Onomastics, although an autonomous discipline, overlaps the subject matter of many other disciplines since name use is central to human activity. In its subfield of terminologies or nomenclatures; moreover, onomastics relates to every discipline, subject field, and activity that human beings pursue: We are a species that categorizes and labels. To illustrate this point, we consider briefly the interconnections of onomastics with a number of other disciplines and then look more particularly at the role of placename study as a cross-disciplinary activity. Names, Poetry, and MakingThe mass of men are very unpoetic, yet that Adam that names things is always a poet. Thoreau, Journal, 1853. poet [ME., fro MF poete, fro Lpoeta, fr. Gkpoietes maker, poet, fro poiein to make] -Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.

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Occupation, use, and symbolic construction of place in the Mammoth Cave region of Kentucky has resulted in five distinct eras of place-making during the past two hundred years. The connectedness of Mammoth Cave to the larger national stage is revealed through struggles over control and development that wrought successive transformations upon the cultural landscape. The symbolic import of the world's largest cave altered as, in turn, resource extraction, tourism, and environmentalism became the dominant ideology influencing development in the Mammoth Cave region. This paper positions the process of placemaking at Mammoth Cave within the changing scene of American society and culture.

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