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 |
|---|---|
| Aquascogoc |
appears on the White map, 1585, as an Indian village near the head of Pungo River estuary, not far from either modern Scranton in Hyde County or Belhaven in Beaufort County. |
| Aquone |
community in W Macon County on Nantahala River. Alt. 2,950. Settled on the site of Fort Scott, one of the stockades where Cherokee Indians were housed before being removed to Oklahoma, 1838. Name believed to be a corruption of egwanul'ti (by the river). |
| Arabi |
community in N Robeson County served by post office, July-November 1900. |
| Arabia |
nickname applied about 1860 to the desolate Outer Banks of North Carolina. |
| Arabia |
community in SE Hoke County. |
| Aramancy River |
See Great Alamance Creek. |
| Aramuskeet |
described in 1758 as a part of Hyde County: "That Part of the County is a Peninsula, or rather an Island for three Parts of the Year, and can be entered by foot Passengers only in the Height of Summer, and that with great Difficulty for several Miles together. It was formerly an Indian Settlement, and there are at present about 12 Families of Indians, who live dispersed among the Whites, and dress and live like them, but they have still one whom they call the King among them." See also Aromuskek Marshes; Lake Mattamuskeet. |
| Arapahoe |
town in S Pamlico County, inc. 1920. Post office est. 1886. Said to have been named for a local racehorse. |
| Ararat |
community in E Surry County on Ararat River. Named for the river. Alt. 898. |
| Ararat River |
rises in Virginia and flows S across Surry County into Yadkin River. Appears on the Collet map, 1770. Named for the biblical Mount Ararat. |
