A LOOK AT A LIST OF NEWLY CREATED PLACE NAMES IN A SPANISH VILLAGE: SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES WITH THE OLD TOPONYMS

UNA MIRADA A UN GRUPO DE NOMBRES DE LUGAR DE RECIENTE CREACIÓN EN UN MUNICIPIO ESPAÑOL: ALGUNAS SEMEJANZAS Y DIFERENCIAS CON LOS TOPÓNIMOS ANTIGUOS

Fco. Javier Gil Jacinto

Universidad de Sevilla

masefo@yahoo.es

Recibido: 10-07-2017

Aceptado: 18-01-2018

Abstract

The present work is focused on toponyms of recent creation. These new place names have generally received less attention among scholars than those with a long history, which have often generated passionate debates and academic papers about their origins. The group analyzed here was discarded from the index list resulting from a toponymy survey made in the village of Gata (Cáceres) in 2014. They are less than one hundred years old, and do not appear to be registered as toponyms in any known written source. However, their analysis reveals that the necessity for a social community to give names to the places it inhabits, and the process for the creation of new toponyms has essentially not changed for centuries.

Keywords: Toponymy, place name, Sierra de Gata, phytonym, toponymical motivation.

Resumen

El presente trabajo se centra en los topónimos de reciente creación. Este grupo ha recibido generalmente menos atención por parte de los investigadores que aquellos otros que cuentan con una historia más larga, los cuales han sido con frecuencia objeto de apasionados debates acerca de su origen y generado numerosos trabajos académicos. La nómina de los aquí analizados está formada por el grupo de los no tomados en consideración para formar porte del corpus topónimo de Gata (Cáceres) efectuado en 2014 por tener menos de un siglo de antigüedad y no aparecer en ninguna de las fuentes escritas consultadas. Sim embargo, su análisis revela que para una comunidad rural la necesidad de darle un nombre a los lugares de su entorno y el proceso de creación de nuevos topónimos no ha variado sustancialmente desde la antigüedad.

Palabras clave: toponimia, topónimo menor, Sierra de Gata, fitotopónimo, motivación toponímica.

1. Introduction

The passage of time favours good wines, and toponyms alike. Linguists, like wine-tasters, who are not discouraged by dust and the cobwebs of a bottle brought straight from the cellar, feel neither disheartened by the blurred ink, nor the misspelling of a place name in a medieval manuscript, as long as it is believed to be old and odd enough.

The determination to deal with old place names, and to prove they have some degree of antiquity and character, often makes research articles on Spanish toponymy heavy with references to works of pre-Castilian times and languages, for instance: Contribución a la toponimia árabe de España (Asín 1940), Tópica hespérica (COROMINAS 1972), Pinceladas de toponimia céltica (Flamanc 1958), Toponimia prerrománica hispana (Menéndez Pidal 1952), La onomástica personal prelatina de la antigua Lusitania (Palomar, 1957), “Alba topónimo pre indoeuropeo” (Querol 1952), Glosario de voces ibéricas y latinas usadas entre los mozárabes (Simonet 1888), “Mal ‘roca’ en la toponimia pirenaica catalana” (Badía 1949) or “Toponimia arábiga” (Vernet 1960). Besides, the indispensable five volumes of the Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico (Corominas / Pascual 1980-1983).

The effort to reach an etymology as old as possible for each of the place names investigated may cause some inaccuracies. Gordón Peral warns that to pretend a pre-Romanic root MAL- ‘stone’ to explain the abundance of Malo and Mala (‘bad’) in Spanish toponymy might be exaggerated, since many of them were in ravines or on stony cliffs. Therefore, she suggests their origin is in the Latin MALITIA, ‘baldness’, which in Old Castilian produced maldad, only later with the sense of ‘thick bushes’ (Gordón 1995: 153). On the other hand, Fernández de Escalante finds some toponyms created from ARKOS ‘mount’ and ALKOR ‘hill’, which claims to be pre-Romanic (Fernández 1976: 37) mistaken for Latin or Arab etymologies.

These etymological dissentions among philologists have contributed to increasing the amount of papers and investigations aimed at clarifying the origin of some very old names. In that context, it is quite understandable that new, and well documented, toponomies provoke less interest among scholars. According to Gordón Peral, the circumstances in which newly created place names were born or why people stopped using them have not been sufficiently studied, (Gordón 2013 10-11).

2. Scope and methodology

The purpose of this essay is to pay attention to a group of place names created in the last century which have an uncertain future. All of them were mentioned, and then discarded, precisely for that reason, from a toponymical survey made in the village of Gata (Cáceres) in 2014 in order to elaborate a name and place index.

This list was made following the methodological guidelines contained in the Proyecto de Recopilación, análisis y normalización de la toponimia de las áreas meridionales de España, (PRONORMA) conducted by María Dolores Gordón Peral with the aim of undertaking a systematic compilation of place names, taking all sources into account (historical and contemporary, written and oral). Then a thorough historical and linguistic analysis was carried out in order to determine the most appropriate name, as recommended by UNESCO. (GORDÓN PERAL 2013: 195). Since the focus of this work is only newly created toponymies, we have to resign ourselves to relying on mainly oral sources and visiting the places, even though, we have tried to find written evidence in the press and official bulletins wherever possible.

The analysis of these names, when compared with older names, allows us to determine which mechanisms for the formation of place names have remain the same throughout history and which have changed. Thus, if as Gordón Peral asserts: the members of a linguistic community create a toponymical name with the purpose of guiding themselves to a territory, and they do it using common terms to describe the place (Gordón 1992: 982), then, we might expect that in a rural community like Gata, in which the way of life of the XX century was not radically different from how it was in the Middle Ages, when most toponyms were made, we must find some parallels between the new and the old ways of creating place names.

Undertaking an investigation of a few newly created place names does not mean using a methodology that differs from the norm. Certainty about their semantic genesis allows us to avoid exclusively etymological criteria, and to focus on other relevant aspects such as the spread of these new place designations. This line of research opened by Ruhstaller and Gordón Peral (Gordón Peral 2013: 9-36) may help, in addition, to clarify some etymological and motivational problems shared equally by newly created and old names. Areas of special interest for these authors are the mechanisms of transition and the life span of the most recently created names. Not all place names enjoyed the same diffusion amongst members of a community, even in a small community like the village of Gata. Neither did they reach beyond the bounds of the community to endure or be written down.

Knowledge of the semantic genesis of a toponomy allows us to classify it according to specific typology. Classification into semantics based reference categories is becoming as popular as more traditional classifications related to substrate or morphological and syntactic aspects. It has been suggested in several papers including Toponimia de España. Estado actual de la cuestión (Gordón Peral 2010) that lines of investigation in Toponymy are open in Spain. Classifying toponomies with reference to their sematic motivation is to be observed in García Arias’ Toponimia de Teberga (2010) in Asturias or Casillas Antúnez’s La toponimia de la tierra de Coria (2008), though other main philological aspects are not forgotten. In this essay, we will examine only three semantic-referential groups: phyto-toponyms, building related names and names inspired by shapes.

3. List of newly created place names

3. 1. Phyto-toponyms

Before undertaking the analysis of these type of names, we have to bear in mind that the mechanical advances which have occurred since the Industrial Revolution were never completely assimilated into agriculture and animal husbandry practices in this area, since both collapsed at the end of the XX century, before any substantial change was made. But until that moment, the countryside’s appearance remained quite untouched, except for some parts, where, according to Melón Jiménez (1989: 75-173) y Guerra Hontiveros (1897: 17), grape vines were replaced by olive trees due to odium. The main change took place after the 50s when much of the uncultivated land was planted with pine trees by a state agency called ICONA.

Therefore, the land which farmers and shepherds of the last century had to cultivate, dominate, and name, was basically identical to the one which their forefathers had. Thus, being a conservative community they continued referring to places, as their ancestors did, by making allusions to the plants growing there. Researches on phyto-toponymy on the Iberian Peninsula enjoy an established tradition. Just mentioning the study of place names derived from SABUCUS by Manuel Alvar (1958: 21-45), and the most recent works by Bastardas (1994) and the one by Manent (1980) cited by Javier Terrado about Catalonian Flora (Gordón Peral 2010: 180).

There were five toponyms based on trees mentioned by the people surveyed but absent from the old documentation consulted: El Cedro, La Morera, El Pino Reondo, Los Ocálitros and El Vivero.

El Cedro

The name of this tree is written on a traffic sign leading to the place where it grows, and also a tourist information panel. It is called el Cedro de Gata with capital letters. Besides, we can find it mentioned in web tourist guides and reference books:

Un centenario y robusto cedro jalona el lugar donde se encuentra la ermita del Humilladero y el singular Jardín Botánico que acoge una variada y exótica flora. (ADISGATA, 1996: 129).

Cedro de Gata: Este individuo, de la variedad ornamental glauca, puede ser considerado como el más destacado de su especie en Extremadura. Según la tradición, el árbol fue plantado por fray Juan de Gloria, religioso franciscano del cercano convento del Hoyo, en 1808, cuando ya contaba con 15 años. Según otras fuentes, el árbol fue traído desde el Líbano. (Gil 2004: 182).

As quoted above, this cedar is believed to be the biggest of its kind in the region of Extremadura, and was planted by Frey Juan de Gloria in 1808 when it was already fifteen-year-old. The tree used to be secluded in the private garden of Don Emilio Crespo until 1959, when part of that land was expropriated1 by the local council to construct a new road. Then, the cedar, which had always been half hidden among others and behind a wall, was suddenly exposed to everyone on one side of the new road. Local people started to call that place El Cedro, instead of El Humilladero, as it had been known before.

La Morera

It has been reported by the local historian, Don Marcelino Guerra, that in old times there were a flourishing silk industry in Gata. Then in 1613, the local council passed an act ordering the pulling up of all the mulberry trees in the village, alleging that silk worms damaged olive trees causing heavy losses to farmers (Guerra 1897: 18). That industry never returned, but in the 60s and 70s, it was quite common for children to keep silk worms in shoes boxes at home. They were fed with leaves taken mainly from a mulberry tree of the species morus alba that used to grow on one side of the local road heading East out of the village.

There were four more mulberry trees of the species morus rubla in the village, but, only this one was on public land outside someone’s property. That made it quite unique; in fact, it was also the only one to be referred to by its bare name, La Morera, without adding a complement to identify it. What made this tree quite noticeable as well, was that it grew by a deep stream bank where local people used to empty their rubbish. Gradually, La Morera, came to be taken as referring to the dump, and then to the whole area.

As has been said, mulberry trees were banished in Gata at the beginning of the XVII century, and neither its wood nor its fruit were appreciated by local farmers. Therefore, the location of this one at the entrance of the village has to do, probably, with an ordinance of 1835 ordering the planting of non-native trees, along roads and promenades at the entrance of the villages in the area to embellish these places and purify the air (B.O.P. de Cáceres, nº 26, 27 de marzo de 1835, 113).

At the end of the XX century the municipality created a rubbish collection service, the old dump was cleaned, and the mulberry tree was cut down in order to prevent children from falling of it when climbing up to collect leaves for their silk worms.

El Pino Redondo

Another tree which disappeared leaving only its name is El Pino Redondo. The name refers to a place close to the previous examples, and is located on the same East bound local road. On that spot a pine tree of the species pinus pinea used to grow. The type is scarce in the village, almost half of them have died in the last twenty years, but only this one had a place named after it. The second term of the compound, the Spanish adjective redondo alludes to the rounded top shape of the tree, quite noticeable among the more abundant triangle-shaped ones.

Los Ocálitros

Close to the previous place, and on the same East bound road, we find a spot called Los Ocálitros, which is the local name for eucalipto ‘eucalyptus’. The word eucalipto came late to the Spanish language, and only entered the dictionary of la Real Academia in 1849 (DCECH s. v. eucalipto). This may explain its anomalous evolution in the local dialect. Firstly, we find a reduction of the diphthong eu > u, verified in other proper names, i. e., Eufemio > Ufemio, and then the opening of u>o, perhaps influenced by the open vowel in the following syllable. With regard to the addition of /r/ after /t/ followed by a vowel we can find it in words such as delantre > delantre (before) or proper names, such as Calixto > Calistro, the last example also being registered in Asturias, Portugal and Vizcaya (Vigón 1955: 96).

There used to be three specimens in that location and one of them was separated from the other two. In order to distinguish the three, they were accordingly named, with regard to position and number, El Ocálitro de Arriba (The Upper Eucalyptus) and Los Ocálitros de Abajo (The Low Eucalyptuses). Since eucalyptus is a rare species in Gata, that they are there, probably has to do with the ordinance of 1835 ordering the planting of trees to purify the air. They were cut down last year after standing dead for some years.

El Vivero

In February 1944, the following notice with a reference to this place was inserted in the Official Bulletin of the province of Cáceres: “En la campaña actual de repoblación, han resultado sobrantes en el vivero de Gata alrededor de 300:000 plantitas de pino, que por el presente se ponen a disposición de las personas a quienes pudiera interesar” (B.O.P. de Cáceres, nº 29, 5 de febrero de 1944, 3).

The nursery (vivero) had a small house and a hectare of land where small pine trees were grown before being transplanted to the surrounding mountains. This activity was crucial for the introductions of the pine tree in the zone during the last century. These premises are located on one side of the local West bound road as well, but the name El Vivero refers to the surrounding land as well.

3. 2. Toponyms based on buildings

The previous toponym, El Vivero, could be classified as a phytonym or it could be construction related. It serves us to make a smooth transition to a group of place names motivated by a series of building erected in some places in Gata’s countryside and named after them. This mechanism for the creation of place names has been adhered to steadily by its inhabitants through History and produced place names such as La Ataya (The Watchtower), El Fortín (The Smart Fort), El Batán (The Fulling Mill), El Convento (The Convent), El Calvario (The Calvary), Las Aceñas (The Water Mills) and some other old toponomies. They are related to some historic event or socioeconomic aspect significant enough to warrant a place name. The same procedure applies to the newly created place names to be analysed in this section: El Depósito, El Matadero, El Puente, El Puente Segundo, La Casita de la Luz, Las Tenadas y Los Paradores de Federico.

El Depósito

The first municipal water tank in Gata was built after the Spanish Civil War in a slope of the mountain, and the oldest locals still remember how many public fountains were removed in order to push people to install a tap at home. The tank, noticeable from almost everywhere, looks like a small Moorish castle with white-washed walls, contrasting with the grey stone houses of the village. Its status as toponym was made clear in the 80s, when a second water tank was built besides this one, but the place kept the singular form El Depósito, instead of changing to the plural form Los Depósitos.

La Casita de la Luz

According to an old resident, the first power centre in Gata was fuelled with wood, it belonged to Don Fernando Guillén, and it was located close to the village. Later, a new one was built high in the mountain in a wet ravine. This time, the turbine to generate electricity was propelled by a stream of water. The building was called La Casita de la Luz by local people (The Little House of the Light), and the name generated a nick name for the person in charge, El Tío Marcelino el de la Luz (Uncle Marcelino of the Light). The big electricity companies ended up taking over this family business, but the ruins of the house remain in an almost inaccessible place.

El Matadero

There are several references to the previous existence of a municipal slaughter house in Gata. The local historian, Guerra Hontiveros, mentions a document from 1550, in which it is located in a building adjoining the Town Council (1897: 22). Then, it is also mentioned in the Catastro del Marqués de Ensenada de 1753:

[…] Que hay una carnicería propia de esta villa, y cuatro puentes pequeños para el paso de sus Arroyos tenga ni perciva la villa uttilidad alguna: El abasto de carnes esta a cargo de Alonso Blanco de Juan Rodriguez y paga a la villa settecienttos y cinquentta reales […] (AHMG, CME, “Respuestas Generales, fol. 34 v.).

And again in 1845: “Hay casa consistorial construida en 1844, en el arruinado edificio de la alhóndiga, con dos salas destinadas para el Ayuntamiento; y en el piso bajo la cárcel y la carnicería”. (DGEH, s. v. Gata).

In the last century, in the late 1920s, during the dictatorship of Primo the Rivera, the was a tendency to build municipal slaughterhouses outside the villages:

En cuanto a mejoras conseguidas desde el advenimiento del nuevo régimen cometeríamos uno omisión imperdonable si no las diéramos a conocer a nuestros lectores. […] siguiendo la pauta de los pueblos de nuestra provincia: se ha hecho un Matadero municipal […]. (Nuevo día: Diario de la Provincia de Cáceres. Año IV, nº 1003, 29 de noviembre de 1929).

By the 60s the aforementioned building located half a kilometre out of Gata was abandoned. Only the walls remained, but the roof, windows and doors had disappeared. Nevertheless, peoples kept on calling it and the adjoining grounds El Matadero. Then, at the beginning of this century the remaining ruins were demolished, and a little park for children was made. Young locals refer to the places as El Parque (The Park) o Los Columpios, (The Swings), but most people refer to it as El Matadero, and the elderly may still mention El Matadero Viejo (The Old Slaughter House) in reference to the place inside the village where the old slaughter house used to be.

El Puente

In May 1930, the regional press of Cáceres carried long-awaited news: the construction of a local road to communicate Gata with the neighbouring village of Torre Don Miguel had been approved by the regional authority (Nuevo Día: diario de la provincia de Cáceres. Año V, 1545. 27 de mayo de 1930). The project included the building of a bridge across the local river called La Rivera de Gata at the spot known as Las Aceñas. Once it was finished, the name Las Aceñas only referred to an area close to a swimming spot, and near the new construction which was just called El Puente (The Bridge), without any adjoining term. By Contrast, other toponyms including the word puente were accompanied by a determining term: El Puente de San Blas, El Puente del Cabril, El Puente de la Huerta, El Puente de Mariquita, El Puente Muleta, El Puente de La Puente y El Puente Segundo. In this case, the lack of an adjective or a complement functions to identify it as complementary to the other.

El Puente Primero and El Puente Segundo

These two-name places were motivated by two stony bridges built on the local West bound road over a brook. Both were well known for being located in twisted spots each of them in a time when motor vehicles were deemed to be dangerous by local people. During the last remodelling of the road in the 1990s the bridges were replaced by small culverts, but people still call the one closest to the village El Puente Primero (The First Bridge), and the further one El Puente Segundo (The Second Bridge).

Los Paradores de Federico

This was where the local west bound road ended, and therefore, all vehicles had to stop. The verb to stop in Spanish is parar, the suffix -or expresses the spot in which take place the action, and -es is the plural ending. The plural form paradores is used because there used to be two tall buildings, whose ground floors were rented to keep cars on. Thus, the common word parador came to designate, not just the ending of the road, but the two buildings, and then, the whole area was known as Los Paradores de Federico. The preposition de in Spanish followed by a personal name expresses property. The status of this appellative as a toponym is clear, since the place maintained that name after Mr. Federico died and the buildings passed to his heirs, because its function was to name a place and not to indicate who the owner was.

Las Tenadas

The Spanish dictionary defines tenada as a ‘shed to keep cattle’ (DRAE s. v tenada), but, in Asturias and some parts of Salamanca and the North of Cáceres it is ‘a place to keep hay’ (DCECH s. v. tinada o tenada). This last sense is the one meant in Gata, and therefore, in the place called Las Tenadas used to be a group of stone and clay huts to keep dry grass for winter. There were, and still are, other groups of tenadas scattered around the village, for instance, Las Tenadas del Ceredillo and Las Tenadas del Tomillar, in which the toponymical structure has two elements. The simple form, Las Tenadas, without an adjoining element, indicated that when the toponym was created the others existed already, thus it does not generate any kind of doubt about which one people referred to.

3. 3. Names related to specific shapes and / or function

Finally, there is a group of toponyms newly created in order to refer to places that have been modified or whose function has changed. They all are named for field morphology or because of a specific shape evoked by the place or because they were inspired by some event. Proximity in time makes it easier to know the motivation for a place name even when the landscape has changed and this is not so obvious. Examples in Gata, include El Canapé (The Sofa), La Peña el Cuarterón (The Window Shutter Rock) o Los Arcos (The Arches).

However, some newly created place names: El Abanico, La Junta, las Dos Carreteras, La Cuesta Sube y Baja, El Empalme, La Jorrasquera and La Peña de los Enamorados have an obvious semantic motivation.

El Abanico, La Junta las Dos Carreteras or La Variante

The opening of the new road created a junction of the East and West roads (B. O. E., nº. 268, de 09/11/1959, p. 14326) at El Mendo on the West Road. The place them became known as La Junta las Dos Carreteras. (junta in Spanish mean ‘joint’, dos ‘two’, and carretera ‘road’ thus ‘The Union of the Two Roads’). In addition, the spot was also called El Abanico (The Fan) and La Variante (The Detour). The first name alluded to the triangular-shape of an open fan, and the second name, because people now had alternatives routes to the village.

La Cuesta Sube y Baja

One of the sections of the often-mentioned new road connecting the West and East was a long straight line with a sudden descending and ascending slant. This was a kind of novelty for locals, who were used to the fact that the East road coming to the village drew a continuous descendent line, and the West road the opposite. Young people enjoyed playing there with their hoops and bicycles. Nevertheless, for adults the place had no such appeal, thus the use of this name was not the same among young and old people. According to Gordón Peral, the dispersion of a place name depends on its relevance to the group (2013: 11). Besides, in this case, the road was remodelled and the double slanted lines no longer exist. The semantic motivation for this name is quite transparent, since cuesta means slope in Spanish and sube is the third person of the verb to rise, and baja of the verb to go down.

El Empalme

In October 1903, the Regional Government announced the construction of a West bound road from Gata (B.O.P. Cáceres. 1 de octubre de 1903, Nº 161, 1). Its layout would run parallel to or on the path of the old carriage path along eight of its 10 kilometers, but 2 kilometers before reaching the village, it took a different path. Thus, there was an alternative route to Gata, but local people carried on using the older and shorter path with their mules and donkeys. The started calling the junction of the paths El Empalme (The Junction). Today the stone paved path is not in use since it is not suitable for cars, and there are only a few donkeys in the village. In addition, the new road has been broadened with two lines, and the junction is less/more noticeable than before.

La Jorrasquera

Where there is now a big old people’s home there used to be a piece of sloping waste land called La Jorrasquera until the end of the last century. The semantic motivation for that name may be quite clear for local people, but not for all Spanish speakers, since the common name jorrasquera and the verb jorrascarse are not registered in the Real Academia dictionary. The local meaning of jorrasquera is ‘slope to be used as a slide with the help of a plank’, and it may be a derivation of the word jorro ‘the track left by a log when being dragged along the ground’. The word jorro, according to Corominas y Pascual, comes from the Arab word garr ‘to drag’ (DCECH s. v. jorro).

La Peña de los Enamorados

The toponym alludes to a rock located near El Matadero and El Puente on one side of the local East bound road. The name’s complement de los enamorados meaning ‘of the lovers’, refers to the use given to that rock, since it was where young couples used to stop and sit when out walking. It marked the limit beyond which ‘decent’ girls could go no further without be at odds with social norms. The change of customs about courting has made the old use of the rock obsolete, leaving only the name.

4. Findings

The study of this list of newly created toponyms, when compared with those registered two and a half centuries ago in el Castastro del Marqués de la Ensenda, reveals some interesting findings. To start with, those based on tree names refer to species that had no real significance in the domestic economy of the village, what they had in common is that they were almost out of place as far as the villagers were concerned, but at the same time, they had a real use as land marks, since they were in highly visible places, which ended up being named after them, and helped people to orientate themselves. In that sense, many of the old place names in Gata based on a phytonym were, for one reason or another, quite noticeable, for instance, El Nogal Hueco (The Hollow Nut Tree) (AHMG. CME, Eclesiásticos, fol. 5 v.).

It has been mentioned that, except for the cider, all the others trees that gave names to places have just been cut down. The disappearance of the trees in which a toponym was based does not necessarily extinguish the name. That is the case for the old place names El Castaño (AHMG. CME, Seglares I, fol. 141), or El Aliso (AHMG. CME, Seglares I, fol. 40r.), of which we assume there must have been an actual chestnut tree and an alder tree. But, the Catastro del Marqués de Ensenada also shows many cases of lost toponym alluding to trees: apart from the mentioned El Nogal Hueco, there is also El Alcornoque (AHMG. CME, Seglares II, fol. 721 v.), El Olivo (AHMG. CME, Seglares II, fol. 730 r.), El Cerezo (AHMG. CME, Seglares II, fol. 570 v.) o Las Mimbreras (AHMG. CME, Seglares I, fol. 275 v.). This may suggest that the future of the newly created Los Ocálitros, El Pino Redondo and La Morera is quite unsafe.

On the contrary, those toponyms based on buildings seem to resist the passage of time well, for instance, Las Aceñas (AHMG. CME, Eclesiásticos, fol. 34 r.) or El Palacio (AHMG. CME, Eclesiásticos, fol. 34 r.). Therefore, we can expect that recent names, such as El Depósito o La Casita de la Luz will last. Note the large number of new toponyms based on buildings, the most abundant in the Catastro, and the small number related to the topography of the area. The orography has not changed since the oldest toponyms were created and all the features of the land were already named in the toponymy Consequently, changes to the landscape have been human constructions, generating a toponymical response creating new names for the sites where they were built.

In the same way, alterations to public roads or the opening of new ones has had a consequence in the toponymy of Gata. It is interesting to point out that some of the new names are based on the same conceptual ideas as the older ones, for instance, in La Junta de las Dos Carreteras y El Abanico, we find the concept of ‘triangle’ and ‘convergent lines’, as we do in El Horcajo (AHMG. CME, Seglares I, fol. 25 v.) and Entre Ambos Caminos (AHMG. CME, Seglares II, fol. 540 r.). This means that the way men look at the land around them has not changed throughout History, and neither has the way they have named it.

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