I have some credibility issues.
“Boston” comes from St. Botolph’s Town, in England. No “stone” involved. That’s just an etymological coincidence.
Really curious: America as “Home Ruler”?
It is indeed strange. Given that "America" is derived from a person's name (Amerigo Vespucci) I would want to look up the latin roots of Amerigo....perhaps the original Latin or a common ancient meaning involved some reference to a ruler?
Regardless, from the Telegraph article:
The maps are not definitive works on the etymological roots of geographical names but more of a stimulus, and a very amusing one at that, to make us think about why places are called as they are," explains Sean Quigley of Outstanding Map Distributors, the firm which has brought the maps to Britain from Germany, where they were originally published.
There are indeed numerous areas that one can find fault with, as Daily Mail readers have noted as well as some here. Although normally I'm a fairly brutal 'word Nazi' in my efforts to achieve linguistic accuracy I confess that I still see some value to this work even though some parts may be questionable. It sounds as though it would be an amusing coffee-table point of conjecture, debate and discussion as well as a fun travel accessory to carry along when going to either familiar or unfamiliar places. It seems that it might stimulate thought about local history, culture and customs.