Naming rivers

[metal56]

"Why it's called River Thames instead of Thames River? Anyone would like to explain? Actually someone asked me and I got speechless lol "

On another forum, and in answer to the above question, I wrote this:

<<I'm beginning to think it goes like this:

The River Thames = the river with the name Thames.

The Thames River = the river running through/lying in the region of/having its source in the area known as Thames.

But, I'll have to check it out.

The River Nile = the river called Nile.

The Nile River = the river lying in the Nile Valley.

........

Any thoughts on that?>>

Most rivers in Britain tend to be spoken about using the "river + noun" form, but when we Brits speak about rivers abroad, we often choose the reverse form.

Examples from the British National Corpus (BNC):

THE YANGTZE RIVER

THE MARCHIONESS RIVER

THE TAPPAJOSS RIVER

THE DARO RIVER

THE LIMPOPO RIVER

THE BIKIN RIVER

THE CHATTAHOOCHEE RIVER

THE OXUS RIVER

THE YANGTSE RIVER

THE ZANSKAR RIVER

THE YONGBYON RIVER

THE MANU RIVER

THE LYNHER RIVER

THE VARDAR RIVER

THE TUTOH RIVER

THE TRAGINO RIVER

THE THAUNGYIN RIVER




Any thoughts?

[Andrew Patterson]

It's a tough one. I think we can say "the river Amazon" or "the Amazon river". My work nearly overlooks the river Odra, which I've found as the Odra river on the internet.

"Yellow river" seems to be the only acceptable form. Did Tony Christie have anything to do with that?
Can we talk about the Rio Bravo river? ("Rio" means "river" in Spanish.)

It seems that "brook" always comes second as in "Whitchurch brook".

[tigertiger]

The River Siene - Paris
The River Rhine
The River Wesser
The River Danube

Most rivers can also go by name only
The Thames
The Amazon


Perhaps the name is just a matter of custom and practice.

[metal56]

The River Siene - Paris
The River Rhine
The River Wesser
The River Danube

Most rivers can also go by name only
The Thames
The Amazon


Perhaps the name is just a matter of custom and practice.

Perhaps.

[metal56]

It's a tough one. I think we can say "the river Amazon" or "the Amazon river". My work nearly overlooks the river Odra, which I've found as the Odra river on the internet.

"Yellow river" seems to be the only acceptable form. Did Tony Christie have anything to do with that?
Can we talk about the Rio Bravo river? ("Rio" means "river" in Spanish.)

It seems that "brook" always comes second as in "Whitchurch brook".

Maybe it's all to do with what we see as honorific and what as adjectival.

[lolwhites]

Isn't the River X or simply the Xis the normal way of naming a river in an English-speaking country (with a few notable exceptions)? Hence the River Thames or simply the Thames. When a river isn't in an English-speaking country we tend to use the name i.e. the Amazon, the Nile; I've never heard the River Amazon (though I have heard the River Danube) though I'm sure if you Google the phrase it'll come up.

I think that if you were to say the Shannon River, you'd shift the emphasis in the same way as you can say Edinburgh or the city of Edinburgh.

Finally, I think these are tendencies rather than rules and we have to take each on a case-by-case basis. I'm not sure that you can predict a "correct" way to say any river anywhere in the world.

Corpus search anyone?

[metal56]

Isn't the River X or simply the Xis the normal way of naming a river in an English-speaking country (with a few notable exceptions)? Hence the River Thames or simply the Thames. When a river isn't in an English-speaking country we tend to use the name i.e. the Amazon, the Nile; I've never heard the River Amazon (though I have heard the River Danube) though I'm sure if you Google the phrase it'll come up.

I think that if you were to say the Shannon River, you'd shift the emphasis in the same way as you can say Edinburgh or the city of Edinburgh.

Finally, I think these are tendencies rather than rules and we have to take each on a case-by-case basis. I'm not sure that you can predict a "correct" way to say any river anywhere in the world.

Corpus search anyone?

Google first:

The River Amazon is by far the largest river in the world. About 20 % of all the freshwater flowing into the oceans of the world enter via the River Amazon, which has an average flow of 200,000 cubic meters per second at its mouth. This is more than ten times the flow of the Mississippi.

Interesting how they don't say the River Mississippi.
............

109,000 English pages for "river amazon".

....

The BNC, only two example.:

1 G25 of the composer's death. Erosion (Origin of the River Amazon) was commissioned by the Louisville Orchestra in 1950, and performed
2 G25 who spent ten days in orbit in 1957. The river Amazon was named by Spanish explorer Francisco de Orellana. While he was

.........

And might not certain uses of "the Amazon" be referring to the jungle area there and not the river?

[lolwhites]

And might not certain uses of "the Amazon" be referring to the jungle area there and not the river?

You'd have to check how many hits for the Amazon were actually the Amazon region or the Amazon basin. And your Mississippi example still suggests to me that rivers have to be dealt with case-by-case without expecting the same every time. We can only talk about tendencies here.

[JuanTwoThree]

My first thoughts on this were that:

Maybe the name of the river began as some kind of afterthought: people lived very circumscribed lives so the river was just that, the nearest one, as in "Let's go for a swim in the river".
I seem to remember that Seine/Thames/Ouse/Weser and others are Indo-European cognates meaning "river".
So maybe the need to in fact say the name of the river is secondary.
"Foreign" rivers are different because nobody ever started by thinking of them as "the river" , well not in English.

It may too just be a relic of an older (Norman French?) word order: County Durham, Past Simple, Eggs Benedict, Poet Laureate, Court Martial. River Severn.

It's certainly no more than a tendency though. It didn't occur to English speaking settlers to continue with this word order when they settled elsewhere. AFAIK.

[metal56]

And might not certain uses of "the Amazon" be referring to the jungle area there and not the river?

You'd have to check how many hits for the Amazon were actually the Amazon region or the Amazon basin. And your Mississippi example still suggests to me that rivers have to be dealt with case-by-case without expecting the same every time. We can only talk about tendencies here.

When you say case-by case, do you mean river by river?

[lolwhites]

When you say case-by case, do you mean river by river?

Yes, but even then the same river won't always be named in the same way.

[Andrew Patterson]

Brainstorming here, and I'm actually not sure if what I'm going to say here is correct, please let me know.

As well as an exotic feel, "river" after the name may have a somewhat romantic connotation in colloqual names for rivers.

"Old man river," for instance is the river Mississipppi (or Mississipppi river if you prefer.)

Not sure about "Moon river" - Breakfast at Tiffany's was set in NY which should make it the Hudson river. Does anyone know if it is in fact known as "Moon river"?

Trouble is, the (Blue) Danube and Seine probably have the most romantic reputation, and they seem to be known as the river Danube and river Seine respectively.

The river Thames is known as "Old Father Thames," but then there's no word "river" there.

If you can think of more colloqual names for individual rivers, please send them here.

[metal56]

I seem to remember that Seine/Thames/Ouse/Weser and others are Indo-European cognates meaning "river".

I think the Thames was named after Temesis, the Celtic goddess of water.

[JuanTwoThree]

I looked into this and the truth of my half remembered factoid is that a celtic word for water, similar to the uisge in whisky, has clear echoes in river names such as Usk and Esk. less clear in Ouse and Weser.

Tamesis seems to have been a goddess but the origin may be "The dark flowing one" a way of saying river in the first place. There are other rivers with similar names like the Tame.

The suffix ona also seems to have meant river (Shannon, Garonne, Dordogne).

I seem to have mixed up two things. But the "fact" remains that the word after "River" often seems to mean or include the idea of river. And Celts had a lot of words for river and water.

Anyway, I doubt if the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes etcetera were too bothered by any of this. There may be a tendency to ask the name of rivers and mountains but to rename settlements. Not though to ask the natives what the meaning of the river and mountain names are. They might not know anyway if they had themselves asked the last lot before they killed or enslaved them.

So it's not especially relevant to the word order thing.

[lolwhites]

So it's not especially relevant to the word order thing.

It does help explain why it's such a messy area, though.