We learn in school that America was named after Amerigo Vespucci. His claim to the name is not due to great heroism or importance, however. He was simply an explorer of the Americas around the year 1500 and a mapmaker of that time thought, “Why not name this new land after him?” And so it … Read more
Towns and streets follow very similar naming conventions, falling, as they do, into the same twelve categories detailed in my article, “What’s in a Name? — Street Names.” In Connecticut, the vast majority of towns take their names from places in the United Kingdom. Greenwich, Connecticut, is named after Greenwich, England. In this article, we … Read more
Have you ever wondered where the name “Connecticut” comes from? If you read through my article “What’s in a Name? — Street Names,” you might determine that Connecticut is a Native American name. But what does it mean? Who chose it to be the official name for our state? What we now call Connecticut was … Read more
What is the name of your street? What is the name of the street your school is on? Have you ever thought about why your street is named the way it is? Let’s find out! In New England, we have 12 categories of street names: British Places: Many streets in New England are named after places … Read more
What do our last names tell us about ourselves? What can we learn about who we are and where our ancestors came from by our last names? In the first article of my mini-series, “What’s in a Name?”, we looked at the history and meaning of first names. In this article, we’re going to look … Read more
Every name is a piece of history. This is true for names of big things, like towns or countries, but it’s also true for personal names. As much as it might feel like it, the name your parents gave you wasn’t pulled from thin air. It’s not just a random string of consonants and vowels. … Read more
Help us to fulfill our mission to preserve and interpret Greenwich history to strengthen the community’s connection to our past, to each other and to our future.
