Until theModern Era,Latin was thecommon language forscholarship andmapmaking. During the 19th and 20th centuries,German scholars in particular made significant contributions to the study of historical place names, orOrtsnamenkunde. These studies have, in turn, contributed to the study ofgenealogy. For genealogists and historians of pre-Modern Europe, knowing alternate names of places is vital to extracting information from both public and private records. Even specialists in this field point out, however, that the information can be easily taken out of context, since there is a great deal of repetition of place names throughout Europe; reliance purely on apparent connections should therefore be tempered with valid historical methodology.
Latin place names are not always exclusive to one place — for example, there were several Roman cities whose names began withColonia and then a more descriptive term. During theMiddle Ages, these were often shortened to justColonia. One of these,Colonia Agrippinensis, retains the name today in the form ofCologne.
Early sources forRoman names show numerous variants and spellings of theLatin names.
The modern canonical name is listed first. Sources are listed chronologically. In general, only the earliest source is shown for each name, although many of the names are recorded in more than one of the sources. Where the source differs in spelling, or has other alternatives, these are listed following the source. As an aid to searching, variants are spelled completely, and listed in most likely chronology.
Superscripts indicate:
Latinized form of the Greek-derived name.
Latinized form of the Asian-derived name via Greek.
PNH:Pliny (Gaius Plinius Secundus),Naturalis Historia; book "PNH" chapter (that is, "37PNH81" instead of the usual "N.H.xxxvii.81").
PG:Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolemaeus),Geographia; book "PG" chapter (that is, "2PG3" instead of the usual "II.3"). Ptolemy wrote inGreek, so names aretransliterated back intoLatin to reveal the original form.
GOL: The standard reference to Latin placenames, with their modern equivalents, isDr. J. G. Th. Grässe,Orbis Latinus: Lexikon lateinischer geographischer Namen des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit (1861), an exhaustive work of meticulous German scholarship that is available on-line in the second edition of 1909. To use it, one must understand German names of countries, as they were in 1909. The original was re-edited and expanded in a multi-volume edition in 1972.
