What is the etymolgy of 'Moscow' i.e. Los Angeles is 'City of Angels'
or Lincoln is 'Lake Colony'.

Hello.

The name "Moscow" (or "Moskva" in Russian) is believed to come from
roots meaning "dirty water" or "swampy."

See:
"One of the colonized territories was Moscovia. Moscow (Moskva) itself
was founded in 12th century as one of the outward posts of the empire
deep in the forests occupied by native Finno-Ugric tribes, the
ancestors of modern Russians (80% of the topographic names in the
modern central Russia have the Finno-Ugric roots including the name of
the Moskva-river that means "the dirty water")."
source: ukraine-today.com
http://ukraine-today.com/reference/facty/facty-hist.shtml

"No academic is able to give a precise interpretation of the word
'Moscow', he won't dare either to guess the exact age of the city or
to explain why it was Moscow that in the 15th century became the
capital of the Russian state. By common consent scholars take it that
the fortress on Borovitzky Hill was named after the river flowing by.
Over the centuries many historians have been trying to interpret the
meaning of the word Moscow. There exists an Ugro-Finnish theory which
interprets the name of the river as 'cow's river' or 'bear'. Nowadays
most historians tend to accept the Slavic interpretation of the name
Moscow as 'boggy, swampy', which reflects the natural characteristics
of the landscape."
source: City of Moscow - Official Tourist Guide
http://www.moscow-city.ru/download/source/...sia.pdf/2-7.pdf

" The capital of Russia takes its name from the river Moskva on which
it sits. The river, in turn, takes its name from the Finno-Ugrian word
for water."
source: nutcracker.com
http://www.nutcracker.com/Press_Room/Press_Room_Fun_Facts.html

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search strategy:
moscow moskva name means
Finno moscow moskva name means

Thanks!  And thanks to my friend and colleague Pinkfreud-ga for the
Moscow Guide link.

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Clarification of Answer by juggler-ga on 05 Oct 2004 21:45 PDT

Oops. That City of Moscow - Official Tourist Guide link should have been:
http://www.moscow-city.ru/download/source/Muscovy%20Russia.pdf/2-7.pdf

fast and broad answer...thank you...i'll look for more...second link
was a downed web page...

Yeah, I'm sorry about the second link.  I pasted it incorrectly.  As
noted in my clarification of 21:45 PDT yesterday, the link should have
been:
http://www.moscow-city.ru/download/source/Muscovy%20Russia.pdf/2-7.pdf