A Few Thoughts About Tautological Place Names,

a place name is tautological if two differently sounding parts of it are synonymous,

screen shot Star Teck, this often occurs when a name from one language is imported into another and a standard descriptor is added on from the second language, for example, New Zealand's Mount Maunganui is tautological since "maunganui" is Māori for "great mountain", and with thanks to @Foone, for this: 

"Here's the question I always have with universal translators in sci-fi: how do they know when to stop translation? Like say an alien asks about deserts on earth, and the human lists "the sahara desert, gobi desert and kalahari desert" Alien: You just said "desert" six times! ("Sahara" is Arabic for "desert". "Gobi" is Mongolian for "desert", and "Kalahari" is Tswana for "desert")", this actually happens more often than many people think, there is a great list of tautological place names here, and it is not complete, for example the River Gambia is not on it, River River as translated.