Dictionary of Southern African Place Names

Abstract

With a modified title, the addition of two new named authors, and numerous updates and expansions, the fourth edition of this Dictionary builds on the success and reputation of its forebears to reassert its status as the key companion resource for South African toponyms. Peter Raper’s original lexicon was published in 1987 as the Dictionary of South African Place Names, with its second incarnation following soon afterwards as the New Dictionary of South African Place Names (1989). The production of the revised and updated third edition, with the same title, was in part “necessitated by the election of 1994 and the increase in the number of provinces from four to nine” (2004, vii). The subsequent need for this new fourth edition has been driven particularly by the ongoing changes to place names that were made possible by South African Geographical Names Council Act (1998). This has seen the standardization of a significant number of new names (2014, viii). The State Information Technology Agency has developed the database and archival system for these names, which was formally approved by the Department of Arts and Culture in 2002. The introduction to the third edition of the Dictionary noted the establishment of SAGNC as the national authority responsible for geographical names (2004, x), but the organization was at an early stage of its work in 2004. As the authors of the fourth edition helpfully explain: “New place names, and proposals for changes or revisions of names, are submitted to the SAGNC and to the Provincial Geographical Names Committees. On their recommendation names approved by the Minister of Arts and Culture are published in the Government Gazette” (2014, xi). Language, names, culture, and perceptions continue to evolve, and the fourth edition therefore provides a timely reflection of names in South Africa following many of these changes, with the inclusion of new entries and the revision of information about revised or altered names. The title of the fourth edition has also been revised to better reflect the geographical coverage, which, just like the third edition, includes “names of major features in neighbouring countries” (2014, vii). However, the authors note that since their remit was not to be inclusive of all southern countries in Africa, “[t]here has been no attempt at comprehensiveness” (2014, vii). The precision of the geographical references has also been revised for the fourth edition, with names given “latitude and longitude in degrees, minutes and seconds, and the GPS coordinates following [where available] the style of the Surveyor-General of South Africa” (2014, xxiii). The authors credit sources such as GeoHack and Maplandia for further data not available from the SurveyorGeneral (2014, xxiv). The convention that “[o]fficially approved names are preceded with an asterisk” (2004, xviii) has been dropped for the fourth edition. Reasons for this are not clearly stated, but the preface notes that “the implementation of the South African Geographical Names Council Act [... ] resulted in numerous new names being standardised” (2014, vii). Therefore, readers should presumably infer that all names in the fourth edition are standard names, or that flagging approved names is now unhelpful or unnecessary, given the pace of standardization. Completely new entries in the fourth edition include the following, which is particularly indicative of the social and cultural changes undergone in South Africa in recent years: