Western African Place Names

Western African names include those from Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo. See also about African names.

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the letters in the pattern are compared to the letters in the name * is a wildcard that matches zero or more letters example: oo matches names which contain oo _ is a wildcard that matches exactly one letter example: __z matches names which have two letters and then z

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separate search terms with spaces search for an exact phrase by surrounding it with double quotes this field understands simple boolean logic force a term to be included by preceding it with a + sign force a term to be excluded by preceding it with a - sign expand search to include grammatical forms: attempt to include grammatical forms of the meanings example: speak includes spoke expand search to include close synonyms: attempt to include synonyms of the meanings example: brave includes courageous expand search to include search narrower synonyms: attempt to include subclasses of the meanings example: reptile includes turtle expand search to related names: allow related names to inherit the meaning of the main form
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the description is the meaning and history write-up for the name separate search terms with spaces search for an exact phrase by surrounding it with double quotes example: "lord of the rings" matches names from the novel 'The Lord of the Rings' this field understands simple boolean logic force a term to be included by preceding it with a + sign force a term to be excluded by preceding it with a - sign example: +greek +(legend myth) -zeus matches Greek names of myths or legends not about Zeus ignore name meanings: keywords from the name meanings are ignored

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see the pronunciation key for a guide on how to write the sounds sounds can only be searched in names that have been assigned pronunciations * is a wildcard that will match zero or more letters in the pronunciation example: lee matches names which end with the sound lee* _ is a wildcard that will match exactly one letter in the pronunciation example: __z matches names which have two letters and then a z (s) matches exactly one syllable in the pronunciation example: (s)(s)ra matches names which have two syllables and then the sound rah (c) matches a consonant (k) matches a consonant or consonant cluster (v) matches a vowel (p) matches a plosive or stop consonant (f) matches a fricative consonant (n) matches a nasal consonant case sensitive: check this if you wish distinguish between unstressed lowercase sounds and stressed uppercase sounds
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the "relationship" is how the name relates to its parent name example: searching for diminutive matches Betsy because it is a diminutive of its parent Elizabeth selecting *(all core forms)* excludes peripheral forms such as diminutives, short forms, and combinations expand search to ancestral names: relationships between names further up the family tree are included

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Asiya (Region) Arabic, Persian, Azerbaijani, Hausa
Arabic, Persian, Azerbaijani and Hausa form of Asia.

Gana (Country) Akan, Ewe, Portuguese, Russian, Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, Albanian, Slovene, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Icelandic, Latvian, Lithuanian, Turkish, Georgian, Armenian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Turkmen, Uzbek, Mongolian, Korean
Form of Ghana.

Landan (Settlement) Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Hindi, Nepali, Burmese, Hausa
Form of London in several languages.

Libya (Country & Region) Berber, English, Norwegian, Finnish, Turkish, Hausa, Swahili, Indonesian, Malay, Tagalog, Ancient Roman
From Λιβύη (Libye), the Ancient Greek name for North Africa. It was derived from the Berber tribe of the Libu, attested as rbw in Ancient Egyptian. This name was revived in 1934 when the Italian colonies of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were merged, carrying forward when the country gained independence in 1951. It is called ليبيا (Lībiyā) in Arabic.

Mali (Country) Manding, Fula, Arabic, French, Portuguese, Italian, Catalan, English, German, Dutch, Afrikaans, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Estonian, Latvian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Romanian, Hungarian, Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Slovene, Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, Albanian, Greek, Hebrew, Armenian, Georgian, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Uzbek, Persian, Urdu, Sinhalese, Hindi, Chinese, Mongolian, Burmese, Thai, Lao, Indonesian, Malay, Tagalog
A landlocked country in West Africa, named after an empire that lasted until the 17th century. The empire's name is possibly from a dialectal variant of the name of the Mande peoples. Alternatively, it could be from the name of the empire's capital (which has not been located) or from a Mande word meaning "hippopotamus".

Paris (Settlement) French, English, Portuguese, German, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Romanian, Turkish, Persian, Hausa
From the ancient Celtic tribe known as the Parisii. This is the capital city of France.

Senegaal (River & Country) Wolof
Wolof form of Senegal.

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