There were no Americans when many of those places were named…
As much as Europeans don’t like it, Americans are your children.
A new place of europe.
When you get to the south west it becomes a place in Mexico which is a place in Spain or straight up just named after a Spanish conquistador.
and the original European names are also pretty functional:
I believe Amsterdam is just “River Dam”
And York is just “Yew”, presumably named after trees that grew there. (Eburacon -> Eboracum -> Eoforwic -> Jórvík -> York)
But New York in the United States isn’t even directly named after the English city of York, but rather a person (James Stuart) who was the Duke of York when England took control of the territory from the Dutch.
I was down at the New Amsterdam
Staring at this yellow-haired girl
Mr. Jones strikes up a conversation
With a black-haired flamenco dancer
You know, she dances while his father plays guitar
There are also a lot of places that kept the original native names. Not as numerous as the “New [European place]” ones, but enough that you notice.
Sure but calling them Americans is likely, mostly, sorta true but also ignores an important fact… They were Europeans (or near descendants of) calling the places that. Often a place was named that place because it reminded them of home / to honor their parents home.
Some other notable examples: New Zealand
São Carlos, Brazil
Munich, Saskatchewan
Liverpool, New South Wales
Nueva York, Colombia
True, but I think we may be the only country other than India to name a major city after another major city in the same country. Portland Oregon was named after Portland Maine
Don’t forget the number of places named Springfield. A quick search pulls up an article that puts the number at at least 30 different places in the US.
Super interesting. Didn’t know that. Thanks.
So is nueva York named after York or new York?
Even old New York was once New Amsterdam.
Why’d they change it?
I can’t say…
Hey hey, we did call it “New”. Well, sometimes anyway. I definitely lived in town just called York.
We also have a few original names, like bucksnort, horsethief basin and truth or consequences
Here in South Carolina we have Pumpkintown, Sugar Tit, and Possum Kingdom
In Québec they were a bit more diverse and also named lots of places after saints.
Just add new to the name
In the west coast we typically just used the name of the native tribe we killed in order to take the land.
Or the Spanish name from when the Spanish took the land a couple hundred years before.
In Oklahoma we just use the name of whatever tribe was forcibly relocated there. Although I know of one town that was named after a misspelling of an indian chief’s name. The Apollo 14 CSM pilot lived there.
I wouldn’t know anything about that here in siʔaɬ.
That’s OK though /j
and then we say a prayer thanking the tribe every sunday at church, don’t forget that
They do it before everything from sports to classical music where I am.
do they explicitly thank the tribe in the prayer?
i know they’re trying, but it’s kind of ridiculous.
It’s not actually a prayer, just an acknowledgement. But yes.
i think i’m kind of superimposing the prayers and acknowledgements because (1) the last one i was at was at a church and it was kind of both, (2) i’m a church musician and when all you’ve got is a hammer, and (3) like, statesia. prayers. you know.
one of my grandfathers was one of the kids stolen from his tribe (fuck if we know which one) by the mormons as part of their Indian Placement Program (theologically they wanted to turn the natives white. don’t get me started). so like, i don’t want to sear all white people with the same brand, but like, sometimes the acknowledgements feel like a bandaid. okay most of the time.
all i know is it fucked up my grandfather something terrible
And yet you still support the religion of the colonizers. You should take your talent elsewhere.
i do? lay out your stupid argument. I’ll hear it ONCE.
Yes, I visited Themdamninjuns last time I went through Illinois.
for the purposes of my joke, many people wouldn’t have known - or cared to know - the names of the local tribes
I’ve never been through Illinois
If you are making multiple asides, the standard approach is to use square brackets within the first parentheses, not double parentheses.
e.g.
The dildo was menacing and enormous (likely the biggest I have ever used [nearly 4 feet]).
footnotes1.
1gotta use2
2go3tcha
3 better footnotes
Thank you. I think I have it now.
Nah I prefer feeling like I’m reading a 90’s chain email.
I had not heard of this before. Usually those are used when adding text to a quote for clarification. Is this mainly a British English thing?
It’s professional writing. It’s like when people complain how titles have capital letters in them, is just a form of writing.
And yet we don’t have a Shitterton
Thats the S in USA
Hey, give them some credit, they have some diversity - there’s place in europe, new place in europe, mispronounced place in europe, british ruler, catholic saint in spanish, american president, explorer related to america, and of course native american place/tribe, and random native american word
I think you’re just describing how the etymology of most named places works.
In my country we name places after the surrounding area/environment. If it’s an area with a big hill it will probably have a name to reflect that.
I love visiting other areas “Old Barn Rd”, and “Swamp Rd”
These days you can’t even tell the name comes from the area. They use old words to describe it. An area with a hill could be called a “Something-bjer”. Bjer means hill and is close to the modern word Berg but if you don’t know about it then you don’t think about it.
Sure, we could have old barn road. But I am not talking about roads. More like City names, local village names, local area names and such.
Gotcha.
That’s interesting, I’ve never heard of bjer beforeUnless you are from Sweden it’s not that surprising you never heard about “bjer” haha. I only learned about it pretty recently and I am born and raised here 😅 The majority of people probably never think about why places are named the way they are
I was thinking you meant in the US, like in New England or something. Glad I learned a new thing already today
The Spanish names barely count because those were originally Mexican and had been named before USA was born.
mispronounced place in europe
Americans can’t pronounce Illinois
Illin-wah
N’wah!
Kansas
Arkansas
Kansas
Arkansas
Kansas and pirate Kansas
There’s a town in Illinois called Sauget with an ongoing debate over how to pronounce it. None of the dozens of pronunciations are what you’d think.
I vote they settle on changing the name to sausage.
“Truth and Consequences, NM”
“Dinosaur, CO”
“City of Industry, CA”
“Why Not?, NC”
“Ink, AR” because when it was time to name the town a questionnaire was circulated to solicit suggestions, and the top of the form said “write in ink”. Except not really goddammit.
Springfield, yes
