The various toponyms in the historical region of Lorraine are often known by very different names depending on the language in which they are expressed. This article provides an understanding of the linguistic and historical origin of this diversity and lists a number of correspondences for communes and lesser localities in the four departments of the former region: Meuse, Meurthe-et-Moselle, Moselle, and Vosges. Exonyms and endonyms In the context of toponyms, and with regard to the scope of this article, exonyms and endonyms are the differing external and internal names, respectively, used by different languages or cultures for a specific geographic place. For the people that speak German and live in Germany, for example, Deutschland is their endonym for that country. Conversely, Allemagne is the exonym in French, 'Germany' is the exonym in English, and so on. The same idea can apply within a country too, between regions having vastly different linguistical and cultural histories. The emphasis in this article is on those toponyms that began as Gallo-Roman endonyms in some cases, but more often as endonyms following the Germanic migrations, and particularly what emerged from the Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties. Now, more than a millennium later, many of these toponyms have three different names—in Lorraine Franconian, French, and German—due to shifts in culture and language and changes in land possession. Linquistical aspects of toponyms in Lorraine The 'determinant-determined' of the Romano-Francs The origin of toponyms, of which exonyms are a certain type, is sometimes controversial, especially in Lorraine where successive or simultaneous occupations by different peoples and changes in culture have often influenced toponymy more than elsewhere. As in all regions marked by Germanic influence, adjectives or appellatives often precede nouns. Many toponyms are formed with the name of a local lord or land owner. In some cases, however, a particular topographical, religious, or historical aspect may have played a more important role, which is difficult to determine in Gallo-Romance formations in particular. While Gallic toponyms are often poorly clarified due to insufficient knowledge of the language, Romanesque toponyms often play the role of those older Celtic toponyms that have been redesigned in the Romanesque style. The Ripuarian and Salian Franks, and for some time also the Alemanni in eastern Lorraine, introduced Germanic toponyms. A patronymic practice of the Romano-Francs that developed from the Merovingian Dynasty was to merge Roman and Germanic habits. The Germanic rule of word composition