The invention of nomenclature is among the greatest achievements of the human species and the practice of giving names to places is as old as the story of man itself. One is, therefore, driven by a natural inquisitiveness to probe into how and why particular place names have evolved. They unravel for us tremendous human activity on different planes. Myriads of places are indebted for their toponomy to common people who, eager for raising a home, felled trees, cleared bushes, dug channels, put up roofs, raised crops and decided upon a name for their settlement before making their exit.

Such men and women did not work with their eyes shut. Wide awake in the lap of nature they were alive to her fascination, coining such names as Gashibrari (the Goddess of Lustre - Kashmir), the Thames (from the Celtic Temesis or dark river), Yercaurd (the lake in the forest - Tamil Nadu), Nippon (the land of the rising sun - Japan), Leon (shining town - Spain) and tens of thousands others.

                With names have sprung up folklore, tradition, mythology, learning, history, social behaviour, anthropology and science, not as sophisticated as ours, but native and without cant. Where would civilisation be without these? Place names are jampacked with material of human interest in the manner a bee-hive stores honey.

                In the present study the writers have traced a few hundred place names in Kashmir. The attempt to process and classify them according to their origin reveals through the sidelights many interesting facts of significance to micro-history, social, behaviour, anthropology, etc. More importantly, such names indicate the growth lines of regional languages through semantics, pronunciation, and the like. Studies in regional languages would remain incomplete without a working knowledge of the concerned place names.