Five Mountain Names

  • Mount Everest: named after Colonel Sir George Everest (1790-1866), British Surveyor General of India.
  • K2: an early land-surveyor's shorthand notation, used because nobody lived near enough to the mountain for it to have a local name.
  • Himmelbjerget: "Mount Heaven", 147 meters above sea level. Denmark's highest point is in fact Møllehøj, "Windmill Barrow", at 171 m a.s.l.
  • Kebnekaise: "Kettle Peak". Sweden's highest mountain carries this name due to a misunderstanding between local Saami and surveyors, as the mountain with the concave peak is actually nearby Tolpagorni.
  • Mount McKinley: the highest peak in North America, named by a gold prospector in the 1890s after US president William McKinley. The president hailed from Ohio, and there is an on-going conflict between the Congressional delegations of Ohio and Alaska over attempts on the latter's part to rename the mountain Denali, which was its local name before the area became Anglicised.

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"Kebnekaise: "Kettle Peak". Sweden's highest mountain carries this name due to a misunderstanding between local Saami and surveyors, as the mountain with the concave peak is actually nearby Tolpagorni."

Cue for Terry Pratchett reference :)

By Birger Johansson (not verified) on 31 Jan 2011 #permalink

I was going in to a conference in a Windhoek hotel when the Faculty secretary burst out laughing. "Why," she wanted to know, "would they call a conference room 'buttocks'?" All of the rooms were named after mountains and they had not bothered to find out the Oshiwambo meaning of 'Omatakos'.

By Richard Simons (not verified) on 31 Jan 2011 #permalink

Elephant Mountain, east of Barstow, California

34.8884,-116.8963

The name is due to the fact that when seen from the west it looks like an elephant, complete with trunk. This was first noticed and named by silver miners on the way to Calico.

By Chris P Bacon (not verified) on 31 Jan 2011 #permalink

Mynydd Mawr in North Wales is locally known as Mynydd Eliffant (Elephant Mountain).

Lancashire's Pendle Hill means hill-hill-hill. It's disputed whether Torpenhow Hill (hill-hill-hill-hill) actually exists.

The Lake District has an Innominate Tarn.

By Stewart Hinsley (not verified) on 31 Jan 2011 #permalink

@Stewart: We get similar results in North America by combining English with Spanish or First Peoples names. For example, there is an area south of San Francisco known as the Los Altos hills (the the hills hills).

By Eric Lund (not verified) on 31 Jan 2011 #permalink

Or California's Sierra Nevada Mountains (mountain snow-covered mountains).

I'm pretty sure the name of the great Danish peak is "Himmelbjerget", without an s.

Well, of course there are the Grand Teton mountains in Wyoming; some explorers were dreaming. And the Sandia mountains in New Mexico, which look like broken watermelons with the sunset cast upon them.

Martin, shouldn't you do one of these posts for lakes or other bodies of water? I mean, you live right next to Grötfatet ("The Porridge Bowl")!

For inclusion in that list, I hereby nominate LÃ¥ngtarmen ("The Long Intestine", in Lake Mälaren near Drottningholm) and Trälhavet ("The Slave Ocean", next to ÃsterÃ¥ker).

Excellent examples, all!

Thinker, you're right! Hydronymy is a fascinating subject. Like, "Magelungen", WTF?

Denali, which was its local name

That is pretty much its local name again. Sounds like the Ohioans are in de"nali" about it.

There's a strait off Hanko called Hauensuoli / Gäddtarmen - "Pike Gut"

Arizona's "Picacho Peak", a volcano neck stub that is a prominent landmark between Phoenix and Tucson ... translates as "peak peak".

By Tsu Dho Nimh (not verified) on 01 Feb 2011 #permalink

I'm pretty sure most people would still call McKinley McKinley if the name got changed to Denali. It's been that way too long and it's ingrained into the culture.

By Drivebyposter (not verified) on 01 Feb 2011 #permalink

I guess Canada's Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump is more of a ridge than a mountain (or hill). else it would presumably take the lead here.

Sorry for the ambiguity; "Canada's" is not part of the name. It's "Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump", and it is IN Alberta, Canada.

I just wanted to add that there is something named _after_ a mountain. To be precise, K3 surfaces have been thus named by André Weil in honor of K2 (which he had actually seen, if not climbed).

Some Oregon geographic names:
Jump Off Joe Canyon, in Gilliam County, Oregon
Jump-off Joe Mountain, in Grant County, Oregon
Jumpoff Joe Creek, in Josephine County, Oregon

And then there's the State of Washington:
Jump Off Joe, a butte in Benton County, Washington
Jump Off Joe Lake, in Stevens County, Washington
Jump Off Joe Point, in Garfield County, Washington
Jumpoff Joe Creek, one of two streams in Stevens County, Washington

One wonders, Who was Joe?

I heard a lovely story, possibly apocryphal but who cares, while working in Jordan: a British cartographer making the first map of a wild part of the country asked a passing bedouin what the name of the prominent hill on the horizon was. The bedouin replied 'Wallahi ma baraf', and so it was named on all the maps up to the present day. 'Wallahi ma baraf' means 'Oh God, I dunno'.

Hill near here called "Deid For Cauld" (Dead of (or, Will Die of) Cold).
Accurate enough, I fear.
And the "Deaf Heights" not so far away.

By dustbubble (not verified) on 29 Jun 2011 #permalink