Toponimia 

The toponimia is part of a wider discipline that is the onomastic one, since this last one, in its more generic and more universal meaning, it is referred to all own thing and sole right of the name. The onomastic one understands the names characteristic of person so much (and in this case it is denominated antroponomástica or antroponimia) and the names characteristic of place (toponomástica or toponimia). it is voice of Greek origin that comes from Moles, place and Onyma, name that etimológicamente is equal to place name. She/he has been defined traditionally as the study and significance of the geographical names, but this connotation only bounds it to the linguistic aspect that is important and fundamental for this discipline; but not enough by virtue of that doesn't take in consideration other elements involved in the systematic treatment of the topónimos. She/he has also been defined since as the discipline that is in charge of of to enumerate and to classify the names characteristic of place, that which is even more restrictive, it reduces it to a cold catalog of geographical names. In this order of ideas, she/he should understand each other for toponimia: a branch of the onomastic one that is in charge of of the integral study, in the space and in the time, of the historical, geographical, linguistic, anthropological, sociological and economic aspects that allowed and they allow that a place name originates and subsist. The studies toponímicos must be carried out in integral form, from all the environments of happening human; therefore, they are not limited neither to the linguistic aspects, neither to the simple cataloguing of names, since a topónimo is a cultural product that has life and as the man and its culture is developed and it is energized. The analysis toponímico implies that the man's tendencies are examined in the use and nomination of certain ecological atmospheres, because the concepts man-atmosphere-topónimo, they are 3 vividly bound elements that can not be studied but as a sheaf of relationships. This analysis perspective allows to carry out investigations on poblamiento currents or similar events; the establishment of colonization areas and jointly with the archaeology, to offer explanations has more than enough old cultures; also, she/he offers us the possibility to already carry out linguistic, lexicographical investigations or historical nature analysis on languages missing; also, it provides us the possibility to study the traditional explanations or the popular interpretations on the origin of the topónimos, as inexhaustible source of human creation. The work with topónimos has its more immediate application in the cartographic activity, since the geographical name is the element that gives life and content to the maps, planes and letters; for this reason, the initiative of taking into account this part of the wealth, in general, it has been promoted since by institutions that elaborate maps, the cartographic work it imposes the necessity that it is represented in the plane, letter or map, the toponimia or geographical nomenclature in authentic form, properly writings and in their exact place, for what is justified that such an initiative, historically, it has been and it is originated by the cartographic companies of the world; therefore, the work toponímico and the cartographic one are intimately related. 
The systematic work on the toponimia in Venezuela begins starting from 1967, soon after the celebration of the I she/he Confers of the United Nations to standardize the geographical names carried out in Geneva (Switzerland), although some authors had already indicated especially in previous date the importance of the studies toponímicos among who should be pointed out, to Red Arístides, Telasco Mac Pherson and Lisandro Alvarado. In that year 1967, she/he is founded in the Address of National Cartography the section of Geographical Names, with the idea that a team of people was met to carry out works toponímicos with cartographic ends; also, to elaborate gacetillas of geographical names, the geographical Dictionary of Venezuela and other investigations of this nature; activities with which the systematic treatment of the national toponimia begins and that they constitute the base of other studies of the same nature; this fact is fundamental for the effects of giving sistematicidad and organicidad to the treatment of the toponimia, since it is the beginning of the works toponímicos in Venezuela, in institutionalized form. 
Origin of the Venezuelan topónimos: The topónimos is linguistic appointments applied to the geographical thing, with a deep historical and anthropological content; consequently, the origin of the topónimos is linked to the man's presence in a certain place. In this sense, they exist in Venezuela, fundamentally, topónimos of 3 origins: indigenous, Hispanics and African, although they are also English and Dutch topónimos in the archipelago The Asleep ones, product of the occupation of corsairs and pirates of that origin, during the XVI and XVII centuries; also, other so many denominations that you/they remember the memory of people, places or facts that have historical or social significance for the Venezuelan town that you/they have been integrated to the patrimony, in different stages of the national historical development exist. 
The indigenous toponimia (that includes voices like: Acarigua, Choir, Cumaná, Guanare, etc.), it is the first one that appears in the Venezuelan territory and it is product of several waves of poblamiento of the different indigenous groups that inhabited and they inhabit the national geographical environment, belonging to the linguistic families: arawak, chibcha and caribe; before 3 o'clock, they occupied the Venezuelan territory other groups to those which, up to now, they have not been checked idiomatic bonds with the families linguistic natives of Venezuela; they are groups recolectores and hunters that bequeathed us topónimos non relacionables with none of the languages known today, among which you can point out to the jiraharas, the otomacos, the ayamanes and the gayones already missing. The current representatives of those independent groups are: the guaraos, the yanomamis, the sapés, the arutanís, the piaroas, the puinabes, the yaruros and the guajibos. Belonging to the family linguistic arawak they can be pointed out fundamentally among others to the caquetíos and the achaguas that inhabited, in the occident of Venezuela, and who left many topónimos in that region; although topónimos of origin dispersed arawak exists in the whole national territory, for what is supposed that they occupied, in some time, great part of the country. The current representatives of this linguistic family are the peasants, the paraujanos, the piapocos, the curripacos, the banivas, the guarequenas and the barés. Of the family linguistic chibcha, one has knowledge of the groups timotocuicas that inhabited the region of you Walk them Venezuelans, leaving like evidence a great quantity of topónimos in that area; the current representatives of this linguistic family are the barís, also well-known as brave motilones. Belonging to the family linguistic caribe they were the cumanagotos, the pariagotos, the tomusas, the tarmas, the caracas, the chaimas, the coacas and the fences that occupied the nororiente of the country along the whole coast, where they left numerous topónimos; they were also it the ciparicotos and the bobures, located in the occident of Venezuela; in the New state Esparta was located to the guaiqueríes on who doubts still exist of if they belong or not to the trunk caribe. The current representatives of these groups caribes are: the cariñas, the pemones, the maquiritares, the panares, the mapoyos, the yabaranas, the yucpas and the japrerías; these groups caribeses have left an important inheritance toponímica. 
The Hispanic toponimia appears in the Venezuelan territory soon after the conquest process and colonization; it is at the moment the most abundant in the country and their tendency is the one of growing more and more, in the measure in that the process of agricultural and industrial production of the country is developed and determine a bigger human occupation of the different geographical areas of the national territory. In this order of ideas, they exist in the country old Hispanic topónimos that you/they appear in the chronicles of India and in the historical cartography of Venezuela starting from the year 1498, from the first contact of the Hispanic groups with Venezuelan lands, and they are part of the national historical patrimony; for example, San Felipe, Merida, Trujillo, Valencia, The Hat, The Tyrant, etc.; also an immense range of place names that you/they are from later incorporation to the Independence, such as: Bolivar (state, pick, etc.), Miranda, Monagas, Sucre (states, districts, municipalities, etc.), as well as Port Ordaz, Blond, Michelena, Bolivia that many times displace to indigenous topónimos and others of historical character for the own dynamics that bears the development. With relationship to the etymological study of the Hispanic toponimia is necessary to make some considerations. Spain, before being integrated as State, it was occupied by different human groups; in the first place for prehistoric towns that left evidence of their estada in some very old geographical names, among which are the Iberian that gave the name to the whole Iberian peninsula; then the occupations of the Celtic ones appear, the fenicios, the Greeks, the Carthaginians, the Romans, the German ones and lastly the Arabs who remained in the Iberian peninsula from the century VII to the XV century, what explains the great quantity of Arab topónimos that you/they exist in the current Spanish territory. In this sense, the denominated Hispanic toponimia should be studied with supreme care for not falling in partial and incomplete etymological analysis; this aspect should be taken very in bill by the toponimistas or Venezuelan toponimólogos. 
The African toponimia, is scarcer than the native and Hispanic and it is located, especially, in the center-north region of Venezuela, in the area barloventeña, although it is also in the state Yaracuy and it disperses in some other region of the country; these African topónimos incorporated to the patrimony national toponímico at the beginning of the XVII century, soon after the development of the agricultural and mining exploitation on the part of the Spaniards who were seen in the necessity of bringing African slaves' groups for such activities; these groups assigned names to the places that occupied and many of these appointments have been, like evidence of such a fact, in the Venezuelan geography; voices like: Birongo, Cumboto, Curiepe.