European AtlasMap 1

Where city names come from

Every dot is a city. Hover or tap one to read where its name is thought to come from, and use the legend to hide categories.

Hover or tap a city.

Names in the pink “unknown” group cluster in Iberia, southern France, the islands, and Greece, places settled before Indo-European languages arrived, so their names come from Iberian, Aquitanian, Ligurian, or pre-Greek substrates nobody can read. Classifications are judgment calls from the standard etymological literature; several disputed ones could reasonably slide either way.