"Avon" is a Celtic word for "river" (viz Welsh afon); "llama" is the third person singular of the Sp

"Avon" is a Celtic word for "river" (viz Welsh afon); "llama" is the third person singular of the Spanish verb "to be called or named"; "kangaroo" (I believe) is an Aborigine term meaning "I don't know". What other names have have arisen from the apparent misunderstanding of a native's answer to a curious foreigner?

Jon Riley, London W5

• The French word 'vasistas' means fanlight or roof window and is a corruption of the German 'wass ist das' (what is that?). I was told that that German soldiers looking for Resistance fighters in wartime France would break into Parisian top-floor lodgings, point to the (open)roof window and scream 'Wass ist das!'

  Moia Murphy, Paris

• Further to Mr Burkitt-Gray's reply, there is a feature in Cumbria, I believe, called Torpenhow Hill. As each syllable means "Hill" the name translates as "HillHillHill Hill". Is this a record?

  Christopher Brook, Leeds

• I believe grey is an old (English?) word for dog - so greyhound dog becomes dogdog dog.

  Tim Harrison, London

• It is said that Canada's name comes from the response to an early traveller's question, "What is this place?" He was by a village at the time and received the answer, in Iriquois, "Kanata", which means 'village'.

  S. Flanagan, Toronto

• Paul Ludgate wonders why no animal has been accidentally named after an expletive or the local expression for "run". The answer is obvious: no foreigner has survived to relate the experience!

  Ray Sefton, Walthamstow

• The last three words of Alice Holt Hurst Wood, in west Surrey, mean the same thing. Does this reflect the increasing frustration of a local Saxon trying to communicate with a Norman immigrant?

  Victor Wyatt, Norwich

• There is a place in Alaska called Nome because the surveyor did not know what it was called and wrote "Name?" on his form. This was later misread.

  S H Lupton, Prestwich

• Just to add to the list of placenames in which some or all the parts mean the same thing, there's a Venlaw Hill in Peebles, Scotland, which translates as 'Hill Hill Hill' - Gaelic 'bheinn', Scots 'law', English 'hill'.

  Dominic Watt, Leeds

• Lake Malawi in Africa was originally named Lake Nyasa by the first European settlers based on advice from the locals. Nyasa is Chinyanja for Lake. To add to the confusion, they named the land around it Nyasaland. Both were renamed Malawi following independence in 1964.

  Stephen Foote, Cookham

• Budgerigar is apparently an aboriginal phrase meaing "good to eat".

  Gordon, South Shields

• Pendle Hill is another "hillhill hill" in Britain.

  H Duffy, Leicester, UK