Islamic placenames

I've been working on a TL for a while, and some problems came up. I need some pretty good, plausible names for certain areas of the word that are Islamic in the ATL, but not in OTL (the timeline focuses on a much more expansionist Dar al-Islam).

-Mexico. (Aztekiyye? Clearly I have no ideas for this one.)

-settlements in Australia, although not the whole continent (just the western coasts).

-South American colonies, such as OTL Venezuela and Argentina (but not Brazil).

-southern Great Britain (I heard Angliyye somewhere. Any good?).

-France. (I'm pretty such I'm just going to use al-Firanja, but I threw it in here just in case.)

Any ideas?

Oh yeah, and Cuba, Hispaniola, and pretty much any Carribean island.

I've seen Al-Kiba used for Cuba (maybe in Journey to Fusang?).

What about Tainiyye (after the Taino tribes) for the Caribbean islands as a whole?

I would need to know the date of the POD and who is leading the expansion. For instance, Aztekiyye would mean "Aztekian" "of the Aztecs", or "Aztecs'", but in Ottoman, not Arabic, which would be Aztekiyya, which would refer to a regime, but not a nation. The Aztekiyya would be "the Aztec period".

Where did you get al-Firanja? That doesn't sound right to me.

In general, you can just name things whatever you want, just derive it from some predominant feature of the place.

For instance the Sudan is short for "Bilad es-Sudan", which just means "Land of the Blacks" Australia could be "Land of the hopping rodents" (Bilad es-kanguru? - I don't know what the plural of kangaroo would be, it doesn't come up much. If it is Ottoman, then it's kangurular)

In Gurps AE 2, they invented these names:
Djiba (Australia)
Zabai (Indonesia)
Sawi (Pawnee)
Haqiyya (Aymara)
Teluqi (S-E USA)

Dont' know what they mean, sorry.

Abdul Hadi Pasha said:

I would need to know the date of the POD and who is leading the expansion. For instance, Aztekiyye would mean "Aztekian" "of the Aztecs", or "Aztecs'", but in Ottoman, not Arabic, which would be Aztekiyya, which would refer to a regime, but not a nation. The Aztekiyya would be "the Aztec period".

Where did you get al-Firanja? That doesn't sound right to me.

In general, you can just name things whatever you want, just derive it from some predominant feature of the place.

For instance the Sudan is short for "Bilad es-Sudan", which just means "Land of the Blacks" Australia could be "Land of the hopping rodents" (Bilad es-kanguru? - I don't know what the plural of kangaroo would be, it doesn't come up much. If it is Ottoman, then it's kangurular)

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The expansion pretty much begins differently at Islam's begining, but for a definitive POD, we could say it starts at Tours in 732. The expansion into Mexico, the Carribean and the other areas is Arabic, not Ottoman.

I've read al-Firanja in many places, for example The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Robinson. I've read it's Arabic for "land of the Franks", which would seem appropriate for an Islamic France.

Maiyya
Iroquiyya
Kanadiyya
Inkiyya

Abdul Hadi Pasha said:

For instance the Sudan is short for "Bilad es-Sudan", which just means "Land of the Blacks" Australia could be "Land of the hopping rodents" (Bilad es-kanguru? - I don't know what the plural of kangaroo would be, it doesn't come up much. If it is Ottoman, then it's kangurular)

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I would imagine that it's kanaaqir (ad hoc pl. of kanqar).

Venezuela was named after the villagers who built huts on Lake Maracaibo; if we butterfly Venezia out, I don't know what to call them. The people who live in these areas are Arawak and Carib, so perhaps they get their own names (ar-Rawaak, al-Kaarib). As John said, Aztekiyya is an adjective - if it were al-jumhuriyya al-aztekiyya (the Aztec Republic) it might make more sense. That is why the Arabs refer to the al-jumhuriyya at-Tunisiyya as at-Tunis (simply "Tunis") whereas we refer to it as Tunisia, literally "Tunisian" in Arabic.

Perhaps Bilaad al-Ahram ("Land of the Pyramids"), al-Ahram for short, for Mexico and Central America? Certainly the Pyramids would be the first thing to attract the attention of early Islamic colonists.

North America could be Bilaad ash-Shaam, (like Syria today - the "country of the North") with the city of ash-Shaam (al-jadiid) (New Damascus) somewhere near OTL Ft. Augustine or New Orleans.

I would also recommend picking names of Islamic cities in the old world and establishing them as the capitals of various territories in the new - they would give their names to the new territories. There are plenty of famous Arabic port cities to give their names to the new territories. You can shake things up a bit.

Leo Caesius said:

I would imagine that it's kanaaqir (ad hoc pl. of kanqar).

Venezuela was named after the villagers who built huts on Lake Maracaibo; if we butterfly Venezia out, I don't know what to call them. The people who live in these areas are Arawak and Carib, so perhaps they get their own names (ar-Rawaak, al-Kaarib). As John said, Aztekiyya is an adjective - if it were al-jumhuriyya al-aztekiyya (the Aztec Republic) it might make more sense. That is why the Arabs refer to the al-jumhuriyya at-Tunisiyya as at-Tunis (simply "Tunis") whereas we refer to it as Tunisia, literally "Tunisian" in Arabic.

Perhaps Bilaad al-Ahram ("Land of the Pyramids"), al-Ahram for short, for Mexico and Central America? Certainly the Pyramids would be the first thing to attract the attention of early Islamic colonists.

North America could be Bilaad ash-Shaam, (like Syria today - the "country of the North") with the city of ash-Shaam (al-jadiid) (New Damascus) somewhere near OTL Ft. Augustine or New Orleans.

I would also recommend picking names of Islamic cities in the old world and establishing them as the capitals of various territories in the new - they would give their names to the new territories. There are plenty of famous Arabic port cities to give their names to the new territories. You can shake things up a bit.

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At the risk of being pedantic, you can't use Jumhuriyya, because that is an Ottoman term, not Arabic (it uses Arabic roots, but it was an Ottoman 19th c coinage, as nobody had a term for "Republic" - that might seem odd since the Islamic world had had access to Plato for millenia, but they read it in Greek, where the word we translate as "republic" really means "polity". In any case, Bonaparte set up an Arab printing press when he occupied Egypt, but the very first document got stuck on the first line because nobody could translate "French Republic".)

Other than that, your coinages are quite good. However, I can't think of any city names that are New-something - that doesn't seem to be Islamic practice. The only time I've seen it is when a city actually moves or acquires a new district - like Old and New Dongola in Sudan. I would name cities after rulers. For instance, Ismailia was named for the Khedive, although I'm not sure why such a western-sounding form was chosen.

And although I like al-Ahram very much, shouldn't that be "ziggurat"? In Turkish it's "zigurat", I have no idea what the Arabic is.

Why not simply directional names? Al-Gharb-the west. If the Muslims could apply it to Portugal, you can bet they'll apply it elsewhere. Maybe as a vague term for the Americas?

Abdul Hadi Pasha said:

At the risk of being pedantic, you can't use Jumhuriyya, because that is an Ottoman term, not Arabic.

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That's precisely what Moammar Qaddhafi calls his state a jamahiriya or some other such nonsense, IIRC. Naturally that would be just as anachronistic, being a reaction towards the Ottoman term. But Tunisia was such a good example of a country which had a (wrong) nisbe name in English that I had to use it.

Other than that, your coinages are quite good. However, I can't think of any city names that are New-something - that doesn't seem to be Islamic practice.

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Thanks. That's why I put (al-jadiid) in parens - I didn't want to give the wrong impression, but I didn't make myself very clear I'm afraid. If a new Damascus was built, it would probably just be called ash-Shaam. When there are two different cities of the same name, like Tripoli, they simply call them by the name of the region (eg. at-Tarabulus al-Maghreb). So, if he has a city named Damascus in ar-Rawaak, it would probably be called ash-Shaam ar-Rawaak, the "Damascus of Arawak" to distinguish it from the old Damascus.

And although I like al-Ahram very much, shouldn't that be "ziggurat"? In Turkish it's "zigurat", I have no idea what the Arabic is.

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Ziggurat might even be more appropriate for Mesoamerica; in Arabic, al-ahram are "pyramids" (the singular is haram with a he-hoti) (Egypt's leading English daily is called al-Ahram, as is its brewing company, and probably half the other businesses in Egypt). The name is derived from the geometric shape, IIRC, although it could be just as easily vice-versa.

Faeelin said:

Why not simply directional names? Al-Gharb-the west. If the Muslims could apply it to Portugal, you can bet they'll apply it elsewhere. Maybe as a vague term for the Americas?

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Believe it or not, but the word Europe probably derives from the NW Semitic cognate of the Arabic (Heb. Erev "West"). Europa's brother was named Kadmos, too, which is quite transparently the Semitic root QDM "East."

Leo Caesius said:

Believe it or not, but the word Europe probably derives from the NW Semitic cognate of the Arabic (Heb. Erev "West"). Europa's brother was named Kadmos, too, which is quite transparently the Semitic root QDM "East."

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That seems somewhat odd. Wasn't the word Europa in use before then?

Faeelin said:

That seems somewhat odd. Wasn't the word Europa in use before then?

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It's Phoenician. According to Herodotus, Europa was a Phoenician princess. I believe it was Hesiod who identified her as the daughter of Agenor, and sister of Phoenix (Phoenicia), Cadmus (the East), Cilix (Cilicia, in Asia Minor), and Syrus (Syria). Zeus kidnapped Europa and brought her to Crete, where she became the mother of the royal dynasty there. Mind you, I'm simplifying things here incredibly and a Classicist could probably do a much better job.

I'm not sure how the geographical term Europe spread from Crete to encompass the whole continent, however. Anybody know?

Here's a thought. Al-AhwÄz is what Arabs call KhÅ«zestÄn, which, believe it or not, is from the same root (different h's, yes, but from the same group - the KhÅ«zi or Houzi). The capital of KhÅ«zestÄn, AhvÄz, is originally from the name SÅ«q al-AhwÄz, "Market of the KhÅ«zi." I would expect plenty of Islamic colonies in the New World to have names like SÅ«q al-...

Azteca, to my ears, sounds quite a bit like an Arabic broken plural (of some root ZTK, or ZTQ, which unfortunately doesn't exist). A place named SÅ«q al-AztÄq (later simply AztÄq) could very well be the capital of the Aztec region. There's a SDQ root, that gives you words like truthteller, marriage contract, friend, etc... SÅ«q al-AsdiqÄ' would mean "the friends' market" (there should be a dot under the s, but I can't reproduce it here). Asdaq in Arabic means "more reliable, more loyal" (again, imagine a dot under the s). Perhaps this might arise through confusion between the names, or perhaps the Aztecs sense the way the wind is blowing and ally themselves with the Islamic colonists.

Alternatively, you could just use a literal translation; I've heard that Aztec means "person from the place of cranes" so you could just call them RihÄ'ÄwÄ« (lit. "Cranesian") pl. ar-RihÄ'ÄwiyyÅ«n. I'm not a native speaker, so take these with a grain of salt, but they sound plausible to my non-native ears.

Very interesting, I'll keep all of this in mind. (By the way, the Aztecs themselves are not Muslims, they, sadly, get wiped out as in OTL. It's just Arabic colonists that travel to Mesoamerica.) Any other ideas?

tetsu-katana said:

Very interesting, I'll keep all of this in mind. (By the way, the Aztecs themselves are not Muslims, they, sadly, get wiped out as in OTL. It's just Arabic colonists that travel to Mesoamerica.) Any other ideas?

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When and where do the Muslims land in Mexico? Depending on the location and time period, the area could be named after the Tlaxtecs, the Huastecs (in NE Mexico, along the Gulf Coast), the Maya, or some other group. Heck, with all the wealth, it could be "land of gold" or something.

Alasdair Czyrnyj said:

When and where do the Muslims land in Mexico? Depending on the location and time period, the area could be named after the Tlaxtecs, the Huastecs (in NE Mexico, along the Gulf Coast), the Maya, or some other group. Heck, with all the wealth, it could be "land of gold" or something.

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They land around 1525, and of course come across the Aztecs. Actually, they land in southern Texas, but after further exploration they do find the Valley of Mexico.

Well, you could also name the area after the Mississippians in the area. Don't know how that would translate though.