www.alphadictionary.com

I came across this one on slate.com and thought it might be fun to look over:

http://www.kalimedia.com/Atlas_of_True_Names.html

As the site says: The Atlas of True Names reveals the etymological roots, or original meanings, of the familiar terms on today's maps of the World, Europe, the British Isles and the United States.

I make no claims as to the accuracy of their etymologies.

Hmmm... 75% of the cities and states I've lived in have water-based names, a common concern for animals of any species. Most of the remaining are red-based, and a few include both.

An intriguing link, Slava!

Some of these etymologies are "stretchers", Mark Twain's word for lies, of which he was a literary master. It is reasonable for Texas to have the etymology of “The Land of Friends” from the friendly greetings of the Caddo Indians who lived in Texas. It is not reasonable for New York to have the etymology “The New Yew Tree Village”. That is because the York part of the name is an eponym from the Duke of York. When one hits an eponym in an etymological trace that is the end of the trace. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U. ... tymologies for State etymologies. Yes, I quote Wikipedia on occasion.

Many US names reflect Native American tribes and their languages. I was raised in Monroe, La in Ouachita Parish. The same tribe extended into Arkansas. Faulkner perhaps overdid it with wild Indian names in his Mississippi novels. Or maybe MS overdoes it.

That is not the only thing Faulkner overdid. He overdid Faulkner.