Margaret Bainton wrote: > There is an Orkney Springs in Virginia. I went down there one day to > check it out and it is a very quaint village. Nobody I spoke with > knew the origin of the name but there are natural springs that people > from all over the USA used to come to bathe in. Other reason for the > name: there was a Scottish doctor who was very influential in the > community and/or it was named after the Earl of Orkney. My brother > says there is an Orphir in Egypt. Peggy Yep, Orkney Springs would definitely count. I'm not so sure about Orphir, though. Is your brother sure he's not confusing it with Ophir? See John Masefield's poem "Cargoes" which UK listers will probably recall (if they're sufficiently antique): "Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir, Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine, With a cargo of ivory, And apes and peacocks, Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine..." "Biblical scholars, archaeologists and others have tried to discover the exact location of Ophir. Some suggest the African shore of the Red Sea, the name perhaps being derived from the Afar people of Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti. However, the exact location of Ophir remains a mystery, although there have been many ideas put forward by Bible students." http://www.biblebasics.co.uk/arch/arch6.htm There seem to be many Ophirs in the USA and elsewhere, but, disappointingly, I can't find an Orphir in Egypt or anywhere else other than Orkney, even with the assistance of our new toy at www.info.com Norman Tulloch

On the Orkney place-names theme, there are certainly: Stromness in South Georgia in the South Atlantic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromness_(South_Georgia) The South Orkney Islands in a similar area: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Orkney_Islands There's a Westray in Nova Scotia, location of a mining tragedy: http://www.littletechshoppe.com/ns1625/wraymenu.html To cheat a bit with a business rather than a place-name, I keep hoping that Tulloch Wines in Australia will come up with a few complementary cases, but no luck so far: http://www.tulloch.com.au/ There's a company called Yesnaby Publishers Inc in Pennsylvania: http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/product-compint-0000702431-page.html However, I'm struggling. I thought there would be quite a number of Orkney place-names in Canada, the USA, Australia and New Zealand but I can't find them. Norman Tulloch