88.5 Wfdd - Carolina Curious

Downtown Greensboro, North Carolina. KERI BROWN/WFDD In this edition of Carolina Curious WFDD listener and High Point University Spanish Professor Adam Winkel wants to know the origins of his home city’s name: Greensboro. “Why is the ‘boro’ suffix in North Carolina usually spelled 'b-o-r-o' rather than 'b-u-r-g' or 'b-o-r-o-u-g-h'?'” As WFDD’s David Ford soon found out, it all goes back to history and other languages, because “burg,” “borough” — however you want to spell it — and “bury” for that matter (as in Salisbury) are all Anglo-Saxon in origin dating back centuries to the land of lederhosen and bratwurst. In Germany, “burg” means a town surrounded by a wall. And there are lots of them there: Nuremberg, Brandenburg, Hamburg. So, in England, the closer you are to Germany the more you’ll find “burg”s. Director of Local History and Genealogy at the Randolph County Public Library “Mac” Whatley says the suffix “borough” — which also means town — has gone through an evolution over the ce