Why Is It “The” Bronx, Not Just “Bronx”?

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Susan and I’m calling from Chester County, Pennsylvania, but I grew up in New Jersey.

Okay.

Growing up in New Jersey, we got all the New York stations on TV and radio.

And whenever they would refer to the five boroughs of New York,

It was always Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Manhattan, and the Bronx.

Always the Bronx.

And I’ve always wondered about that.

Why the definite article there?

Why is it the Bronx and not a Bronx or just Bronx?

Right.

Why not just Bronx like Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Manhattan?

Yeah.

That’s a really good question, Susan.

There was a man named Jonas Bronk.

He was a Scandinavian.

I say Scandinavian because it’s debated whether or not he was Danish or Swedish.

And he arrived in New Netherland in 1639, and he bought about 500 acres north of the Harlem River around what is known as the Bronx in 1642.

Now, he had come through the Netherlands, and he was married to a Dutch woman, and he worked for the Dutch West Indies Company.

He had kind of a Dutch flavor about him.

It wasn’t like he was completely Scandinavian.

But he didn’t live very long after that.

And so his land didn’t keep the name Bronx Land or Bronx Farm or anything.

But there was a river which runs down the middle of the Bronx and up through Westchester County.

It lets out on the East River.

And the Bronx River kept his name.

Now, he spells his name B-R-O-N-C-K.

And it became known as Bronx River, possessive.

So it’s his river.

And that’s the only part of his name that stuck.

Years ago, in 1993, there was a historian who wrote to the New York Times to talking about this particular bit of transaction, like why it’s called the Bronx.

And originally, he says, the Bronx was part of Westchester County, which is just north of the five boroughs.

And in 1874, New York City added the area west of the Bronx River and in 1895, the part east of it.

Now, it wasn’t called the Bronx yet.

People in Manhattan called it the Annex District and people who lived there called it the north side.

But then in 1895, when New York City kind of became what it is today with the five boroughs, they needed a name for it.

And so since the Bronx River ran through that northernmost annex district or that north side, they called it the Bronx with a capital T on the, after the river.

So it was named after the river, which is named after the man.

So the Bronx River.

Yeah. Now, the question I have not found an answer to, which nobody seems to be able to provide me, is why we don’t spell it like he spelled it, B-R-O-N-C-K, why we spell it B-R-O-N-X.

Nobody seems to know. I cannot figure out for the life of me, and I’ve looked for years, when Bronx got its X.

Huh.

By the way, I can recommend, Susan, if you have more questions about this, there’s a great book called The Names of New York.

It’s by Joshua Jelly Shapiro.

What a great name.

J-E-L-L-Y-S-C-H-A-P-I-R-O.

Joshua Jelly Shapiro.

Names of New York.

Names of New York.

Yeah.

Oh, good.

Yeah.

And it talks about street names and park names and building names and all different kinds of names throughout the five boroughs.

All right.

So it’s complicated.

It is.

You got that right, Susan.

Thank you, Susan, for your call.

We really appreciate it.

Well, thank you. It’s good to get that history, and I’m definitely going to get the book.

All right. Take care now.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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