Doing some work in the Open Directory on US local weather, it struck me that town names tend to be frequently duplicated in another US state, but, it seems, never within the same state, i.e. the $townname, $statename scheme seems to be unambiguous.
So, what mechanism enforces this? I.e. when a newly founded town wants to adopt a name that is already used in the state, or when a town wants to rename itself to such a name, what entity is responsible for preventing this duplication, and what sanctions are available for that purpose?
The town was initially called Manchester but was renamed Cuyahoga Falls at the request of the Post Office since there were already several other Manchesters in Ohio.
[Wikipedia quote]
Before Zip codes, mail would be addressed to hamlets in the townships, which have unique names for the state. Mail sent to Madison Township in Lake County would be addressed to Unionville, North Madison, Gerund’s Corners (sic), or some other hamlet name.
Convenience and lack of confusion will also help enforce singly-named towns. at one time there were three Washingtons in New Jersey (including my home town). After they start losing mail to the other towns with the same name, and enough people get lost, it hits folks that it’s a good idea to change names. My town changed its name about five times.
I work with Geographic Information Systems, so this type of thing comes up for me in my work quite often.
The thing is, there are different KINDS of names of towns, for different purposes. For example, there are postal names, used by the USPS, there are official names, which is what the official name of the city is, and there are neighborhood names. These may or may not be the same. The USPS requires that there are not duplicate postal names within the same state.
To give a couple of examples that come to mind:
The name “Brentwood” exists twice in California: Once as a postal name (and an official name of the same town, I believe), and a second time as a neighborhood name (part of Los Angeles).
The name “Studio City” exists as a postal name and a neighborhood name, but it is not an official name. (It is part of Los Angeles).
What name to use depends on what you want to use it for. The USPS greatly recommends you use postal names for all mail. But computer mapping systems often expect people to use official names or even neighborhood names when looking up a business location.
Both in the Philadelphia area, adding to the confusion – one is in Delaware County, and the other is in Montgomery County, and they are usually so specified.
During the growth of the USA the postal authority often changed the name of a new town. Reasons being it was a duplicate, they thought it was to much like another name, and lastly they didn’t like it for no particular reason. They often couldn’t read the writing on the application for a post office and the town was named something nobody intended. You’ll see this if you get hold of one of those books for how each town in a state got their names. You can find archival newspaper accounts that will list how towns got their names too. Reading these books can be very entertaining.
There were five Washington Townships in New Jersey. One recently changed its name. Now the Mercer County Washington Twp is officially called Robinsville (after its largest section). Now there are only four so that clears up the confusion. I know there are three Franklin Townships and I may have forgotten one. There is also some confusion with towns that have the same name but different designations like Raritan Township and Raritan Boro.
There are two Greenports in New York State – one on Long Island, the other on the Hudson. Before zip codes, you generally added “Long Island” to the address of the Long Island one, but a lot depended on where you were sending from. I could address things to Greenport, NY and it would go to the next town over. Likewise, letters sent from upstate would probably go to the upstate Greenport.
It probably caused some confusion, but if a letter went to the wrong one, the street names would be wrong and the postmaster would then forward it to the right one.
Actually, the first one is “La Due” (two words) located in the western-central part of the state.
“Ladue” is a city that is a part of St. Louis County. It is not located in St. Louis proper. It’s proper address (according to the town’s official website is indeed, Ladue, MO and not St. Louis, MO. This is the town some snarky locals refer to as ‘Lah-de-due’ (very high income, old money area.)
It is local custom for the residents of the many various cities that make up St. Louis County to use “St. Louis, MO” as the city/state in the mailing address, and the post office will even deliver it so long as the zip code is correct, but properly the only town that really is ‘St. Louis, MO’ is the City of St. Louis. (Which is not part of St. Louis County, but a seperate city all its own. It’s an odd situation that I’ve heard rumored is duplicated nowhere else in the country)
Fairfax, VA is situated smack in the middle of Fairfax County, VA and has the county courthouse. However, the city of Fairfax is an independent city and is not part of the county. That’s because in Virginia, “cities” are all independent and don’t belong to counties. Municipalities that are included in counties are called “towns.”
Once Portage Wisconsin was in Portage county, until the county was split in two. Now the city of Portage is in Columbia county and Portage county has no city of Portage. It makes web searches hard, especially when it comes to government searches. Try finding county services for the town of Portage.