Maybe that's a boring question for English-speaking people,but I'm from Asia...and some of us are trying to translate it into our language..but the name of this city has confused us for a long time,can you tell me what's the best meaning of it?Maybe it refers to a horse running on the plain near this city?(beacause the icon of whiterun is a horse,or "white" just refers to the snow around this city,and "run" means the scene when snow is blowed by wind?)

Second person who's asked this day. Made up answer? The water that flows through the city gets frothy and appears white. Most likely real answer? They called it Whiterun back when they made "The Elder Scrolls: Arena" because it sounded cool, and they didn't really give it that much thought when they made Skyrim. It doesn't snow in whiterun, so it can't be that.

We've had a thread like this a few hours ago.

We ended up deciding it's because of the river close to it with all the little waterfalls making it look like the water is white in places.

A "run" can also be a term used for a small, quickly flowing stream; one that's flowing down a mountain may be white due to short falls and running into rocks. Thus, "white run", or at least that's how I'd interpret the name.

It has to do with the White river that flows by it, and would be a major source of trade and livelyhood.

Take for instance the city of Amsterdam, which is by the river the Amstel.
This river is the reason the city is there, it provided means of travel into the inlands and out to sea.

Then there is Kuala Lumpur, which means muddy estuary.

Throughout history many cities were founded at these kind of geographically handy locations, and were often named after the body of water that provided the livelyhood.

White-run could come from 'Here runs the river White."

I see,most of us try to understand it by the icon of this city(a white horse)...maybe we have go the wrong way...