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Does the name derive from the lement copper, perhaps by way of a mine in the area? That would be of interest in part because it would mean the newly named element copernium ultimately derived from the name of another element. Dvd Avins (talk) 16:53, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to see some serious toponomastic literature on this. The "dill" vs. "copper" thing goes back to the 1870s.
The debate in the 1960s was entirely within Poland (the Germans just having lost a war were in no mood to signal nationalism), but the 1870s debate was apprarently a field day for German vs. Polish nationalism. Apparently, the general idea was that depending on the etymology of the 13th-century toponym, Copernicus would somehow become either more "ethnically German" or more "ethnically Polish". This is of course tenuous, but it's also how tribalism works, so it's still worth reporting on.
von Belle (1875) is on the German side, but he gives an intersting glimpse of what was going on back then. He thinks the family is from Köppernik im Eulengebirge, i.e. Przygórze. Apparently this possibility was ruled out by Bender (1920). But von Belle is useful because he gives comparative material for similar toponyms. In order to establish toponym etymologies, you need comparanda. Von Beller has a number of examples which make clear that names of this type are found in the vicinity of copper industry. Now on the opposite side, we would want comparative evidence establishing that koper "dill" is a known element in Polish placenames. No doubt this has all been done in the 1960s/1970s, but I have not found online access to this literature. --dab(𒁳)13:17, 25 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
