Talk:Arlington County, Virginia

County seal

The county seal has changed. Could someone update the infographic with the new county seal? Thank you. Dmford13 (talk) 16:35, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

The infobox shows both a logo (which is the new one) and a seal (which is an old one). It isn't clear to me that Arlington distinguishes seal from logo—aren't they one and the same in Arlington? Source such as this one seem to use them interchangeably, if they do use both terms. If so, then we just need to remove the "seal" item from the infobox. Largoplazo (talk) 21:16, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

The seal highlighting alexandria is wrong. It should just be dark blue in the top left like in the flag. 2603:8001:D340:DD38:18A0:47D6:7EA7:B5F5 (talk) 07:19, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Flag of Arlington County, Virginia (2022–present).svg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 11:53, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

The seal is incorrect. The flag should replace the seal, or at least the seal should be fixed. 2603:8001:D340:DD38:18A0:47D6:7EA7:B5F5 (talk) 07:20, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

WP:POV and other issues in History -> 20th Century

Flagging this section for (potentially) a total rewrite due to numerous issues. Discussions of various topics (Metro, gentrification, development, “Southern stock” vs “Northern stock”) are all highly opinionated, unsourced, and wordy. 2601:152:1482:3000:386F:B1F5:9D52:C6B9 (talk) 17:27, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Provenance of the Arlington County Name

Per this article, Arlington House was named after Harlington in London via Henry Bennett. Per the wikipedia article on Arlington House, it states that Arlington House was named after a plantation in Northampton County VA, which was in turned named after a village in Gloucestershire England. Not Harlington in London.

https://www.co.northampton.va.us/visitors/tourism/free_things_to_see_and_do/free_history_lessons/custis_tomb__arlington_plantation

https://ghostsofdc.org/2012/02/16/why-is-it-named-arlington/

74.96.246.125 (talk) 18:44, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

Neither "Harlington" nor "London" appears anywhere in this article. The only mention of Henry Bennett (though a Bennett is mentioned in the names of a couple of lawsuits) reads Template:Tq I'm quite confident that Henry Bennet(t) was a person rather than a plantation, so the sentence needs work. In addition, this is in the "Colonial Virginia" section, and that wasn't the county's name until well into the 20th century so this isn't the place to discuss the county's name anyway. Meanwhile, the "20th century" section mentions the renaming of the country in 1920 but there doesn't state the name's origin. Finally, the naming is mentioned again, with reference to a trolley in 1896, which jumps ahead to 1920 before we're at 1920 in the narrative. Clearly the article can use some cleanup in this small regard, but, again, "Harlington" and "London" aren't part of the problem. Largoplazo (talk) 00:02, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

thanks for the reply - I was looking more at the 17th century aspect. The sources seem to agree that GWP Custis named Arlington House after the Northampton County Arlington Plantation. Per Encyclopedia Virginia, John Custis established the Arlington Plantation, and John Custis II's father was from the Arlington area of Gloucestershire County England, so presumably the plantation was named after the town in Gloucestershire. However, the Ghosts of DC website gives the provenance of the Arlington Plantation name to Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington. The territory of the Earl of Arlington though does not include the town in Gloucestershire, but rather an area of London called Harlington.

The Arlington County VA wikipedia entry cites the Earl of Arlington (ie Henry Bennet) provenance - is this accurate? Or is the Encyclopedia Virginia entry? I'm more inclined to go with the Gloucestershire option, but things are pretty vague from back then. I don't know much about Henry Bennet (obviously, considering I misspelt his name previously) so maybe he has connection to the Gloucestershire town?

https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/custis-john-ca-1629-1696/ Aevangoh (talk) 23:00, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

If there are mutliple reliable sources with different information, generally Wikipedia lists both and would then leave it up to the reader to decide which one is more accurate. meamemg (talk) 23:08, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Before the wording got gutted, earlier versions of this article, such as this one, said Template:Tq It would be clearer to write it in reverse chronological order, adjusting the wording as needed to mesh with the context, "Arlington is the namesake of Arlington Plantation along with Arlington House, the family estate of George Washington Parke Custis. Custis named those, in turn, for the Arlington plantation and the mansion built on it in the 1670s in Northampton County by his ancestor, John Custis Sr.[1]". (The external link should be turned into a proper footnote, of course. Apparently, per the article here, the same man was known as both "Sr." and "II".)

That leaves the question of which Arlington—the earl or the Gloucestershire option—was the namesake of the Custis Sr. plantation. The former might be explainable in terms of the Earl of Arlington, who was present in the Northern Neck (see info about this in the John Custis Sr. article). Either way, details are needed.

Also, note the link above with the text "Arlington plantation", which pipes to the Arlington Archeological Site in Northampton County. Surprisingly, neither of these Arlington Plantations was listed on the disambiguation page Arlington Plantation. I just added them. Largoplazo (talk) 00:11, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Bibliography section and History sources

Any thoughts on adding a bibliography section? I just wrote some content on Arlington's Native American history and cited several pages of C. B. Rose, Jr.'s "Arlington County: A History" in the form of footnotes. I also think that the History section could benefit from citing more comprehensive treatise on the county, which would likely demand a bibliography -- (Wikipedian1234 (talk) 22:41, 4 June 2025 (UTC))

Sure, why not? Largoplazo (talk) 00:40, 5 June 2025 (UTC)