Cool ancient names of cities or regions

[sydhe]

I think that the linguistic connections for the name of Eastern Europe's Galicia are semi-tenuous and are mostly adopted in lieu of anything better. The word comes from Halicz/Halych, the name of a reasonably powerful medieval principality in the area. It might've been named for some mysterious Celtic group there, but there's no actual proof of one spending time in the region, and no explanation for why its name would've been given to the area. There are other linguistic arguments for the name, but they're just as dubious.

It would be a relief if it turned out to be a coincidence. There's some dispute over the "Gal" in Portugal, but the Gallaeci lived in what are northwestern Spain (hence the Spanish Galicia) and Northern Portugal, and there were Celts throughout the region.

 

[Domen]

Dachs is right.

Please note that H is read and spelled as G in cyrilics.

This is why in Russian for example Franz Halder is spelled Franz Galder.

 

[Bugfatty300]

Mo Han Joe Daro

 

[Domen]

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llanfairpwllgwyngyll

http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

 

[W|M]

That's not ancient.

 

[sophie]

That's not ancient.

Does it really count if the part that makes it "cool" is purely intentional?

 

[Kyriakos]

The city of Gelonus / Gelonos.

Thanks

I just read that in mythology Gelonos was supposed to be the son of Heracles, and the mythical monster Echidna... Also his two brothers, one of which was Scythes, eponymous king of Scythia (where Gelonos was argued to exist as a wooden city, by Herodotos).

I can't say anything much about the etymology of Gelonos though.

 

[Civciv5]

Shangdu/Xanadu
Shuruppak
Trisamudratoyapitvahana
Angkor
Turquoise Mountain
Sarai

 

[Tee Kay]

This thread is basically a history-themed version of this:


Link to video.

 

[Phrossack]

This thread is basically a history-themed version of this:


Link to video.

Tmutarakan GONE!

 

[Kyriakos]

Κύμη (Kyme, latin version was Cumae) also is a nice city name. I have seen it argued that it was the first Greek colony in Italy (sometime before the 7nth century BC), founded by Euboeans from the cities of Chalkis, Eretria, and (Euboean) Kyme.
The name seems to be directly derived from the ancient (and current) Greek term for the sea-wave (kyma).

Also worth noting is that the Euboeans were at the time using a variant of the Greek alphabet, with different letters. Those letters came to be adopted by the local Italian tribes, and later became the latin alphabet

The colony was also the entry point in the Italian peninsula for the Euboean alphabet, the local variant of the Greek alphabet used by its colonists, a variant of which was adapted and modified by the Etruscans and then by the Romans and became the Latin alphabet still used worldwide today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumae

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Yathrib sounds like it's inhabited by a race of eldritch abominations.