Ray Girvan at the Apothecary's Drawer Weblog has an interesting post on the sometimes-odd development of place names in the wake of major political/linguistic changes. He was "partially inspired" by the series of Language Hat and Language Log posts on Pishpek → Frunze → Bishkek, and he gives links to toponymic developments both in fiction (in particular, Russell Hoban's Ridley Walker) and in fact (post-Roman Kent).
Posted by Mark Liberman at September 30, 2004 07:06 AM