The Eighth Hungarian Tribe, 1982 (9. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1982-02-01 / 2. szám

Page 6

THE EIGHTH TRIBE

February, 1982

MICHAEL NOGRADY:

Hungarian Place Names in Canada

Hungarian place names are not numerous in Canada compared to other ethnic names of Central or Eastedn European origin. Consider that there are 131,890 Canadians of Hungarian origin one would expect to see more of their names on maps. A possible reason for the apparent indifference or hesitation in making their presence known in Canadian nomenclature may have been the inability to shake off a seccular lethargy resulting from centuries of abortive attempts in achieving national independence and complete freedom. This experience in their native Hungary may had some bearing on the limited desire of each wave of immigrants to perpetuate national identity in the field of toponymy. They left their country disenchanted and this may be a deciding factor in their hesitation to fall back on ethnic heritage in this manner. The majority of Hungarians who settled in Canada, espeically the more recent groups have preferred assimilation with the English or French speaking population over the pursuit of cultural-linguistic ties with the old country. They settled in existsing communities, adjusted the spelling of their surnames to sound and look more familiar to Canadians. They have adopted ihe English or French equivalent of their given names and many prefer to be called by those names even in their mother tongue. Therefore, it is not surprising that some existing Hungarian toponyms in Canada were given by Canadians of British descent. Such a name is BUDA which occurs in three associated names in Thunder Bay District of Ontario. Once, as the name of a bay on Dog Lake, then as the name of an entire lake and finally, the name of a railway stop on the Canadian Pacific Railway in Goldie Township. While the reason for the first two name remains unsolved for the time being, the origin of the name of the railway stop has been traced.

The story begins over a hundred years ago in Thunder Bay. At that time district engineer Samuel Hazlewood supervised the construction of the C.P.R. west of the town. In the November 30, 1876 issue of the Thunder Bay Sentinel, a weekly newspaper, he called for tenders to erect eight “Engineer’s Houses” at different locations alongside the railroad track under contsruction. He gave the name of each location. Out of the eight names listed in the advertisement only four have survived and Buda is one of

them. The other three are: Point Savanne, Upsala and English River. This is the earliest known written evidence of the name BUDA in this area. Because the land where the railroad progressed was sparsely inhabited’ it may be surmised that Mr. Hazlewood selected BUDA along with some of the other names purely for identification purposes from an atlas or other maps of the world where BUDA was still shown as an independent city on the west hank of the Danube river in Hungary. This kind of naming was quite common in Canada in those days. He may have been inspired by the presence of Hungarians in the large labour force employed by the government agency, for this particular name.

The origin of the name may be traced to the Sumerian language in which BUDA means: making secure. According to other sources BUDA, the brother of Atilla the Hun, governed the Hun nation in the absence of Atilla from there, thus the city was called after him; However, a recent interpretation is that BUDA may originate from a common Hungarian surname BOD or BODA, which in turn may have been derived from an ordinary word: bot (means: stick, cane, club in the Hungarian language).

Another Hungarian name in Canada that may owe its existance to English Canadian influence is ESTERHÁZY in Saskatchewan. The original settlement was established when Count Paul 0. Esterházy (1831-1912), a descendant of the best known and most affluent aristoctratic family in Hungary, persued the Canadian authorities to allocate land for a group of Magyar and Bohemian farmers working the mines in Pennsylvania, U.S.A. under trying conditions. This group was only a small fraction of over one million disappointed people who left the newly formed Austro-BungarianEmpire during the second half of the nineteenth century. The colony was first named in June 1886 at the completion of the settlement and the name ESZTERHÁZ was adopted. This name is an incomplete form of Eszterháza, the name of a palace near Fertőd in Hungary, which was the seat of the Prince Eszterházy family. The name was Anglicized in September, 1888 and the spelling changed to ESTERHAZ. However, the possessive suffix -a, present in the original name in Hungary, was not retained.

Shortly thereafter the young colony split into two groups and the residents of the Bohemian part decided to adopt the name Kolin. The Magyar section was left without a post office and compelled to establish one. They did so after a place in Hungary called KAPOSVÁR. Thus, the importance of the name Esterház decreased.