[SIZE=3]I drove through the Delmarva Penensula the other day and noticed a lot of necks in road names. I got on Google maps and within 15 had I noticed:[/SIZE]
It’s not just a local term; one of the dictionary definitions of “neck” is “a narrow or elongated projecting strip of land; a peninsula or isthmus.” See, for example, Throggs Neck or Northern Neck.
I live on what used to be called Cow Neck. I suppose that didn’t sit too well with some of the local inhabitants; it was the model for East Egg in The Great Gatsby, to give you an idea of who those inhabitants were.
It’s funny, living on the Eastern Shore I can track your journey just from the names of the necks you mentioned. Ended up somewhere in Dorchester County?
Well, meanders in big rivers create peninsulas of a sort, and I even seem to remember a few of them being called “Xxx Neck”… Probably on the Connecticut River. And the Hudson has a few “necks”, I’m pretty sure, mainly long, narrow former islands that got attached to the shoreline over hundreds of years of sediment movement.
The area surrounding the Delaware Bay in rife with “Necks” mostly used as part of street names. I grew up on Upper Neck Rd and some 20 miles away, my friend lived on Back Neck Rd. The only connection between the two areas were that they bordered on streams and inlets that jutted off the Maurice River. I always assumed Neck in place name meant the area bordered on a “neck” of a larger body of water.
