O.C. Q&A: Place Names Edition

An artist's depiction of St. James.

Q:  Why are so many things named "Santiago" in Orange County?

A:  Thank homesick Spaniards. On July 27, 1769, the Portola Expedition camped near a creek in what's now Orange while on their way toward Monterey. It was two days after the feast day of St. James (Santiago), the patron saint of Spain, and they named the creek for him. The name was later applied to the canyon the creek flowed through and the mountain peak near its source. 

Over time, Santiago also found its way into the names of land grants (e.g. Rancho Lomas de Santiago), mining camps, schools, roads, railway stops, parks and more. And what evokes the romance of Old California more than Santa Ana's own Santiago Food Mart, Auto Wash & Wireless? 

Q:  My Spanish isn't too good. What's a Placentia?

A:  For starters, it's not Spanish. The late historian Virginia Carpenter, traced the word to England's Henry IV, who named one of his castles Placentia in 1445. Locally, Placentia first appeared in the 1870s, when teacher Sara McFadden suggested it as a name for a school district. A town followed the district and became a city in 1926. 

Note also that Placentia rhymes with Valencia, suggesting sunny Spain, and thus echoing popular real estate sales motifs of the era. Historian Don Meadows called Placentia "Realtor Spanish" for "a pleasant place."

Q:  There’s an ad on the radio that pronounces the name of my town COST-ah MESS-ah. There’s no chance the announcer is right and I’ve been saying it wrong, is there? 

A:  No, the people pronouncing it that way on the radio are just idiots.

But there’s a rich tradition of mispronouncing the names of our communities. Long ago, people commonly referred to some of our local towns as Santy Ann, Bree-ah, and B'yoonah (rhymes with "tuna") Park. Today, we still hear misguided souls saying Pla-sen-see-uh, Vee-ya Park, Westminister (with an extra “i”), and Portola Hills (with the emphasis on the second instead of third syllable). 

It could be worse. We could live in Los Angeles – which almost no one pronounces correctly.