh, lith. name comes from Eigulių pilis. Egol is one is an older, alternative spelling of Eigulis, Burgh is the scots or Northumbrian equivalent of pilis.
Gričiupis – Kenburn, could not find an etymology for Gričiupis, but Girstupis does have an etymology, Scottish Ken semantically similar to girsti + -burn a common suffix for rivers in Scotland.
Dainava – Cowton, there are a couple of of place-names called Dainava in Lithuania. The folk etymology for the name ties it to singing (dainavimas), but researchers believe it to be related to dainiai, referred to “cow-herds, cow-boys”, and ultimately dā́inē “cow“. –ava/-uva is a suffix which refers to collective names for the ethnic group as an indivisible whole. There’s a couple of place names in Britain mirroring this, e.g. Cowgate, which is derived from the Old English cu-gate, meaning a “cow pasture”. Suffixes like -ham, -ing or -ton refer to a homestead of the people. All of this combines to make Cow (dā́inē) + ton (-ava).
Žaliakalnis – Greenhills, very straight-forward, there’s quite a lot of place-names which directly mirror this construction all over the english speaking world. Decided to keep it a compound because Žaliakalnis is a compound.
Aleksotas -Lexing, the lith. name is disputed, One explanation is that the word aleksotai means “shipyards” (could not find any source on that). Another explanation is that’s it’s some Lithuanian pagan goddess of love, which would be weird given how the name only appears after the introduction of christianity, and why would pagans refer to a god with a christian (Greek) name anyway. I’ll treat this as a derivation from the name Alexander, probably a noble who was granted the area at some time. -otas, is unclear. all of this can be added up to Lex(one possible shortening for Alexander), and the suffix -ing to indicate possession.
Petrašiūnai -Peterborough, lith. name ultimately derives from Petras (Peter). Borough is an administrative unit in the UK, as well as a generic suffix for some place-names.
Cowton is such a fuckin stretch
Misleading title, nothing except Center (centre is misspelling) and Greenhills are in English.
3 comments
Panemunė – Aberneman, based in on the german Übermemel. Aber(refers to a meeting or mouth of a river) + neman (the old-fashioned english term for the nemunas, maybe based on the Russian spelling? idk I don’t speak russian).
Šilainiai – Heathershaw, Šilas could be a miškas or a Viržė. Heather (Viržė) + shaw (a wood, forest).
Centras – Centre, straight forward translation using the British spelling.
Vilijampolė – Willbury, lith. name comes from Sloboda Wiliampolska. One possible shortening of William is Will, Polė is the lithuanisation of the greek Polis, which can be translated to -bury, a suffix referring to a fortification.
Šančiai – allegedly comes from the french le Chantier, I don’t know how true this is or if it’s just a folk etymology but I’ll just go with it and keep it french since 1066 was kinda a big deal for the english speaking world.
Eiguliai – Egolburgh, lith. name comes from Eigulių pilis. Egol is one is an older, alternative spelling of Eigulis, Burgh is the scots or Northumbrian equivalent of pilis.
Gričiupis – Kenburn, could not find an etymology for Gričiupis, but Girstupis does have an etymology, Scottish Ken semantically similar to girsti + -burn a common suffix for rivers in Scotland.
Dainava – Cowton, there are a couple of of place-names called Dainava in Lithuania. The folk etymology for the name ties it to singing (dainavimas), but researchers believe it to be related to dainiai, referred to “cow-herds, cow-boys”, and ultimately dā́inē “cow“. –ava/-uva is a suffix which refers to collective names for the ethnic group as an indivisible whole. There’s a couple of place names in Britain mirroring this, e.g. Cowgate, which is derived from the Old English cu-gate, meaning a “cow pasture”. Suffixes like -ham, -ing or -ton refer to a homestead of the people. All of this combines to make Cow (dā́inē) + ton (-ava).
Žaliakalnis – Greenhills, very straight-forward, there’s quite a lot of place-names which directly mirror this construction all over the english speaking world. Decided to keep it a compound because Žaliakalnis is a compound.
Aleksotas -Lexing, the lith. name is disputed, One explanation is that the word aleksotai means “shipyards” (could not find any source on that). Another explanation is that’s it’s some Lithuanian pagan goddess of love, which would be weird given how the name only appears after the introduction of christianity, and why would pagans refer to a god with a christian (Greek) name anyway. I’ll treat this as a derivation from the name Alexander, probably a noble who was granted the area at some time. -otas, is unclear. all of this can be added up to Lex(one possible shortening for Alexander), and the suffix -ing to indicate possession.
Petrašiūnai -Peterborough, lith. name ultimately derives from Petras (Peter). Borough is an administrative unit in the UK, as well as a generic suffix for some place-names.
Cowton is such a fuckin stretch
Misleading title, nothing except Center (centre is misspelling) and Greenhills are in English.