Some place names included in The North Carolina Gazetteer contain terms that are considered offensive.
Copyright Notice: 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.
"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
| Place | Description |
|---|---|
| Occaneechi Mountain |
central Orange County S of the town of Hillsborough. Named for an Indian tribe mentioned frequently in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century records. The mountain is referred to in a letter of January 31, 1767, by Governor Tryon. Appears but is not named on the Collet map, 1770. Called Occaneeche Hills on the Kerr map, 1882. Alt. approx. 700. Now a local park. |
| Occoneechee Creek |
rises in W Northampton County and flows S into Roanoke River. The name is probably from the Tutelo Indian word yuhkañ (man). |
| Occoneechee Neck |
the W neck of Northampton County, is formed by a large bend in Roanoke River. |
| Occoneechee Township |
SW Northampton County. |
| Ocean |
community in W Carteret County served by post office, 1891-1927. |
| Ocean Isle Beach |
town on the Atlantic Ocean, S Brunswick County. Inc. 1959. |
| Ochre Creek |
rises in N Jackson County and flows W into Scott Creek. |
| Oconaluftee River |
is formed in the Great Smoky Mountains in NE Swain County by the junction of Beech Flats Prong and Kephart Prong. For a part of its course, it forms the Jackson-Swain county line. It flows SE into Tuckasegee River. The name, long written as two words (Ocona Luftee), is from the Cherokee words Egwanulti or Egwani (river) and nulati or nuti (near; beside). The Cherokee town of Oconalufte, mentioned by explorer-naturalist William Bartram about 1775, was probably on the lower course of the river at present Birdtown. |
| Oconalufty Township |
formerly in E Swain County but inc. into the limits of Charleston Township when it was enlarged between 1934 and 1940 with the establishment of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. |
| Ocracoke |
community on Ocracoke Island, SE Hyde County. Settled in the seventeenth century. The name Ocracoke seems originally to have been Wococon, which appeared first on the White map, 1585. The Indian word apparently was waxkahikani, meaning "enclosed place," "fort," or "stockade," and it is believed that a fortified Indian village existed at the site. By 1676 the name Okok was used, and by 1709 it had developed into Occacock. See also Wococon Island. |
