Place-Names 'Alabama' and 'Montgomery'.

Place names in the USA: The Origins of the Names of Alabama and Montgomery.

Place names can tell us a lot. One might expect to learn something of the history of the places concerned, but these names can also lead us in other directions.

I first became interested in the history of place-names, and their value as a historical source, when I took a course by the well-known place-names expert, Dr Margaret Gelling, at the University of Birmingham (England).

Let us now turn to the United States of America, and look at some Alabama history, through its name and the name of its capital ~ Montgomery ~ which also happens to be the name of one of the Alabama counties.

Alabama is in the south-eastern region of the United States of America. Both the state and its river are named after the Native American people of the same name. 'Albaamo' simply meant an Alabama person. The word is understood to have originated in the Choctaw language, so the name may have been given to them by another local tribe. The word has two elements; 'alba', meaning 'plants' or 'vegetation' and 'amo', meaning 'to cut' or 'to gather', so the people may originally have been described as vegetation cutters or plant gatherers. Perhaps they cut down vegetation, to clear the land for cultivation, or maybe they gathered up useful plants and herbs.

Montgomery is the capital city of Alabama.

It was established in 1819 and named after a Richard Montgomery. Richard was born in Ireland, in the 1730s. His father, Captain Thomas Montgomery, was a British army officer and politician, and his mother, Mary Frankin, was English.

In 1772, after a career in the British army, Richard settled in America and, in 1775, he became a delegate in the Provincial Congress of New York, shortly before being appointed a brigadier-general in the ‘Continental Army’. He died, leading his men, in the American invasion of Canada, at the Battle of Quebec, in 1775.

Montgomery, the city, must not be confused with Montgomery County, which was named after Lemuel Purnell Montgomery. This Montgomery was born in Virginia ~ Wythe county ~ in or around 1786, and died at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, Alabama, in 1814.

So now we know that Montgomery, the capital of Alabama, took its name from an Irish soldier of the same name - General Richard Montgomery.

But we do not yet know the origin and meaning of this name.

'Montgomery' has two elements; ‘mont ‘and ‘gomery’.

'Mont' may be recognised as a French term. It means ‘mount’, ‘mountain’ or ‘hill’ and is also related to ‘mound’. Many will have heard of Mont Blanc, the highest point in the Alps. It comes from the Latin ‘mons’.

‘Gomery’ is from the male name Gomeric. It is a Germanic name and is still found in Germany today ~ as 'Gumerich'.

The name ‘Montgomery’ is from Normandy. This is now part of France, but, when this place was first named, it belonged to the Normans. The Normans, as their name implies, were Norsemen ~ often called Vikings. Normandy had been granted to Rollo the Viking, by King Charles of ‘France’, in the year 911, in return for some peace ~ the Vikings had been raiding that part of ‘France’ through much of the 9th century.

‘Gomeric’ has two elements; ‘gome’ and ‘ric’.

‘Gome’ means man.

In old English it was ‘Guma’, related the Old High German ‘gomo’, which is the equivalent of the Latin ‘homo’ ~ meaning ‘man’. (Compare the term Homo Sapiens, and also the French ‘Homme’.)

‘Gome’ to 'Groom'.

We actually still use a form of this word in English, though we wouldn’t recognise it, because, by means of something called folk etymology, it has evolved into something slightly different. The modern term ‘bridegroom’ was once, in Old English, ‘brydguma’ ~ ‘brideman’. As the term ‘guma’ went out of use, and was no longer known, an alternative, more recognisable term was substituted ~ ‘groom’ for ‘guma’. In Germany, they still use the word ‘Brautigam’.

‘Ric’ means power.

This element can be found in other names, including 'Richard' and 'Roderick' It is also found in ‘bishopric’ ~ the area where the bishop has dominion or power ~ and it is related to the terms ‘rex / regal’, ‘right’ and ‘rich’.

The ‘powerful man'

Gomeric ~ the ‘powerful man’ ~ probably settled on his hill after sailing south from Scandinavia, as one of the Norse (’Viking’) settlers. A few pedigrees, published on the Internet, contain details of Gomeric of Montgomery.

Richard Montgomery's ancestry is discussed in the book 'Major General Richard Montgomery: the making of an American Hero', by Michael P. Gabriel. It seems that there are two possible genealogies.

The one relates to Gomeric and his descendants. According to the family histories I have seen, Gomeric, son of Ingvar Ragnarson, travelled to Calvados in the 9^th century. His descendant, Roger de Montgomery, son of Roger Montgomery of the castle of Saint Foy de Montgomery, near Lisieux, was an advisor to William of Normandy. The latter, after his success at the Battle of Hastings, became William the Conqueror. Gomeric’s descendant, Roger de Montgomery, was rewarded with gifts of land and titles, including the Earldom of Shrewsbury ~ indeed, he was the Earl of Shrewsbury, in 1074. His estates included most of Shropshire and parts of mid Wales. The Welsh county of Montgomeryshire was named after him. The Montgomery family acquired estates in England, Wales and Scotland. The family grew over the generations and some Montgomerys settled in Ireland. These could have been the ancestors of 'Major General Richard Montgomery'.

However, it would appear that Richard Montgomery actually claimed Gabriel, Seigneur de Lorges and Comte de Montgomery, as his ancestor ~ the man who accidentally killed King Henry II of France, in 1559, in a jousting tournament. The Lorges family acquired the ‘Comté’ of Montgomery, including its Norman estates, in the 16th century.

In Conclusion

We now know how Alabama and Montgomery received their names ~ including the etymological origins of the words. I hope that this made interesting and enjoyable reading.

Tricia Mason

Further Reading ~ These may be available in libraries:

'Place names of Bibb County, Alabama: Abercrombie to Zuzu'' by Rhoda Coleman Ellison
Cahaba Trace Commission (1993)
ASIN: B0006F21QA
*
'Marengo County, Alabama;: A place name study' by David Johnson
ASIN: B0007AQE4Y
*
'Directory of Alabama place names, 1896' by Patsy R Page
ASIN: B0006RARS2
*
'Alabama Place-Names' by W. Stuart Harris
Publisher: Strode Pub (December 1982)
ISBN-10: 0873972317
ISBN-13: 978-0873972314
*
'Indian Place Names in Alabama' by William A. Read
Publisher: The University of Alabama Press; Revised edition (December 1984)
ISBN-10: 0817302301
ISBN-13: 978-0817302306