Abstract
There were mainly six types of formalization models found in the study for 95 city and county names in China’s Hunan province, namely, the environment in a place for the place, the wish of the nomenclator for the place, the relative position of a place for the place, the resident for the place, the legend for the place, and the function of a place for the place. In the six formalization models, the environment in a place for the place was the most in number, forging 47 names. Besides, the wish of the nomenclator for the place and the relative position of a place for the place came the second, taking 20 names respectively. The cognitive operation participating in the formalization was primarily single metonymy with only a few complex metonymies. Metaphtonymy could be only noted in the model of the wish of the nomenclator for the place. It was notable that single metaphor was missing in the cognitive operations.