The comedian Lewis Black has, at least twice on visits here, poked fun at our region's official name: Hampton Roads.
A 2006 conversation with a fellow staff writer went like this:
"I think it's funny that you call yourselves Hampton - whatever it is. The first time someone said, 'Oh, you're going to Hampton Roads,' I said, 'Oh, where is that?' They said, 'It's Virginia,' and I said, 'No, it's Virginia Beach or Hampton. Come on! Where is it?' "
Black had similar thoughts, laced with profanities, during an earlier stand-up routine at a Virginia Beach nightclub. Funnyman Rodney Dangerfield used to say, "I don't get no respect." So, too, Hampton Roads.
Outside the region, "Hampton Roads" has been trying to catch on since the 1980s, when business and government officials convinced the U.S. Postal Service to change the region's postmark from Tidewater to Hampton Roads. Then Chamber of Commerce President Frederick J. Napolitano said the name "Tidewater" made him cringe.
The name is still struggling to catch on. Even The Weather Channel doesn't routinely call us that.
"They usually say Norfolk or the Tidewater of Virginia," Weather Channel spokeswoman Melissa Medori said of the channel's weather forecasters.
Which to some is odd, given that the history of the name dates to the 17th century. Even New York City's moniker, "The Big Apple," is only about 90 years old.
Most sources say the name Hampton Roads originated with the Third Earl of Southampton, Henry Wriothesley, a wealthy English nobleman from the southern port city of Southampton, England. (And a close friend of William Shakespeare.)
The earl took an interest in the new English settlement on what is now the Peninsula. The city of Hampton was officially named in 1610. Roads comes from the centuries-old nautical terms "road" and "roadstead," meaning a stretch of deep water safe for passage. But when those two words were put together the first time is a bit of a mystery.
"Hampton Roads," the channel linking the James, Elizabeth, and Nansemond rivers with the Chesapeake Bay, is identified in an act of the General Assembly in 1755. The oldest Virginia map listing the Hampton Roads channel is dated 1807, according to both the Norfolk Public Library and the Virginia Historical Society.
A neighborhood in Hampton is called Hampton Roads. It was built after World War I and borders Hampton Roads, the waterway.
As for the name spreading to the region, that's been a more contentious issue.
A movement launched in the 1950s to turn the lower Peninsula into the city of Hampton Roads died a quick death in the General Assembly, according to Virginian-Pilot archives.
More recently, a push to name the region Hampton Roads emerged from the business community in the 1980s. It began with the change in the region's postmark in 1983.
From there it spread. Or tried to.
On a recent flight from New York, the captain cruised over Hampton Roads, the waterway, touched down at Norfolk International Airport (not Hampton Roads International Airport), and announced, "Welcome to Norfolk, Virginia Beach and the greater Tidewater area."
More on "Hampton Roads" to come...
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment