Uzbekistan Place Names Explained

Having blogged samples of my books on English place names and also examined the etymologies of the nations of the world and their respective capitals I thought it time I cast my net a little wider. As English place names share some links to other tongues it would be interesting to see if any of the elements contributing to our place names could be found elsewhere. Continuing an alphabetical tour of the world and a look at the largest Uzbekistan cities.

Tashkent is thought to mean either 'stone tower' or 'stone city', a tower said to mark the midpoint between Europe and China.

Lake Charvak comes from the Persian char bagh meaning 'four gardens'

Samarkand comes from the Sogdian samar kand 'stone fort / town'.

Namangan comes from Persian namak kan 'a salt mine'.

Nukus comes from an old tribal name of the Karakalpaks.

Bukhara is thought to come from the Sogdian buxarak meaning 'place of good fortune'.

Qarshi means simply 'fort'.

Margilan is said to have been named by Alexander the great and named when he was given lunch of chicken murgh and bread nan.

Note the spellings of the places are English as the piece is written in English.