Why so many streams with the same name?

echuck66

echuck66

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As a transplant from Virginia, I often get confused listening to people talk about various streams around the state because they have the same name.

Same is true with names of towns in Pennsylvania. We have towns with the same name, but they tack on the word 'Township' or something to make it slightly different. I get confused by this all the time.

Seriously though, why all the places with the same name? Cedar Run and Pine Creek are just two examples. Couldn't the people who settled Pennsylvania come up with unique names for places?
 
maybe the names are old, from a time when people covered less territory, so they were less confusing?
 
I tend to think that as people migrated westward across the state, that they named places the same to make them feel like they were back home. Just a guess on my part though.
 
Many of the place names are Native American in Origin, but as europeans started arriving they put many names on places that they lived in the Old Country. There were many waves of migrations from the Britiash Isles, particularly from Scotland and Ireland.
So what you get is Elgish translations of Native American names, such as Pine Creek (Taidaughton= River of Pines) many creeks named Pine Creek, because the trees in the watershed were massive White Pines, Laurel Runs( Laurel= Rhodadendron) there are at least 67 of them.
Place names like Donegal, there are at least 2 of those, Donegal in Lancaster County was named by PA. Sec. of State Thomas Logan, when he invited persecuted Scots-Irish to Penna. to settle along the frontier, because he knew that they would protect their land, thus protecting the colony from invasions of Native Americans and French.
Then there is the lack of originality of the settlers.
There are also names like Delaware, there are a bunch of them in PA, named for the Lenape Indians, and further west in other stats where the Lenape were pushed as Europeans moved futher west.
 
When people first started calling streams a particular name, it was done informally. There was no USGS then, no DCNR, and no planning involved to create a rational stream naming system.

There was a stream that had a mill on it, so the people near there called it Mill Creek. Another stream had a lot of pines along it, so they called it Pine Creek.

The stream names that are very common originate from very common features in the landscape.

Here are some common words that begin stream names in PA, with the number of times they occur.

Bear - 86

Beaver - 63

Coal - 33

Dry - 57

Laurel - 74

Mill - 78

Miller - 21

Panther - 24

Pine or Piney - 88

Rattlesnake - 13

Stony - 45

Trout - 51

Wolf - 50





 
That's interesting TB. I believe I read somewhere that many streams were named after original families of the area. Potter County is named after General James Potter, who was actually the Vice President of Pa back in the day. Neat stuff.
 
"Back in the day," there was really no way to know that the Laurel Run you were naming was not the only stream named Laurel Run.
 
Great info guys! I had no idea the numbers were so high for duplicates. I wonder how many other states have the same situation... Pennsylvania is the first place I've lived that I've noticed this though.
 
If we could re-name all these streams again, based on their current conditions, I wonder which ones would be most frequent.

AMD Run?

Tire Crick?

 
Or we could do the whole Greenland/Iceland thing and trick people. A trout rich stream we could call "Chub Creek", and a creek littered w/ chubs and other junk fish we could call "Trout Run"
 
This is kind like the dad that names his son Jr., II, III IV and so on. The creeks and rivers were never named by ladies. I've never seen a jr. or II or III with girls. Exception would be like Queen Elizabeth.

Limited vocabulary maybe.
 
Chaz wrote:
Many of the place names are Native American in Origin, but as europeans started arriving they put many names on places that they lived in the Old Country. There were many waves of migrations from the Britiash Isles, particularly from Scotland and Ireland.
So what you get is Elgish translations of Native American names, such as Pine Creek (Taidaughton= River of Pines) many creeks named Pine Creek, because the trees in the watershed were massive White Pines, Laurel Runs( Laurel= Rhodadendron) there are at least 67 of them.
Place names like Donegal, there are at least 2 of those, Donegal in Lancaster County was named by PA. Sec. of State Thomas Logan, when he invited persecuted Scots-Irish to Penna. to settle along the frontier, because he knew that they would protect their land, thus protecting the colony from invasions of Native Americans and French.
Then there is the lack of originality of the settlers.
There are also names like Delaware, there are a bunch of them in PA, named for the Lenape Indians, and further west in other stats where the Lenape were pushed as Europeans moved futher west.
Click to expand...

That all may be so, but there is only one Intercourse, one Blue Ball, and pretty sure just one Lickingville in PA.
 
Bearski wrote:
If we could re-name all these streams again, based on their current conditions, I wonder which ones would be most frequent.

AMD Run?

Tire Crick?
Click to expand...

The little crick that flowed through my home town I think was officially named Step Creek (another common name) but we called it Turd Run.
 
I read online that there are 4 Laurel Runs that are tributaries to Bald Eagle Creek. But I know of "only" 3.

Some of the stream names make you wonder about the history. There are 8 Bloody Runs and one Blood Run in PA. And there is a Lamentation Run near Blood Run.

My favorite stream name is Bear Wallow Hollow.

 
That all may be so, but there is only one Intercourse, one Blue Ball, and pretty sure just one Lickingville in PA.
Click to expand...

Lots of fun town names. Don't forget Climax, Virginville, Jugtown, Puseyville, and all of the gaps (for instance, Allison's Gap). Or any of the Beavers (Big Beaver, New Beaver, etc.).

Ok, gettign out of the gutter. We have a bad habit of renaming our towns after other worldly place names. Donegal, for instance, is an Irish Town. Pretty sure the Irish had it first. We also got Dublin, Damascus, Moscow, Warsaw, Versailles, Rome, St. Petersburg, Athens, Liverpool, Alexandria, etc. It's much better, though, if we add a "New" in front of it, like New Bethlehem, New London, New Hanover, etc. 😉

Or how bout a foreign country? Egypt, Norwegian, Lebanon, Newfoundland, Scotland, Sweden, Japan. Or why not just a U.S. state? Indiana, California, Nebraska, Oregon, Washington, Oklahoma, and Jersey Shore. Or a large U.S. City? Denver, Milwaukee.

And hey, we got other weird ones too. Home, Moon, Mars, Crackersport (hehe), Glen Campbell, Gravity, Jim Thorpe, Panic. The fun goes on.

I knew a girl in college from Home. "Hey, where'd you grow up?" "Home." "Yeah, no kidding, but where is home?" lol.
 
troutbert wrote:
I read online that there are 4 Laurel Runs that are tributaries to Bald Eagle Creek. But I know of "only" 3.

Some of the stream names make you wonder about the history. There are 8 Bloody Runs and one Blood Run in PA. And there is a Lamentation Run near Blood Run.

My favorite stream name is Bear Wallow Hollow.
Click to expand...

Bloody hell!

Does Blood run (the one near Lamination Run) run a little on the red side from iron? I don't remember. Some do in that watershed.
 
"My favorite stream name is Bear Wallow Hollow."

tried to look this up, but the natural repro list shows both a Bear Wallow Hollow and a Bearwallow Hollow 🙂
 
It's the same in New York and NJ. The Adirondacks have dozens of Round Ponds and Long Ponds. Within 10 miles of my house are at least 5 Trout Brooks and 6 Mill Brooks.

BTW, Delaware is a French/English name and the Lenape weren't crazy about it. The name comes from Thomas West, the first governor of Virginia who sent an expedition North to see what was up here. The explorers named a bay, a river, and the local Indians after him. His title was Lord De La Warr, which became Delaware.

Favorite name is for a rapid on the Delaware; the Foul Rift
 
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