Hebrew-language names were coined for the place-names of Palestine throughout different periods under the British Mandate; after the establishment of Israel following the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight and 1948 Arab–Israeli War; and subsequently in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel in 1967. A 1992 study counted c. 2,780 historical locations whose names were Hebraized, including 340 villages and towns, 1,000 Khirbat (ruins), 560 wadis and rivers, 380 springs, 198 mountains and hills, 50 caves, 28 castles and palaces, and 14 pools and lakes. Palestinians consider the Hebraization of place-names in Palestine part of the Palestinian Nakba.
Many existing place names in Palestine are based on unknown etymologies. Some are descriptive; some survivals of ancient Nabataean, Hebrew Canaanite, or other names; and the occasional name was unaltered from the forms found in the Hebrew Bible or Talmud. During classical and late antiquity, the ancient place-names metamorphosed into Aramaic and Greek, the two major languages in the region before the advent of Islam. Following the Muslim conquest of the Levant, Arabized forms of the ancient names were adopted.