jolon

[HAOLE BOY]

I'm sure I could find this out if I wanted, but does anyone know the meaning of the word/name "Jolon"? I grew up on the central coast of California and was taking the 101 "el camino real" on vacation now, stopping by mission San Miguel on the way, quizing my family on Spanish pronounciation. This was a hard one for them. But I couldn't come up with the origin.

[Tomisimo]

I have no idea about the meaning/etymology of this word, but here are a couple of things that come to mind. I'm sure they're probably way off track, but I'll write them down anyway because they're amusing.

Jolon.

(1) Maybe the placename was created by a bilingual Spanish/English speaker who used the English word hole and gave it Spanish spelling and added the augmentative ending ón. Jolón = big old hole

(2) I found a word jol (http://es.wiktionary.org/wiki/jol) that means sand in Hebrew, so maybe there was a bilingual Hebrew/Spanish speaker (a Ladino Catholic priest from Spain anyone?) who created the word jolón meaning big grain of sand.

(3) Jolon could also be a corruption of another Spanish word such as jalón or colón.

Here's some more info on the place:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jolon,_California
Jolon is a small unincorporated settlement in the Salinas Valley, Monterey County, California. It is in a rural area located about 6 miles from Mission San Antonio de Padua. It was owned by W.R. Hearst in the 1920s, who sold it to the US Army, its current owner.

Jolon is mentioned in the chorus of the song "South Coast" [1], as a place you could gamble back in its frontier days.

[HAOLE BOY]

thanks. sounds like I need to do some research.

[Tomisimo]

If you find out anything more, let me know. You've piqued my interest now :)

[sosia]

A dictionary gave me this:
jolón: mexico avispa, avispero wasp, wasps' nest

Tomisimo's 2nd option: A modern city in Israel is named Jolot (hebrew:sands) because the place was like a desert covered by sand. En spanish is calleds Jolón.Perhaps the american Jolon it's the same.

Saludos :D

[HAOLE BOY]

OK. The results of my research do not produce a lot of info. But Jolon is a native american name meaning "valley of the dead oaks." So it is not Spanish as I would have thought. Gracias por sus respuestas.

[Tomisimo]

Interesting, so it doesn't have anything to do with Spanish at all. I wonder if the spelling was influenced by Spanish at all? Only because of how it's pronounced.