What's in a Name?

Admittedly I too have always been under the spell of a name, capable as it is to capture the essence of a place. The name works both ways. Either it crystallizes its character for us or we can form a complex impression of a place by assimilating its name alone. In other words, which of the two comes first? Which one lends its magic to the other?

In my childhood, two places contended for my small world: the village of Collevalenza, one third of which was taken up by my family home, and Rome. In between the two, before the construction of the highway, a long torturous route twisted along river gorges and climbed countless hills, often making me sick. Returning to Collevalenza hinted at the aches and pains of the journey to reach that single hilltop, colle, whereas Rome – built on no less than seven – was easy to transit, and great was my incredulity that so short a name could contain such immeasurable city.

Later my family moved to a country estate called La Cervara. No other place-name was more evocative than that, its final large vowels suggesting some pastoral grandeur. The word cervo (deer), a noble animal that was never seen in the environs, added an exquisite exoticism. It was like admiring a 17th century Italian engraving where the vista is gracefully framed by oak trees whose leaves are rendered by repetitive finger-like pencil strokes.  La Cervara, 'home' for almost twenty years, was seldom referred to as such. We would not go 'home' as much as we would go to La Cervara.

My life there made me unquestionably sensitive to the beauty of a toponym. Even before seeing Fossemagne – where we bought our previous property in the Dordogne – I knew I was in for a bad surprise. The big ditch that its low Latin root calls to mind, and the sense of staleness that its series of consonants imply, materialized before our eyes on our first visit to the village, with its row of sad houses clad in colorless resignation.

To amend the sense of stagnation, we added the adjective haute to the name of our property. Yet despite being in the heights of Fossemagne, at a convenient distance from the village, La Placette Haute still had a diminutive ring to it, inexorably rhyming with words like launderette or luncheonette. During our stay there, I must confess that this was a sore point for both of us. Under the fiction that part of our land fell to the jurisdiction of the neighboring commune of Ajat – a gem of a hamlet congregating around its chateau – Dan adopted it as his address. How much would I have preferred to make Auriac-du-Périgord mine – only fifteen minutes away, with a name sounding deliciously hollow like a cavity dug by prehistoric waters in sandstone.

Later on, while looking for a new property, we would enquire about its name first. The manor house of Montchoisi was a palatable option for a while. Not only did the house appear like a neglected yet noble country repair amid century-old trees, its very name contained the idea of both elevation and exclusivity, bringing to mind Watteau-esque scenes of rustic bacchanalia.

Another property caught our attention in haughty Hautefort, most regrettably sitting along the Allée de Bastard, named for the family that ruled the village and its phenomenal castle for centuries – and must have thus compensated the unsavoriness of its name with the glamour of its landed prestige. But for us it was too close a reminder of the Umbrian town of Bastardo that Dan and I always call the town-that-dare-not-speak-its-name. Sarlat-la-Canéda is the most appetizing moniker of all. Whatever cooks in your mouth when you utter the name is redolent with the southwestern aromas of duck fat and truffle.