The Sultan's Journey and other Turkish Placename Stories

Abstract

This article looks at the origin of Turkish placenames from the starting point of an assignment given to a class of students at a university in Turkey. The students' stories have been grouped thematically into 1) Names from antiquity, 2) Ottoman or Turkish origin names, 3) City districts, and present a broad spectrum of examples· from across the country including cities, towns, and villages. The sources the student used, and the reliability of those sources, is discussed. As far as possible, the contributions have been verified or varying interpretations noted. Additional sections give information on Turkish pronunciation, cultural aspects, historical developments, and folk etymology. It was found that where there was an absence of written sources, a tendency exists to explain names by means of stories based on age-old Turkish traditions and beliefs.