User:Satyadasa/NYEtym

Brooklyn

 * Coney Island: from Dutch Conyne Eylandt (modern spelling: Konijn Eyland), ‘rabbit island’, attested to 1636. Coney, an archaic word for rabbit, and konijn are both from Latin cunīculus, possibly from Celtiberian *cunic-, a diminutive of cun- ‘dog’.  Classical authors such as Aristophanes, Strabo, and Catullus either spoke directly of an Iberian origin for the words cuniculus and Greek κόνικλος koniklos or otherwise associated the peninsula with rabbits  (PDF) - indeed, the word Hispania itself may be derived from Phoenician אי שפנים ʾî-šəpānîm, ‘island of hyraxes’.  Cuniculus, also meaning ‘rabbit hole’ ‘passageway’, ‘mine’, has also been explained as a Latin diminutive, from cunnus ‘cunt’, but given its incidence in other languages in a similar form, a derivation from Celtiberian with influence from the Latin sense seems more likely.  Spanish has conejo, which could be said to be closer to the Celtiberian than to the Latin.
 * Gravesend: after Gravesend, Kent.
 * Sheepshead Bay: for the sheepshead, a fish once abundant in its waters.

Manhattan

 * Chinatown: Chinese 唐人街 (Cantonese tòngyàhngāai, Mandarin tángrénjiē) Tang people street.
 * Flatiron District: after the Flatiron Building, so nicknamed in the 1900s because of its resemblance to contemporary irons.
 * Harlem: Named Nieuw Haarlem in 1658 after the Dutch city of Haarlem. Haarlem from Haarloheim