Subject: names on the land<br/>
Date: Nov 14, 2001 @ 07:29<br/>
Author: Anton Sherwood (Anton Sherwood &lt;bronto@...&gt;)<br/>
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<div id="ygrps-yiv-222156783">Arif Samad wrote:<br/>
<blockquote><span title="ireply"> &gt; By the way, my college and nearby has a concentration<br/>
&gt; of Roman (mixed with a few greek, I believe) names.<br/>
&gt; There are Homer, Ithaca, Romulus, Ulysses, Rome etc,<br/>
&gt; not to exclude Syracuse.  I am wondering if Binghamton<br/>
&gt; is a Roman name or not.<br/>
<br/>
 </span></blockquote>According to G.R.Stewart in &lt;Names on the Land&gt; (i think; read it ages<br/>
ago), the &quot;classical belt&quot; happened when some officials needed a bunch<br/>
of names in a hurry.  A local Indian tribe was called &quot;Sinnekens&quot; by the<br/>
Dutch; this sounded enough like Seneca, the name of a Roman writer, to<br/>
trigger a chain of classical associations.<br/>
<br/>
obBorders: France briefly had 130 departments, extending into Holland<br/>
and Italy.  I wonder whether they have left any physical trace.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
-- <br/>
Anton Sherwood  --  <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://ogre.nu/">http://ogre.nu/</a> (not working just now)</div>