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When did (English) people stop giving descriptive names to people and places?
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We often see depictions of natives who have descriptive names ('bright flower' or 'red fox', etc) and many old place names appear to be simple descriptions of the place (e.g. Milton = mill town).

In comparison, today we look up the meanings of names in baby books and names like London or the Thames don't mean anything in modern English.

When did this change? When and why did people begin using names that they didn't understand? Is this common in the test of the world?

(I apologize if this is more of a sociology question)

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Posted
9 years ago