Brooklyn edit
- Coney Island: from Dutch Conyne Eylandt [1] (modern spelling: Konijn Eyland), ‘rabbit island’, attested to 1636. Coney, an archaic word for rabbit, and konijn are both from Latin cunīculus, possibly from Celtiberian *cunic-, a diminutive of cun- ‘dog’. Classical authors such as Aristophanes, Strabo, and Catullus either spoke directly of an Iberian origin for the words cuniculus and Greek κόνικλος koniklos or otherwise associated the peninsula with rabbits [2] (PDF) - indeed, the word Hispania itself may be derived from Phoenician אי שפנים ʾî-šəpānîm, ‘island of hyraxes’. Cuniculus, also meaning ‘rabbit hole’ ‘passageway’, ‘mine’, has also been explained as a Latin diminutive, from cunnus ‘cunt’, but given its incidence in other languages in a similar form, a derivation from Celtiberian with influence from the Latin sense seems more likely. Spanish has conejo, which could be said to be closer to the Celtiberian than to the Latin.
- Gravesend: after Gravesend, Kent.
- Sheepshead Bay: for the sheepshead, a fish once abundant in its waters.
Manhattan edit
- Chinatown: Chinese 唐人街 (Cantonese tòngyàhngāai, Mandarin tángrénjiē) Tang people street.
- Flatiron District: after the Flatiron Building, so nicknamed in the 1900s because of its resemblance to contemporary irons.
- Harlem: Named Nieuw Haarlem in 1658 after the Dutch city of Haarlem. Haarlem from Haarloheim
