I feel compelled to comment on the little back-and-forth between Ken Layne and Tim Blair on Aussie and American Western naming conventions. They actually are quite similar, except we don’t tend to use the girlie-type diminutives that they do in Oz. They’re a combination, in both cases, as Ken points out, of either a straightforward description in English, or the native word. The American West was mostly populated by rednecks, particularly after the War of Northern Aggression, and they brought their naming conventions with them.

My current legal residence is a place called Jackson Hole (some of you may have heard of it, particularly if you ski…). It was named by trappers. In the argot of that time, a “hole” was a valley in the mountains, and this particular one was discovered by a man named, of all things, Jackson (a well-known presbyterian name–we had a redneck president of similar stock). It was originally called Jackson’s Hole; I’m not sure when the possessive was dropped.

Anyway, in Albion’s Seed, Fischer noted that the people who settled Appalachia were quite earthy, and tended to name their places for either the way they looked, or events or activities that took place there. A couple examples he gives (I believe from West Virginia) of places that had to be renamed in the nineteenth century by more genteel types were “Tickle-C!!t Branch” and “F!!cking Creek.” Which reminds me of a riff that late folk-singer/story teller Gamble Rogers used to do on the subject that went something like:

“It just goes to show what happens when you let rednecks name a place. When we use native words, we get beautiful, euphonious names, like Shenandoah, or Mississauga, or…Winnebago. When you let a redneck name them, what do you get? French Lick, Indiana. Toad Suck, Arkansas.”

Now, my question is this: Is there any equivalent book to Albion’s Seed for Oz, that describes in detail which parts of the British Isles the immigrants came from, correlated with the various regions of Australia? I know that many of them were of the same stock as the border people who later populated the American south and west, including a healthy dollop from Ulster (where many of them came to from the border lands, prior to emigrating to America). This is not based on any research whatsoever, but I recall from The Thorn Birds that the family ranch was called Drogheda, just as the plantation was called Tara in Gone With The Wind (call it the popular-fiction theory). That would indicate a northern Ireland heritage, obviously. If they did come from the same part of the British Isles, it makes sense that the naming conventions would be similar.

[Update at 1:25 PM PST]

UPI Columnist and King of the Anglosphere Jim Bennett weighs in:

Australia differs from the US largely in having a stronger London component (the “Aussie” dialect has East End roots, and they like rhyming slang; the diminuitive endings are common all over England as well. Karen [his Yorkshire wife] says “brekkie” for breakfast, etc.) and fewer Northern English proportionally, lots of Catholic Irish from both North and South, fewer Ulstermen in proportion, but those that did, because they emigrated later, retained stronger actual and continuous links to Ulster–e.g., they organized Orange Order lodges, which the hillbillies never did, because the Orange Order was founded after the hillbilly emigration ceased.

Canada and New Zealand differ from the US in having more Scots from Scotland proper, rather than British Borderers.

Oh, yeah? Then why don’t they (the Canadians) know the proper preparation of haggis (beef and venison, me grrrandfather’s kilt…[shaking head sadly])?

Somebody should do a book entitled “Albion’s Other Seeds” to look at these issues for the whole Anglosphere.

It would be interesting.