The Subcarpathians are known as a region that has been well-settled since early times, but it is also evident that many villages arise from the expansion of subsistence farming from the river terraces to the hillsides during a period of acute population pressure and economic restructuring in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This phase of growth is investigated in the context of the Pătârlagele Depression, concentrating on four settlement groups on the eastern side of the Buzău valley: the Măguricea, Râpile, Tega and Zahareşti localities; with particular reference to the toponomy presented by large-scale maps and key texts (especially Iorgulescu’s epic work of 1892) in addition to the very rich oral evidence. The paper pays attention to both the Buzău terraces and the adjacent landslide surfaces because the latter were also attractive to pioneer peasant farmers on account of their soil fertility and moisture context at a time when the terraces were being used more exclusively for a market economy. Some areas used today for hay, pasture and plum orchards were well cultivated until cereal lands were acquired in the Bărăgan steppe under the 1923 land reform and economic diversification accelerated after 1945. Toponomy is therefore presented as a major source for understanding an important phase of rural settlement. But while the placenames contribute much of interest in terms of ecology and environmental potentials in the light of survival by extended families and other small communities there is little reliable information on the origins of the earlier settlements
