An Integrated Approach to Germanic Place Names in the American Midwest

Abstract

Place names represent an established topic in sociocultural and critical scholarship on human space and place. Based on a comprehensive data set of Germanic names in the American Midwest, this article explores the value of a novel approach integrating advanced spatio-statistical measures with critical interpretation to revitalize the field of toponomy on a concerted methodological and theoretical level. Processed in a geographic information system (GIS) environment, the regional toponymic pattern provides a broad and reliable framework that evokes interpretative discussion of underlying structures and processes. This characterizes Germanic toponyms as versatile sociodemographic, political, and ethnocultural indicators.

地名, 在研究人类地方与空间的社会文化及批判研究中, 是一个已发展的主题。本文根据美国中西部的德文地名的综合数据集, 探讨一崭新取径的价值, 该取径整合先进的空间—统计方法与批判性诠释, 并以此在一致的方法论与理论层级上, 再活化地名学的领域。区域的地名模式, 在地理信息系统 (GIS) 环境中进行处理, 提供了广泛且可信赖的架构, 该架构引发对于支持系统与过程的诠释性讨论。此亦描绘了德文地名学做为多变的社会人口、政治及族裔文化的指标。

Los nombres de lugares representan uno de los tópicos con posición propia en la erudición sociocultural y crítica sobre espacio y lugar humanos. A partir de un bien surtido conjunto de datos sobre nombres de origen alemán en el Medio Oeste americano, este artículo explora el valor de un novedoso enfoque que integra mediciones espacial-estadísticas avanzadas con la interpretación crítica para revitalizar el campo de la toponimia a un nivel metodológico y teórico concertado. Procesado en el ambiente de un sistema de información geográfica (SIG), el patrón toponímico regional provee un amplio y confiable marco de referencia que evoca la discusión interpretativa de estructuras y procesos subyacentes. Esto caracteriza los topónimos germánicos como versátiles indicadores sociodemográficos, políticos y etnoculturales.

Key Words:

• American Midwest
• ancestry
• critical toponomy
• Germans
• GIS

关键词:

• 美国中西部
• 祖先
• 批判地名学
• 德国人
• 地理信息系统

Palabras clave:

• el Medio Oeste americano
• linaje
• toponimia crítica
• alemanes
• SIG

Notes

The term ethnocultural reflects the definition of ethnicity as a social construct (Waters 1990). I discuss Germanic immigrants and their descendants as a distinctive ethnocultural group of common ancestry and cultural tradition; their personal affiliations, however, increasingly represent matters of relatively free choice.

Tretter (2011, 38–39) does include a brief and basic comparison with national data on African Americans.

This includes Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota (U.S. Census Bureau 2012b).

Historic toponyms are names no longer in use because of name changes or place abandonment.

Reliable sources include printed publications and websites of professional scholars, organizations, and official national, state, and local institutions. In addition, I used historic census manuscripts to verify the nationality or birthplace of eponyms and local residents.

The Getis-OrdGi* statistic compares the summarized local and neighboring rates with the expected rates based on all counties in the region (ArcGIS Help Library: How Hot Spot Analysis Works). Hot spots (z > 1.65, p < 0.1) indicate significantly higher, cold spots (z < –1.65, p < 0.1) significantly lower rates than expected.

The definition of artificial boundaries and territorial units (i.e., counties) influences related summary values (Openshaw 1984).

In a spatial smoothing process, I incorporated the relative prominence of Germanic names among all populated place names within a 50-km radius around each location of Germanic naming using the floating catchment area method (Wang 2006, 35–42). The kernel density estimation calculates a generic raster surface that I reclassified into a continuous scale from low to high based on natural break values.

The scan statistic applies a purely spatial analysis focused on features’ frequency. It detects and evaluates clusters of Germanic naming across the study area using circular scanning windows of different sizes.

Hermann represents a highly symbolic figure of Germanic resilience, unity, and independence (Rampelmann 2008). Bismarck is venerated as the political architect of the unified German Empire of 1871 (Gerwarth and Riall 2009).

The German and Austro-Hungarian empires included additional ethnoculturally mixed areas, such as Alsace-Lorraine, Moravia, Silesia, and East Prussia that are now part of France, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Russia, respectively.

I used data on the first ancestry reported from the 2006–2010 American Community Survey (U.S. Census Bureau 2013a). The Germanic ancestry claimed in the census represents the current self-perception of a person (Farley 1991) and does not necessarily reflect historic settlement areas.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stephan Fuchs

STEPHAN FUCHS is an academic associate in the Institute of Geography at the University of Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 348, 69121 Heidelberg, Germany. E-mail: [email protected]. His research focuses on demographic and sociocultural patterns in historical and contemporary contexts and the application of modern qualitative and spatio-statistical analyses.