Cantemir toponymic area, comprised within the administrative-territorial borders of the current district Cantemir, represents a complex of major and minor topical names with common onymic features to the entire Romanian toponymic system, as well as with some specific features of popular speech and local accents. The article highlights the linguistic and extralinguistic factors (geographical, historic, social, etc.) that contributed to the formation and evolution of the investigated toponymic area. Based on field surveys and information collected from documentary sources, there is established the etymological stratigraphy of the topical nomenclature, the lexical-semantic and derivational typology, the territorial spread of different types and categories of geographic proper names.