# Town name found in all 50 states? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 10, 2011, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/town-name-found-in-all-50-states/595834 "2011-09-10T16:35:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2011, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/town-name-found-in-all-50-states/595834/21 "2011-09-11T07:16:00Z")
> [@Mangosteen](#): > > I think Hawaii might mess up the chances of finding a town name that is found in all 50 states, so maybe we might have to say, “excluding Hawaii”. Oahu has some “mainland” sounding town names, but not many. Just as a point of interest, the island of Oahu is part of one city, that of [Honolulu](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honolulu_County,_Hawaii). The areas colloquially called _towns_ or _cities_ within Honolulu are not incorporated as cities and thus are still part of the City and County of Honolulu. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2011, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/town-name-found-in-all-50-states/595834/22 "2011-09-11T08:14:03Z")
There are no incorporated cities or towns in Hawaii. Or perhaps there’s just one: the City and County of Honolulu, which, as its name suggests, is a combined city and county and covers the entire island of Oahu. Every other populated place is an unincorporated CDP. The lowest local government in Hawaii is the county. It’s just the way they organize local government there. So if you want to find the most common incorporated town name, just ignore Hawaii. As far as duplicate names within a state, generally the only two restrictions are that there can’t be two post offices with the same name in a state and there can’t be two duplicate incorporated names in the same state (although some states may allow that). Otherwise, there’s no restrictions. There’s lots of duplications among unincorporated placenames, even within a single county. As an extreme, the GNIS database has no fewer than 6 localities named Five Points in Mercer County, PA. There’s some names with dozens of instances in the same state, although I can’t remember the specifics off-hand. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2011, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/town-name-found-in-all-50-states/595834/23 "2011-09-11T10:24:58Z")
**dtilque** : Psst. Quietly look at the post just above yours. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/town-name-found-in-all-50-states/595834/24 "2011-09-12T03:38:33Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > **dtilque** : Psst. Quietly look at the post just above yours. Yes, I know I was duplicating info, but I wanted to make the point that it applied to all of Hawaii, not just Oahu. ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/town-name-found-in-all-50-states/595834/25 "2011-09-12T16:17:34Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I did this research myself at work one day when I was working on a project with detailed zip code data back in 2000. People kept saying that Springfield was the most common name of of an actual town or city in the U.S. based on Simpsons trivia. It was easy to show that wasn’t true although it was near the top. Huh. Who knew? (Not me. I’m too lazy to look up every factoid I hear, particularly if it’s from a book). ---
**Author:** ![TerpBE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc8723/32.png) [@TerpBE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TerpBE)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2011, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/town-name-found-in-all-50-states/595834/26 "2011-09-13T22:06:46Z")
> [@Tengu](#): > > Interesting…Springfield is often cited as ‘found in all states’…I already knew that was wrong, but that it’s only the 4th most common name according to that link, with 28 in 24 states (_5_ of them are in Wisconsin) is something I didn’t. That’s not even half the states! That lists only one Springfield, PA, but there are actually [NINE](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springfield_Township,_Pennsylvania_%28disambiguation%29)of them in PA. If that were the only mistake on that list (which I doubt), correcting that omission would bump Springfield from 4th to 2nd place. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2011, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/town-name-found-in-all-50-states/595834/27 "2011-09-14T17:11:13Z")
> [@](#): > > So if you want to find the most common incorporated town name, just ignore Hawaii. Are you sure there isn’t a Honolulu in the other 49 states? ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/town-name-found-in-all-50-states/595834/28 "2011-09-15T02:42:51Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Are you sure there isn’t a Honolulu in the other 49 states? Actually, there is one, and it’s in GNIS. But it’s just a **locale** rather than a populated place. And the state that it’s in … Alaska! ---
**Author:** ![paperbackwriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@paperbackwriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paperbackwriter)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/town-name-found-in-all-50-states/595834/29 "2011-09-15T02:57:54Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I started to look through that list of Greenvilles. In Connecticut, it’s a neighborhood in Norwich. Although Greenville, CT is within the town of Norwich, I would still consider it a valid entity, unlike simple census-designated places. CT’s organization of local government is entirely town-based. Counties are just lines on a map and have no governmental authority. Even when they did have some form of governmental function, it was extremely limited. There are essentially no unincorporated areas. This town-by-town organization was essentially agricultural in character through the 19th centuries. Industrialization in that era “broke” local government in many places. In some towns, say, Bridgeport, industrialization was widespread and changed the nature of the entire town, so the town government changed to keep up. In other towns, such as Windham, Vernon, and Norwich, industrialization was concentrated into certain sections (usually near waterpower resources). The residents and commercial interests in these sections often felt under-represented and under-supported by the town government, as the rest of the town retained its rural, agricultural character. Instead of splitting those sections into new towns, the legislature created cities _within_ the existing towns, with separate governmental powers. So Willimantic in Windham, Rockville in Vernon, and, yes, Greenville in Norwich were cities inside of a larger town. It’s confusing to people from other states, but I think that makes them independent enough to be considered legit “town names” as in the OP. Those early industries, mostly textiles, are now all long gone and the city governments are now part of the larger towns, but they retain identities and are often the center of the current town. ---
**Author:** ![DnoaCanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f19dbf/32.png) [@DnoaCanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DnoaCanese)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2011, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/town-name-found-in-all-50-states/595834/30 "2011-09-18T07:11:05Z")
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