Talk:List of tautological place names

New Zealand River Names
Kia Ora! So the page wrongly states: Multiple rivers and streams in New Zealand have the prefix wai-, the Māori term for river. Notable examples include the Waikato River (river strong flowing river) and Waimakariri River (river cold river).[10]

The prefix wai- means water, NOT river. The prefix/suffix 'awa' means river, i.e. Awamoko (Lizard River). Useful website is: Thanks!! 139.80.239.164 (talk) 12:11, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Arakawa River
Pasquale, you reverted my edit saying "every Japanese river name ends in -kawa 'river'; if you then tack on 'River', it's automatically tautological, but there's no point listing them all". This is true in some cases, such as Sumida-gawa (Sumida River) or Tama-gawa (Tama River), but the kawa in Arakawa is an integral part of the name. Saying 'Ara River' for Arakawa River is no more acceptable than saying "Wood City" for Woodville.

Compare Sumida Ward, named after the Sumida River, with Arakawa Ward, named after the Arakawa River. 'Kawa/gawa' can be and is removed from Sumida, but not from Arakawa.

Unless you can explain to me why this does not belong on the list, while something like Jiayuguan Pass or Mount Lushan is acceptable, I think I will restore my edit. LeeWilson (talk) 15:06, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Fuji
Doesn't Mount Fujiyama mean "Mount Fuji Mountain" in Japanese? If so, it should be added. 86.140.87.154 18:53, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
 * It does - which is why it's usually referred to as "Mount Fuji". Feel free to add it... Grutness...wha?  23:11, 5 May 2007 (UTC)


 * It's called "Fujisan" in Japanese, not "Fujiyama". And it's Mt Fuji in English.

Some indication is warranted of what these places and geographic features are called in their native languages. The Chinese do not say "Heilongjiang River" for instance, it's just "Heilongjiang". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.177.253.134 (talk) 02:01, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Dunstanburgh Castle
Dunstanburgh Castle could be translated as 'Castle Stone Castle Castle', assuming that 'Dun' is from Gaelic. But Dun (e.g. in the name Dunstan) could be translated as 'Dark' from Old English. Which loses a Castle, and so is slightly less satisfying. Is there any evidence to support one of these translations? 82.236.235.136 11:55, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Only that "Dark stone castle" (Dun stan burgh) seems a boringly sensible name for a castle, hence is probably correct. PaulxSA (talk) 03:42, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I'd always assumed "Dunstanburgh" meant "Dunstan's castle", in which case it's not truly tautological, since neither the dun or the stan there refer to their original meanings. Whichever is the case, the "-burgh Castle" combination is still a tautology. FWIW, the name Dunstan (according to The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names) means "hill stone". Grutness...wha?  22:37, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Gobi Desert
If, as PaulxSA says, "Gobi" truly means 'very large and dry' in Mongolian, then "Gobi Desert" is not a tautology and should be removed. Pasquale (talk) 20:27, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


 * According to the Gobi Desert article, "gobi" means 'gravel-covered plain' in Mongolian. If not synonymous it's at least close to 'desert', but I'll leave changing anything to someone who actually knows Mongolian. Orcoteuthis (talk) 14:39, 12 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Just for the record, I didn't say Gobi meant v.large/dry; the original line read "Gobi Desert (desert desert, Gobi means "v.large/dry" in Mongolian.) I changed the former to reflect the latter: Personally, I have no [blank]ing clue what Gobi means in Mongolian. -- PaulxSA (talk) 15:50, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Street Rd
Street Road, also known as Route 926, is located in Chester County, where I live. Check it on Google Earth. Does this count as tautological? If so, could someone add it to the appropriate category? i kinda suck at formatting and all, and i don't have much free time. Billytrousers (talk) 04:29, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

A little more information, please: Chester County of what state? What country? -- If you mean Pennsylvania, USA, I think it was named after some relative of former Mayor Street of Philadelphia. Thnidu (talk) 19:54, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Lake Windermere
I don't know why this one has been removed &mdash; when I was on holiday in Kendal (Cumbria), the nearby body of water was always referred to (even by the locals) as "Lake Windermere" ("mere" being in this context an archaic English word meaning "lake"), never simply as "Windermere". 86.146.93.142 (talk) 02:35, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I've restored the mention. A little Google searching (and not counting the same name used elsewhere) finds a good many references to it as "Lake Windermere" (as well as some to "Windermere", which I'm not listing here):
 * Encarta
 * England for Dummies (via Google Books)
 * letter to Nature Magazine from Institute of Ophthalmology, London
 * bed-and-breakfast review
 * iExplore.com

Thnidu (talk) 20:17, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

In my experience locals use "Lake Windermere" to disambiguate the lake from the town of Windermere on its shore, which was (re)named after its railway station (see Windermere,_Cumbria) 88.211.54.85 (talk) 12:55, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
 * In which case, "Lake Windermere" doesn't contain any redundant information - is it is truly tautological ? Rjccumbria (talk) 15:47, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
 * It is, indeed. Tautological does not necessarily mean wrong. It is as tautological as Lake Placid lake, which you can find as photo caption in the wikipedia page for Lake Placid, New York.--Gorpik (talk) 17:06, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you for that explanation/example - I would agree it is just as tautological as Lake Windermere, but that is where my agreement would end. Lake Placid lake is obviously an ugly phrase, but if I were seeking a second opinion as to whether it was OK to go into 'Lake Placid' (or 'Windermere') in my workclothes, I would think it sensible to make an explicit distinction between body of water and inhabited location. I can't see it being a sensible objection that 'Windermere' cannot be a inhabited location because 'mere' means a lake, and would regard in a similar light anybody pointing out that 'Lake Windermere' is tautological because a '-mere' can only be a lake; clearly it can also (by transference) be an inhabited location. What about 'Chollerford bridge' or 'Manchester Roman fort' - is the former an inherent contradiction, and the latter 'tautological' in the normally understood meaning of the term ?


 * I note that the Wikipedia article on Tautology (grammar) seems to be under the same misapprehension as my English teacher (or myself if I have misremembered his advice): its lede starts as follows "In grammar, a tautology (from Greek tauto, 'the same' and logos, 'word/idea') is an unnecessary repetition of meaning, using multiple words to effectively say the same thing (often originally from different languages). It is considered a fault of style and was defined by A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (Fowler) as 'saying the same thing twice', when it is not apparently necessary to repeat the entire meaning of a phrase. 'Close proximity' is an example of a tautology. If a part of the meaning is repeated in such a way that it appears as unintentional, or clumsy, then it may be described as tautological. On the other hand, a repetition of meaning that improves the style of a piece of speech or writing is not necessarily tautological." ; to it 'tautological' may not necessarily mean 'wrong' but it does require some redundancy of information.  I had assumed it was at least intended that there should be some consistency between this article and that. Rjccumbria (talk) 22:49, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

More suggestions
Lurlock (talk) 20:34, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Townsville, Queensland, or any of numerous other Townsvilles. Sometimes the triple-hit of "City of Townsville" is used.
 * Mount Midori, like Mount Fuji, is often incorrectly identified as "Mount Midoriyama" - notably on the "Ninja Warrior" show that airs in the US. (I'm sure the name is used correctly in the Japanese airings of the show.)
 * Jersey City is listed on the WP page as "City of Jersey City". This may be an error on the page, however.  I posted a question on the talk page regarding that.
 * Probably not an error. This is a common construction where the first part describes the legal status of the community which happens to use city or town or village in its name. So you end up with contradictory ones as well like "City of Lathrup Village". Rmhermen (talk) 13:57, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * No to Townsville - as explained here in the past, it was named after the city's founder Robert Towns. Grutness...wha?  23:35, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I would dispute Loughrigg Tarn as it has a non-tautological meaning: "the lake on the hill with a lake on it", i.e. of many hills, only one has a lake, and I want to refer to that lake. (Q.v. Green Street Green, in Kent.) 88.211.54.85 (talk) 12:57, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Can we change the name of this article to "List of places whose names are tautological place names list"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.215.6.87 (talk) 02:47, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Why not include Rio Grande, since many Americans erroneously refer to it as Rio Grand(e) River. Having grown up in New Mexico, I specifically remember four different ways people referred to the river (1) Rio Grande (gron-day); (2) Rio Grand(e) (grand); (3) Rio Grande River (gron-day); (4) Rio Grand(e) River (grand).  And I won't even go further into the misspellings of Grande vs Grand and Rio vs Río...  Technically only, Río Grande (gron-day) is correct, meaning "big river"...  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mike5816 (talk • contribs) 18:33, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I saw a sign in Orlando, Florida that read "Park Lake Park." It appears that the city subdivision is named Park Lake, and this is its official park. Even more interesting, there was a body of water within. "That must be the Park Lake Park Lake!" I found myself saying.  And of course there was a parking lot adjacent to the lake ... .  I wonder if this sort of thing happens often? WHPratt (talk) 21:49, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually, it would seem that the park was named for the lake that it surrounds. WHPratt (talk) 16:58, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
 * https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/park-lake-park-orlando
 * The capital of Korea is Seoul. As it happens, the word "Seoul" simply means "capital". Ergo, the capital is the capital. I wonder if Karl Marx visited there to write a book? 108.171.128.180 (talk) 15:44, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Sources, please
Very few of the etymologies, or back-translations, or whatever you wish to call them, cite any sources. Some are inadequate as descriptions (e.g. Cuyahoga is from "a Native American language" - but which one?), and some appear to be incorrect (e.g. both Charnock (1859) and Smythe Palmer (1882) suggest that Faroe Islands comes from faar "sheep", not a word meaning island). In any case, most look like the dreaded original research. Original research can be particularly troublesome on "vernacular" pages of this sort, since it tends to invite unverified, and sometimes incorrect, local knowledge. I have found, when editing other pages, that it is best to supply reliable sources for what you've got, and be wary of accepting new additions that offer none. Cnilep (talk) 23:32, 23 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Those are good points, however I don't believe this is original research at all. In many cases, just clicking on the links will provide further information and, in some cases, the appropriate sources. As for Faroe Islands, it's the -oe part of Faroe that means 'island' (see History of the Faroe Islands). Pasquale (talk) 17:28, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm wary of using Wikipedia pages as sources for Wikipedia pages. It's turtles all the way down, if you get my meaning. The page in question says, "the name Faeroe is thought to mean Sheep Islands," but doesn't say thought by whom. 71.215.114.165 (talk) 23:32, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
 * There is absolutely no question that the -oe part means 'islands', as it stands for the word for 'islands' in all the Scandinavian languages. That's the part that makes the name tautological. Whether the first part of the name actually does mean 'sheep' is irrelevant to the tautology. I have tried to clarify that in the article. Pasquale (talk) 14:47, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I am happy to concede that the editors of this page are more knowledgeable than I regarding, among other things, North Germanic languages. Nonetheless, Wikipedia policy is that reliable sources should be provided for any statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged. I think a few comprehensive dictionaries would go a long way in sourcing most of the material on this page. I'll try to find some appropriate sources for languages that I speak or study. I hope others might do the same. Cnilep (talk) 15:27, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Chinese geographical placenames
Names of Chinese geographical features are often imported in full and have "mountain", "river", etc. tacked on to them. For instance, "Changjiang River" (=Long River river), "Huanghe River" (=Yellow River river), "Mount Huangshan" (=Mount Yellow Mountain). Is there anywhere in the article where this could be added (with appropriate sources) as a generalization, rather than having to list a whole bunch of individual examples of the same phenomenon? r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 14:29, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Removing three unsourced additions
I have removed three items that were added without citing a source. Each is problematic.


 * Wookey Hole Caves. Per the linked page, Wookey is a corruption of Ogof; though the name is derived from a Celtic word for hole, it is not actually a Celtic word for cave.
 * Isn't that then tautological as 'hole hole caves'? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.210.203.193 (talk) 12:23, 29 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Winchuck River. Per Chinook Jargon, chuck means water or fluid, not river.

Cnilep (talk) 22:39, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Schoolcraft College. Per the content I removed, Schoolcraft is the name of the founder; the name does not mean school-craft-school.

Napton-on-the-Hill
Should we include Napton-on-the-Hill? "The toponym Napton is derived from the Old English cnaepp meaning 'hilltop' and tun meaning 'settlement' in the Old English language". Unfortunately, our article lacks a source for this - but it is clearly correct. 18:25, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Kyoto
Apparently the Japanese city of Kyoto comes from the words "Kyo" and "To", which both mean "Capital" in neighbouring regional dialects. So "capital city capital city". However, I don't have a source, and there are already too many unsourced entries. So I'll leave it here, perhaps someone can dig up a suitable source for the etymology. - PaulxSA (talk) 01:37, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Scotland
I read somewhere that "Scotia" is Latin for land.195.148.36.108 (talk) 10:36, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Not really. Scotia was just the land of the Scoti, which is the name the Romans gave to the Gaels.--Gorpik (talk) 11:52, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Criteria for inclusion
This list has grown over the years, but very few of the entries are sourced (and several of those which are are not reliably sourced), which makes it seem like this list is full of original research. There needs to be a solid list of criteria for inclusion, which should include having the tautology itself discussed in a reliable source. ansh666 20:55, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Isca/Uisge
There are a number of rivers in Britain with names derived from the Brythonic Isca or the Gaelic uisge, one sense of which is river - the Exe (Devon), Axe (Dorset, Somerset), Usk (Wales), Esk (Cumberland, Yorkshire, Dumfriesshire, Midlothian and Angus).

With regards to Lake Windermere, mentioned above, I am one of those who considers the use of lake with any of the larger bodies of water in the Lake District other than Bass(enthwaite) Lake (aka Broadwater and Bassenwater) to be a solecism, but the usage does occur.

You also can find people referring to Glen Strathfarrar.

There are quite a few Gaelic/Norse tautologies to be found in the Scottish Highlands and Islands (e.g. Gleann Lingeadail and Gleann Lacasdail in Lewis). Lavateraguy (talk) 20:18, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Ara river/ Arakawa river
I know this has come up before on this talk page, but I can't help feeling there's something odd about the presence of Arakawa river.

First of all, it's not a tautology in Japanese. It's Arakawa in Japanese, not Arakawa-kawa. Secondly, the Japan Water Agency refers to it in English as the Ara River. OsFish (talk) 08:43, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and removed it. As far as I can see, the other entries in foreign languages are all tautologies in those languages themselves.OsFish (talk) 04:18, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Nullarbor?
I don't know where the line lies here, but Nullarbor Plain takes its name from the Latin for "no trees', which is of course the feature (or lack of feature, depending on your POV) that make it a plain. Include? Elguaponz (talk) 01:41, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
 * No. It should be the same word. Planum or planitia would have qualified, but not this. Besides, some plains have scattered trees.--Gorpik (talk) 15:20, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Russian?
The discussion of Russian in the intro makes no sense - "For example, in Russian, the format "Ozero X-ozero" (i.e. "Lake X-lake") is used." That format is NOT used in Russian. No example from Russian is given anywhere below. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.187.84.237 (talk) 14:36, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Title
The characteristic property of items on this list is closer to the notion of pleonasm than that of tautology. The appropriate title is "List of pleonasmic place names". 77.212.198.131 (talk) 23:12, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Estatua do Christo Redentor na cidade Rio de Janeiro! (The statue of Christ the Redeemer in the city of Rio de Janeiro!)
This landmark is missing from the list - "Christ/Christo(s)" means "saviour" in greek, while "redentor" means the same in portuguese! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.90.247.14 (talk) 08:52, 25 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Actually, christos means anointed with oil, as they used to do with kings etc. in ancient times. In Catholic baptisms, the holy oil used is still called chrysm. Pelagic (talk) 04:28, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Wagga Wagga
Is "Wagga Wagga" tautological or plural? Martin of Sheffield (talk) 09:52, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
 * It is a plural, or an intensifier, if you prefer. I have just removed it from the list, since there is no tautology at all in that name.--Gorpik (talk) 07:41, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Questionable reinstallation of poor inclusions
I was somewhat puzzled that came to my own talk page to discuss the content of this article, rather than doing so here. In such cases I normally redirect editors to the article's talk page but, knowing they are an experienced editor, thought it may seem patronising or combative to question their choice to discuss it in seclusion. The discussion is here. I guess I assumed that if they were approaching me personally, they would only act publicly if they persuaded me of their case.

The matter regarded my removal of various terms that are only tautological if you choose to use an unnecessarily tautological form. I could have removed more but only addressed those where the appendage is more clearly superfluous. One example is the "Isle of" Raasay, a recently failed requested move of C,S's.

The reinstallation of these examples with the edit summary "restore per User talk:Mutt Lunker#Tautological island names, no consensus to remove" seems rather... audacious as you can just as easily say "no consensus to include, from a discussion at an obscure location, away from this article".

I invite Crouch, Swale to rethink and revert their action until a discussion has been held at this, the appropriate place. Mutt Lunker (talk) 19:43, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
 * per WP:BRD we need to determine if there's consensus to remove since the content has been in the article for years, I could have reverted straight away. That the move of Raasay failed doesn't mean that it can't be included since there is still a reliable source to support the longer name. The content in question was added by me on 7 February 2019 so that's more than enough time to be long-standing content and it is sourced appropriately (at the individual articles). If I'd added the content a few weeks ago then yes you'd be correct that there would be no consensus to include. I sometimes question reverts on the reverter 's talk page and sometimes on the article's talk page and its not clear which is preferred though I agree the latter probably is.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 21:31, 20 July 2021 (UTC)


 * I'll note that if there is a "reliable source to support the longer name" for Raasay, it's odd that you didn't include in the proposed move discussion (after your initial examples were challenged). Mutt Lunker (talk) 17:32, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
 * The reliable sources being both the OS and website are at least sufficient to provide that its at least sometimes used even if users didn't agree to the rename. There is no requirement in the list that the tautological name is nearly always used or even more commonly used so as far as I can see a reliable source (the OS) giving the longer name is sufficient for inclusion here.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 19:06, 21 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Per the move discussion, both the OS and website call it plain "Raasay". Mutt Lunker (talk) 21:26, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Per the move discussion both the OS and website use both names.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 11:08, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
 * A compromise, for these examples to remain in the article where non-tautological forms are more/commonly employed, could be to add an asterisk to them with a note to indicate so. Mutt Lunker (talk) 19:36, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I guess Raasay would fall under that. Sahara may be an example since the desert appears to just be "Sahara" though "Sahara Desert" does appear t sometimes be used. Similarly just because a place is described as such doesn't mean its part of the name, for example Craighouse can be described as being "on the island of Jura" but "island" is in lower case and not part of the name while "Isle of" is at least for the OS sometimes. All the other examples I added though always use "Isle" or "Island" anyway so being "sometimes" may be too complicated though I don't really object if that's a reasonable compromise.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 21:09, 27 July 2021 (UTC)


 * "An asterisk (*) indicates examples that are also commonly referred to without the inclusion of "Isle" or "Island"" could be a wording for the islands section.


 * If it were to be a note for the article as a whole, rather than listing the pertinent terms section by section, "An asterisk (*) indicates examples that are also commonly referred to without the inclusion of one of the tautological elements" might suffice, though it may not be clear which element may be dropped for some examples. Mutt Lunker (talk) 21:51, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
 * An asterisk would probably be a good way of doing it in general so there's no need to explain it each time (for different types of places) unless an explanation is specifically needed for whatever reason.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 17:02, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

Mount Monadnock - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Monadnock - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inselberg

The whole list, barring the few reliably-cited items, reads as pure editorial, or to put it plainly WP:OR. The editorial glosses discussed above in this thread are clear examples; but without citations, every single entry can reasonably be accused of original research – Wikipedia relies entirely on being Verifiable by editors other than the person who adds each item, and without any sort of citation, there's no evidence. Yes, I know some items are bluelinked, but since "Wikipedia is not a reliable source", that is not reliable evidence either – indeed, many of the bluelinks go to articles where the claim remains equally unsourced (and who invented the texts over there, hmm?), so even if we supposed that a link could substitute for a citation, the fact is that it can't. This article needs major pruning and proper sourcing. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:08, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Rhine
Surely the Rhine is a River River? Mamegann (talk) 01:44, 5 March 2023 (UTC)