When I read the OP, I didn’t asumed it was an UL. There are a large number of places in France including the word “Juif”, and the word “mort” sometimes appears too. I didn’t find surprising that some place could include some combination of both.
By the way, though “Mort aux juifs” indeed means "death to the jews, but with the article “La” before it, it doesn’t mean anything. God only knows how this place was called this way. Maybe there used to be a jewish graveyard, or maybe a Jew died there, or maybe the original name wasn’t “la mort” but something sounding like it in the local dialect, etc…
I personnally don’t think the old name of a hamlet should be considered offensive and changed.
By the way, I lived for several years in the subburbs of Paris in
When I read the OP, I didn’t asumed it was an UL. There are a large number of places in France including the word “Juif”, and the word “mort” sometimes appears too. I didn’t find surprising that some place could include some combination of both.
By the way, though “Mort aux juifs” indeed means "death to the jews, but with the article “La” before it, it doesn’t mean anything. God only knows how this place was called this way. Maybe there used to be a jewish graveyard, or maybe a Jew died there, or maybe the original name wasn’t “la mort” but something sounding like it in the local dialect, etc…
I personnally don’t think the old name of a hamlet should be considered offensive and changed.
By the way, I lived for several years in the subburbs of Paris in a town called “Villejuif”, litterally “Jewtown”
Just so. Submitted for your consideration: the flap over Jap Road, in Fannet, TX (near Beaumont). IIRC, the road has indeed been renamed since this article was written in 2003.
A delegation from [the newly named] Castrillo Mota de Judios arrived in Israel on Sunday for a ceremony designating the two as twin towns to promote cultural, touristic and commercial ties.
The signing was attended by the mayor of the Spanish town, Lorenzo Rodriguez, and the Spanish Ambassador to Israel, Fernando Carderera.
“We’re here in the Promised Land to safeguard the roots of the town, established in 1035," said Rodriguez alongside the head of the Kfar Vradim local council, Sivan Yehieli.
It is also the name of the peoples who built those fortified villages in NW Spain (Asturias and Galicia). The villages in question are all circles: circular houses in a circular wall. This sometimes leads to similar but more modern forts also being called a castro rather than the more frequent castillo.
If you look for “mota de judios” in google maps, you will see that the village is indeed quite round: castrillo fits.
TL, DR: castrillo means “little round fortified village”
I’m glad that this thread got revived because the definitive book on the subject was written in 2006. From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow: How Maps Name, Claim, and Inflame. Mark Monmonier is a geographer with a long string of books on maps. This one is fascinating, but a bit dry like most of his work. It’s not restricted to America. He has chapters on several controversies over names in other countries. I recommend it.
“Castrillo”? Never saw that before.