When Does the Word “Lake” Come First or Last in Lake Names?

Hey there, you have A Way with Words.

Hey there, this is Tim calling from Ridgewood, Queens, New York.

Well, Tim, welcome to the show. What’s on your mind?

Well, I grew up in western Connecticut and my parents still live up there.

And about a week ago, my mom and my stepdad were on a hike.

And they sent me and my siblings like a nice sunshiny selfie with a beautiful lake in the background.

And I was trying to figure out which lake it was and I was running through some options in my head around where they live.

Is it like Lake Lillinona?

Is it Lake Wormog?

Is it Candlewood Lake?

Is it Bantam Lake?

And I kind of got sidetracked by a random thought, which was like, why is Lake in front of some of those names?

And after, it was like an intrusive thought, like, why is it in front of some?

And why is it after others, like Lake Lillinona, Candlewood Lake?

And then, of course, I got sidetracked by another thought, which was maybe Grant and Martha would find this interesting.

So I dialed you up.

And here we are.

I never got around to responding to them about the hike, but I’m curious if you do find this interesting.

Talk to my parents, talk to Grant and Martha.

Which one will it be?

Tim, you’re our people.

We get sidetracked all the time by language, so this is great.

We totally understand.

Thank you.

So the question, just to reframe this, is why are some lakes lake name and other lakes are named lake, right?

So the examples you gave were?

Lake Lillinona and Lake Waramog, Candlewood Lake and Bantam Lake.

Those are all like in western Connecticut, but I’m sure there are examples all over the place.

There absolutely are.

For years, people have been asking us about this, and we’ve had pretty good answers, I think, Martha.

I think we’ve done pretty well.

But I have to tell you that this time when I researched this, I came across a paper published in the August Journal, Freshwater Biology.

And this paper answers the question once and for all.

And it’s by Beatrix Beisner and Kaylin Carey, published in 2016.

And the title’s Lake Name or Name Lake, the Etymology of Lake Nomenclature in the United States.

And what they did was analyzed around 1,000 lake names and found that most lakes are in the name lake format.

So what’s the example that you have where lake came last?

Candlewood Lake.

Candlewood Lake.

I think it’s the biggest lake in Connecticut.

Candlewood Lake and about 80% of them take that format where the word lake is after the name rather than before the name.

But what they also found is that larger lakes are more likely to have a lake name format, which is where we put the lake in front of the name.

So Lake Erie or Lake Ontario, Lake Cuomo, Lake Geneva, stuff like that.

Right. I feel like when I was thinking of examples in my head, the famous lakes, like the Great Lakes, are all like that, Lake Erie, Lake Superior.

Well, there’s another component to that, and you’ve touched just gently upon it, the famous lakes.

Why are they famous? It’s because we’ve known about them for a long time since the French explorers explored North America.

And there is some idea here that those lakes in particular, and perhaps some others, adopt the French naming format.

So the French would be more likely to put lake first and the name second.

And in this study, Beatrix Beisner and Kaylin Carey discovered that southern and eastern U.S. States reflect Gaelic and Romance linguistic traditions.

And they favor lake name.

Lake followed by the name.

And so it’s just really, really incredible.

They finally got to the bottom of it.

And really, it’s all about size.

The bigger a lake is, the more well-known it is, as you say.

They’re more likely to have lake name, lake followed by name.

Okay, interesting.

Well, that is a little bit converse to what I was saying about Candlewood Lake being the biggest lake in Connecticut because that’s named Lake.

But then I’m thinking the other biggest lake in a state that I know for some random reason is Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire, and that’s the opposite.

So I don’t know.

I’m all mixed up.

There are no universals with this, right?

There’s no – this isn’t an absolute rule.

There are going to be exceptions, but generally that’s what’s happening here.

By the way, before we go, I’m going to leave you with two words.

They mean the study of lakes and bodies of fresh water or the person who studies lakes and bodies of fresh water.

And this is limnology and limnologist, L-I-M-N, which comes from a root word meaning lake.

Limnology and limnologist.

Very interesting.

Okay.

Well, Tim, thank you so much for your call.

Take care of yourself.

Yeah, it was great speaking to you both.

I appreciate the opportunity.

Love the show and have a great day.

All right.

Bye-bye.

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