This content is from the North Carolina Gazetteer, edited by William S. Powell and Michael Hill. Copyright © 2010 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. For personal use and not for further distribution. Please submit permission requests for other use directly to the publisher.

Some place names included in The North Carolina Gazetteer contain terms that are considered offensive.

"The North Carolina Gazetteer is a geographical dictionary in which an attempt has been made to list all of the geographic features of the state in one alphabet. It is current, and it is historical as well. Many features and places that no longer exist are included; many towns and counties for which plans were made but which never materialized are also included. Some names appearing on old maps may have been imaginary, but many of them also appear in this gazetteer.

Each entry is located according to the county in which it is found. I have not felt obliged to keep entries uniform. The altitude of a place, the date of incorporation of a city or town, may appear in the beginning of one entry and at the end of another. Some entries may appear more complete than others. I have included whatever information I could find. If there is no comment on the origin or meaning of a name, it is because the information was not available. In some cases, however, resort to an unabridged dictionary may suggest the meaning of many names."

--From The North Carolina Gazetteer, 1st edition, preface by William S. Powell

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Place Description
Contentnea Creek

is formed in W Wilson County by the junction of Moccasin and Turkey Creeks. It flows SE into Greene County across the county and onto the Lenoir-Pitt county line, which it follows into Neuse River. Contentnea is from the Iroquoian/Tuscarora phrase meaning "fish passing by." Formerly known as Great Contentnea Creek, it is referred to in the De Graffenried account of the founding of New Bern, 1709-10. Appears as Great Cotecktney Creek on the Collet map, 1770. Cotechney was an Indian village on the creek banks in present Greene County. Other eighteenth-century references to the stream use the name Quotankney Creek. See also Moccasin River.

Great Contentnea Creek

See Contentnea Creek.

Little Contentnea Creek

rises in SE Wilson County and flows SE on the Greene-Pitt county line into Pitt County, then back to the Pitt-Greene county line, which it follows into Contentnea Creek. See also Contentnea Creek. Appears as Little Cotecktney Creek on the Collet map, 1770.