CLARIFICATIONS REGARDING THE NAME OF THE CITY

The name Targoviste comes from the old Slavonic and means the place where there is or where it was an fair, a bazaar or a marketplace. In the old Slavonic „turgoviște”, „trugoviște” means market.
In the XX century, there was an etymological explanation of the „oviște” group, which meant meadow or plain, so Targoviste would have meant “the market in the meadow”.
Aside from the city bearing this name, in Romania we can find the toponyms Targoviste in the village with the same name in the Balint commune, Timis County, mentioned without a precise location, around 1348 and surely around 1690-1700), in Mehedinţi county (today Gura – Văii, mentioned in 1495-1505, in 1560 as a heath and in 1569 again as a village) and on the Putna river, where there was a Târgoveţi village in 1609-1610.
The frequency of the term has also imposed itself on the city’s minor toponymy. Here we had a
„Târg din Lăuntru” and a „Târg din afară”, separated by the city’s ditch, a „Târg de Sus” (the
oldest in the city, on the location of the present Suseni neighborhood) and a „Târg de Jos”,
„Târgului” road, and also the „Târgoviștioara” stream.
The name of the former capital of Ţara Romaneasca was recorded in various forms, in cartographic documents and in official documents, issued in other languages, starting with the XVI century, but the first form is the one of 1396 – I.Schiltberger – Turkoich.