Ortigueira

The name stings. Ortigueira comes from the Latin urticaria, 'place of nettles', derived from urtica, the nettle —⁠the plant whose stinging hair also gives the verb urticar⁠—⁠: it is a transparent plant-name, 'the nettle-ground', and so Gonzalo Navaza reads it without dispute. The old forms confirm it cleanly: in Urticaria in the year 897, Orticaria in 929, Ortigueyra in 1262. The neighbouring district, Ortegal, shares the same botanical root. The name today belongs to the ría de Ortigueira, the largest of the north Galician coast, a wetland of international importance for its birds; and to a Celtic-music festival that fills the town each summer. From the humble nettle, a name heard across half of Europe.