Finally! An Atlas Of 'True' Names

If you have ever wondered how a Country or City got its name, this is the Atlas for you. Called Atlas of 'True' Names, it substitutes place names around the world with names based on their etymological (the history of the origin of the name), roots.

The Atlas comes with a comprehensive Index that explains the origin and the history behind each name in great detail, often augmented with an ancient folk tale. For example, Chicago has been renamed Stink Onion. According to the Atlas, the name was derived from the Native American word Checagou, which means wild onions or skunk - a reference to the smell of the wild marsh, upon which the city is built.

Another fun one is Great Britain, which has been renamed the Isles of the Tattooed. Apparently, the name Britain is a combination of the Greek word Prettanoi, which means tattooed people and the word Brit from the Celtic language, which means light-colored or speckled.

Cameroon is the Land of Shrimps, derived from the Portuguese word Camaroes, which means shrimp and poor Moscow has been renamed Bog, derived from the Slavic (a Russian language) word Mosk (means bog).

This fun Atlas is the brainchild of German Cartographers Stephan Hormes and his wife Silke Peust, who were inspired by the work of Lord of the Rings author, J.R.R. Tolkien. While it is hard to determine whether this is how modern names really came about, the Atlas makes for some fun and thought-provoking reading.

The Atlas of 'True' Names comes in three versions - a laminated 'antique' style wall map of the entire world, an 'antique' map of the United States or a fold-away map of the United Kingdom, all of which can be purchased from www.mapsonline.co.uk/the-atlas-of-true-names-wall-maps.aspx.

souces:telegraph.co.uk