What do the city names Annawan, Algonquin, Ashkum, Wenorah, Waukegan, and Wyanet have in common? And the rivers Illinois, Mississippi, Ohio, and Wabash?

All of these place names reflect the Native American heritage of the state of Illinois. Click through to this article at the Chicago Sun-Times to find out!

Why did they name it Spago? Was there really a laundry at the French Laundry? And why is it Pizza Hut and not Pizza Bistro? Find out the stories behind the names of famous restaurants in this interesting article at The Balance. Here’s a sample:

Chez Panisse Café – Berkeley, California

Chez Panisse is known as the birthplace of modern California cuisine and helped start a movement for restaurants to use fresh, local ingredients. Co-founder Alice Waters named the café after a character in a film trilogy by Marcel Pagnol (who was a French novelist, playwright and filmmaker). Chez Panisse is a restaurant legend and was number 20 on Restaurant Magazine’s Best Restaurants in the World.

One of the most delightful running gags on the TV show Riverdale is the use of almost-but-not-quite-right brand names: Veronica charges up a storm on a shopping website called Glamazon.com, and buys Fred Andrews an expensive wallet at Barnaby’s. Riverdale‘s faux-name practice is an homage to the original Archie comics, which used similar wordplay for products and celebrities — as when Bingo Skar of The Bottles visited Riverdale (Issue 155, in 1965). This article at EW by Kristen Baldwin lists ten of the best fake brands to appear on Riverdale, such as:

“Five Seasons”
“It’s not the Waldorf nor the Plaza, but The Five Seasons, like all of Riverdale, has its charms.” — Veronica Lodge (Season 2, “When a Stranger Calls”)
Veronica is clearly underselling this establishment. A true luxury hotel knows that there’s no reason to settle for Four Seasons when you can have Five.

“American Excess”
“Reporting my American Excess card as stolen? Well played.” — Veronica Lodge to mom Hermione (Season 1, “In a Lonely Place”)
Commentary on our culture’s addiction to consumerism, and it rhymes with American Express? Well played indeed.

“Vanity Flair”
“Betty, come on. An impossible situation is being invited to both the Vanity Flair Oscar party and Elton John’s Oscar party on the same night.” — Veronica Lodge (Season 1, “The Outsiders”)
There’s no rhyme or reason to which real brand names Riverdale uses versus which ones they choose to parody. Why namedrop some real networks (HBO, Netflix), events (the Met Ball), and cultural luminaries (Toni Morrison) but spoof something like Vanity Fair? Then again, why am I looking for order in the chaos that is Riverdale’s narrative storytelling?

To shed some light on company naming habits, Premier Business Care have conducted research into the thousands of UK businesses registered at Companies House. The results, published in London Loves Business, are intriguing!

The findings show that 62 UK companies cited ‘Brexit’ within their business names during 2017, potentially being forward-thinking for March 2019. Regionally, Scottish are most proud of their heritage, with the term ‘Scotland’ or ‘Scottish’ (9,888) cited within business names 3 times more than ‘Britain’ and ‘British’ (3,129) and being 4 times more popular than ‘England or English’ (2,438).

When looking at Sons Vs Daughters in company names, a staggering 16,859 include the words ‘Son’ or ‘Sons’ In contrast, only 320 names include the word ‘Daughter’.

Want to know more? Click through to read the rest of the story!

Detail from the Roman-era Sousse Mosaic Calendar, El Jem, Tunisia. Ad Meskens / Wikimedia Commons

The names of our months are derived from the Roman gods, leaders, festivals, and numbers. If you’ve ever wondered why our 12-month year ends with September, October, November, and December – names which mean the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth months – you can blame the Romans.

The Roman year originally had ten months, a calendar which was ascribed to the legendary first king, Romulus. Tradition had it that Romulus named the first month, Martius, after his own father, Mars, the god of war. This month was followed by Aprilis, Maius, and Iunius, names derived from deities or aspects of Roman culture. Thereafter, however, the months were simply called the fifth month (Quintilis), sixth month (Sixtilis) and so on, all the way through to the tenth month, December.

Want to know what happened after that? Click through to this article at The Conversation to find out!

ABC News: Karina Carvalho

If you’ve lived in Brisbane for a while, you’d have noticed a pattern when it comes to how the Central Business District streets are named. Streets facing north-east have female names, each named after a royal. In the opposite direction, the names are male and also of royal descent. How did this pattern start?

The answer lies back in 1842, a time when Brisbane was still part of New South Wales. Tt was a matter of convenience for the British settlers to name Brisbane’s streets after kings and queens of England. “You don’t know what the native bird names are. You don’t know any Aboriginal names, that’s for certain,” historian Thom Blake said.

Read on to find out more about Brisbane’s street names!