OK, so some lakes have names that start with “Lake” - Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Ontario. Other lakes have names that end with “Lake” - Crystal Lake, Trout Lake, the Great Salt Lake. Why? And is there a geographic correlation? It seems like the midwest is mostly “Lake _," while here in the rocky mountains, we have " Lake.”
Here’s my theory. If an area was first “discovered” (if you take great exception to the use of this term, go curse my name over on the BBQ pit or debates board - I’m not trying to editorialize here) by a French or Spanish person/group (ie speaker of a romance language), Lake comes first, and, in keeping with those languages, the adjective afterwords. If English speakers came first, lake comes second.
I notice that, in the examples you have given, those with strictly descriptive names are the ones where “Lake” is preceded by the adjective ,eg “crystal”. Is this coincidence?
jeff, I recall reading somewhere – don’t ask me where – that it’s exactly for the reason you indicated. Here in the Northeast, the division is between French (north) and English (south). It will also work for mountains: in New England we have Mount Washington, Mount Monadnock, etc., and down South they’ve got Grandfather Mountain, Kennesaw Mountain, etc.
Since i dont know where you are, the name of this lake is probably french for “thousand lakes”. You know mille - thousand , lac - lake?
Anyway, where I live, we dont have many lakes, but the ones I know of are named like this:
lake loch lomond - Lock Lomond Lake. THis is a reservoir, named after a loch in Scotland I believe.
Lake El Estero - it’s actually an odd one. Whoever renamed it mistook the “el” as being part of the name, when literally, this means “Lake The Estuary”
Robert’s lake - simple, it’s a manmade lake actually. It’s more of a pond really. It connects to the following…
Laguna Grande - Big lagoon. This is a natural lake and it and Robert’s Lake share the same waters (connected by a small channel that keeps both at the same level).
Laguna seca - Dry Lagoon. This is a seasonal wetland, hence “seca” (Spanish for dry)
Lake San Antonio - San Antonio Lake. Not named by the Spanish at all, this is a reservoir.
Lake Nacimiento - Birth Lake. I’m not sure why they named it this. This too is a reservoir.
Forest Lake - Well, it’s in the forest.
So, given some of the above examples, I think it’s mostly randomness. Especially since this area was colonized by the Spanish, and even those that kept the Spanish names didnt follow through with the naming conventions of Spanish.
scratch1300, what about Lake Chargoggagaggmanchaugagoggchaunagungamaugg in Webster, MA? It was found by the British, and still named “Lake ____”. Of course, I’m sure there are exceptions to the rule, but I just felt the need to say Chargoggagaggmanchaugagoggchaunagungamaugg.
Lake Nacimiento: That’s Spanish for “birth,” of course. Was it, perhaps, discovered at Christmas? I seem to recall that while Navidad (“Nativity”) is the standard Spanish usage for Christmas, they honor the actual giving birth of Jesus by Mary as “el Nacimiento” (the Birth, as opposed to the Nativity, one focusing on the specific event and the other on its significance to believers).
KCB: Isn’t that the lake whose name means “You fish on your side, we fish on our side, nobody fish in the middle”?
And for the OP question: WAG here, but I got the impression that it was Lake Person, Lake Place and Lake Thing, but Descriptive-adjective Lake and Named-for-its-Contents Lake: Lake Lincoln, Lake Geneva, but, Long Lake, Muddy Lake, Trout Lake.
Not sure about this either. In Ontario, in the Boundary Waters area of Quetico Provincial Park (went there on a canoe trip once, it rocked), virtually all the lakes have the “Lake” second, and if I understand it correctly, this area was inhabited mainly by French fur traders.
I’ve heard that, for the most part, “Lake” comes before or after the name depending on whether or not it was man-made. I know that this does not hold up for many of them, and I’m not sure where I heard it, but it seemed legit at the time.
I don’t think it’s always based on the language of the people who named it - we have Lake Ray Hubbard down here near Dallas, and it was named that some time after 1964.
Well, no, the lake was formed by a dam built in the 1950’s for flood control, as well as providing farmers in the Salinas Valley with summer water (a map of the lake clearly shows that it’s a flooded river valley). I didnt look close enough at my map originally, but, the river that feeds the lake is named “Nacimiento”. So, there we have it, the name ;). The same with Lake San Antonio, its source river is the San Antonio river, and it too is a flooded river valley.