Topónimos fantasma en la cartografía en papel y las IDEs

Although toponymy can be considered a science, no specific term has been coined for the common cartographic occurrence of those names that appear solely on maps, having no obvious referent and never having been employed by the local inhabitants: what might be thought of as ghost toponyms. Drawing on parallels with so-called ‘ghost words’ that appear in dictionaries, and based on the closeness of the relationship that exists between lexicology-lexicography, on the one hand, and toponymy-cartography, on the other, the author offers a formal, unambiguous definition of the concept of the ghost toponym.