The renaming of Philadelphia

LeopoldPhilippe · Apr 25, 2015

In 1681, King Charles II of England granted William Penn a charter for what would become the Pennsylvania colony.
William Penn named the city (of Philadelphia) Philadelphia, which is Greek for brotherly love.
Suppose Philadelphia was not named Philadelphia. What is the new name?

NKVD · Apr 25, 2015

It could be named after the indigenous village of Shackamaxon.

FickleCrossroad · Apr 25, 2015

Shackamaxon, as it was the Anglicized name of the existing Lenne Lenape settlement.

EDIT: Ninjaed

Umbric Man · Apr 25, 2015

The whole area was known as 'Wicaco', an Amerindian name the Swedes kept when they founded a hamlet there. William Penn would split off northern, unsettled Wicaco from its owners the Svenson family to become Philadelphia proper. Southern, settled Wicaco became the neighborhood of Southwark and thence Queen's Village.

Honestly, 'Southwark' is a nice, fine English name if you let Penn keep the whole area under one name but kept his renaming/anglicizing tendencies (Chester was once Upland, after all).

http://southwarkhistory.tumblr.com/post/21973325079/the-district-of-southwark-a-history-of-its

http://books.google.com/books?id=Td...onepage&q="wicaco" "now philadelphia"&f=false

http://southwarkhistory.tumblr.com/post/20864833583/historic-events-in-southwark-1600-1896

http://colonialswedes.net/History/Chronology.html

Otherwise, perhaps surprisingly, there's extremely little in the way of names that aren't Amerindian.

Burton K Wheeler · Apr 25, 2015

Richard Harrow said:
It could be named after the indigenous village of Shackamaxon.

Shackamaxon is a mile or two up the river from the historic site of Philadelphia.

Grey Wolf · Apr 26, 2015

Keeping indigineous names did not seem particularly high on the agenda in this period.

Presumably Penn named it Philadelphia to get some broad support for the name. If he was not that bothered, might he not just name it Pennsburg or some such?

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

Opunium · Apr 26, 2015

Williamsburg?

M79 · Apr 26, 2015

Billville probably would not work, jamesburg after the crown prince perhaps? How abut Prosperity or Abundance? Hope or any encouraging descriptor like that?

Umbric Man · Apr 26, 2015

Grey Wolf said:
Keeping indigineous names did not seem particularly high on the agenda in this period.

Presumably Penn named it Philadelphia to get some broad support for the name. If he was not that bothered, might he not just name it Pennsburg or some such?

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

Pennsbury as the most likely suffix, swiping the name of his manor/'-burg' came with the Scots-Irish and Germans a couple decades later! But that's a good guess in general of naming it after himself since he had a bit of an ego.

FINALLY, Philadelphia as a term was popular in this period. Why not translate it to Brotherlove? Worst city names exist.

LeopoldPhilippe · Apr 27, 2015

Charles City, named in honor of King Charles II of England.

funnyhat · Apr 27, 2015

LeopoldPhilippe said:
Charles City, named in honor of King Charles II of England.

Although this is logical enough, I don't think it would be named this simply because a Charles Town (now Charleston) had been founded in South Carolina a decade earlier.

M. Adolphe Thiers · Apr 27, 2015

Richard Harrow said:
It could be named after the indigenous village of Shackamaxon.

I think this is a good possibility. There's plenty of neighborhoods with Lenape names, such as Manayunk and Conshohocken, and suburban communities such as Perkasie. Pennsbury was the name of Penn's home, so that's another likely candidate.