REFERENCE / Questions & Answers

Drivers exiting the New Jersey Turnpike for Perth Amboy, and map readers marveling at all the places in Pennsylvania named Lackawanna, need no longer wonder how these names originated. Manhattan to Minisink provides the histories of more than five hundred place names in the Greater New York area, including the five boroughs, western Long Island, the New York counties north of the city, and parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. Robert S. Grumet, a leading ethnohistorian specializing in the region’s Indian peoples, draws on his meticulous research and deep knowledge to determine the origins of Native, and Native-sounding, place names.

Written by distinguished linguist William Bright, the handbook is organized alphabetically, and its entries for places—including towns, cities, counties, parks, and geographic landmarks—are concise and easy to read. Entries give the state and county, along with all available information on pronunciation, the name of the language from which the name derives, the name’s literal meaning, and relevant history. In their introduction to the handbook, editors Alice Anderton and Sean O’Neill provide easy-to-understand pronunciation keys for English and Native languages.