I am reading a biography of John Adams, which is how I discovered that the payments company Braintree is named after the town where John Adams grew up, and they named the company for that reason.
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Braintree the town is named after a town in England of that name. How it got that name is disputed but possibly a mis-spelling of "Braintry", which means "Village near the river Brain". "Brain" meant "river" in Celtic, so it's literally "Village by the river".
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Geographical etymology is discovering that every major city is, when translated literally, called something like "village of townville city".
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"Amsterdam" means "Dam across the River Amstel", Amstel means "an area with lots of water". So it's Dam Across The River In An Area With A Lot of Water.
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Most "Washington"s are named after a town in northern England. It comes from Hwæsingatūn, meaning "Estate of the family of Hwæsa". Hwæsa means "wheat sheaf". So it's "The village where the family who grow a lot of wheat live".
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Continuing the "village where <obvious geographical feature>" theme: London's etymology is both obscure and contested, but I find most convincing the Celtic derivation of "londinjon", which means "The Place That Floods Periodically Because Of Tides", which it certainly was.
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Paris comes from Lutetia Parisorum, which is "the swamps of the Parisii". "Par" is Celtic for "boat", so Paris can be arguably translated as "The Swamp Where The Boat People Live".
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I could do this forever, folks.
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You. Are. Awesome.
Keep that up, I could read it all day. 
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