Surname Maps

[ysabetwordsmith]

janetmiles and my partner Doug tipped me to this cool resource showing surname maps.  So, if you're a writer and you want to name an ordinary character from one of these places, you can pick a surname from the relevant place and it will fit.  This is a very discreet and effective trick with local color.

Comments

[msstacy13.livejournal.com]

Oh, another sort of related thing-
in the 1892 preface to The Hoosier School-Master,
Edward Eggleston mentioned that a specific dialect could be heard
anywhere Scots-Irish immigrants settled in the US;
even two or three generations later,
there were enclaves in South Carolina, Indiana, and Pennsylvania
where people spoke with the same accent as one another,
but unlike the accents other people around them.