Vol. 66 No. 3 (2018)
Article

Offspring Rivers of The United States

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  • Michael D. Sublett
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00277738.2018.1453279

Published 2018-07-03

Keywords

  • place names,
  • socio-onomastics,
  • enregisterment,
  • Michigan,
  • Upper Peninsula,
  • Lower Peninsula,
  • Zingerman’s
    • ...More
    Less

Copyright (c) 2018 American Name Society

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Abstract

Streams are significant landmarks in the landscape, often acquiring their specific names before other surface features. In English, rivers stand at the apex of the stream hierarchy. This study looks at those rivers in the United States that have their headwaters, their origin points, at the places where two other rivers, of names different from the resulting river, end, like the Allegheny and Monongahela ceasing to exist downstream of the place where they unite to form the Ohio. An adapted term, offspring, was necessary to designate this special circumstance of what turned out to be 71 rivers in the United States.

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