Jamaican Place Names (review)

Jamaica is said to have a variety of interesting place names, and Higman and Hudson set out to delve into its history. The authors stress that what they have produced is not a gazetteer of Jamaica—indeed, no list of names accompanies the book—but a study of Jamaican toponymics. Nor have they produced a tourist’s book, full of stories about quaint names of this or that locality; it is intended as an academic study. After a brief introduction to their goals and a more substantive discussion of topographical study in general, the authors present thematically organized chapters dealing with different aspects of naming patterns—for example, places named after other places (transfer names, most often, as one might expect, from Europe and especially England), places named after people, places named after emotive states like harmony, names taken from functions (enterprises), topographical names, or hydrological names. Although statistical work is clearly at the root of the project, the book has only five systematic displays of these data in tabular or graphical form, to which the authors allude only as appropriate in the course of the narrative.

Jamaica is not a particularly big place, but it has a good cartographical and cadastral history. A number of detailed maps of the island have been produced since the late sixteenth century, as well as excellent cadastral surveys, and records have survived well, at least in fairly recent times. These sources make it possible to record and study a wide range of place names over time—indeed, to study a fixed and manageable political-physical entity in exceptional detail. The authors exploit this material fully. The database that underlies the study seems to be considerable (though the raw data are not displayed in the book).

The methodological approach is bare bones. The authors provide categories, examples of these categories, and information about the distribution of place names across the island through time, including a substantial number of maps illustrating primarily distribution of categories of place names. The book is not particularly thesis-driven—for example, one that presents and defends an idea about how a centuries-long indigenous occupation, a colonial invasion by Spain, and a subsequent seizure by Britain might have shaped the naming of places over time. It does not approach, at least not directly, how the history of the island under changing agronomic regimes (gold production, cattle raising, intensive sugar production, and so on) might be reflected, or not, in names. Remarkably few names, even of geographical features, arose from the languages of the indigenous Tainos or had African origins, given the island’s demographical history. Aside from a few comments about the prevalence of personal names as a starting point for all place names—possibly because the privately owned sugar estate was the unit of settlement from the late seventeenth century onward—the authors offer little in the way of explanation for the names.

In some measure, this absence of a more detailed commentary reflects the pioneering nature of the study. One reason why Jamaican place names cannot easily be studied in relation to those of other Caribbean islands (whether English, Spanish, French, Dutch, or Danish) is because comparable studies have not appeared elsewhere. Surprisingly, not much work has been done on toponomy in most American colonial societies, including those with Spanish origins, which are likely to reflect varied patterns. The naming patterns in North America, which has been more carefully studied, or at least has had data compiled, might provide a useful comparison with those of Jamaica. Perhaps this book will stimulate scholars in other American societies to do this sort of work.