Most of the city names in the United States are of English, French, Spanish, and Native American origin, and I’ve recently learned about some city names of Chinese origin, such as Pekin and Canton. What are some names of cities with other origins? I know there will be several other European origins, such as Dutch or Scottish, but are there any other non-European origins?
I’m not really sure what you are getting at here. Place names are often arbitrary and, for example, in England, a lot of villages didn’t really have names until the map makers or the census takers came along and asked.
Names also change; New York was originally named New Amsterdam by Dutch settlers. Peking is now known in the Western world as Beijing because that sounds closer to the Chinese pronunciation.
Not quite: because that’s how it’s transcribed in the transliteration method which is currently preferred. Depending on who is reading it out loud, the new transcription can sound closer to the Chinese pronunciations than the older transcriptions, or it can sound further apart, if the reader isn’t familiar with pinyin and applies a completely different letter-to-phoneme system.
Jerusalem and variations, though the origin is probably more mythological than geographical.
You may well be correct but:
I believe the OP is speaking of Pekin, Illinois which is named after the city in China, which was known in 1829 as Peking or Pekin, now Beijing.
And Canton probably refers to Canton, Ohio in the U.S.
I seriously doubt whether that’s true. Reference?
The earliest census/tax survey was the Domesday Book, commissioned by William the Conqueror and completed in 1086, which uses names of villages throughout. They had names even previously under Saxon kings who also levied taxes.
Taxes, land ownership, parish responsibilities, etc. - not to mention practicalities of everyday life - have ensured that English villages have always had names.
I’m not sure if you regard Russia as being European or not, but there are more than 20 towns in the US called Moscow, plus St. Petersburg, Florida; Sebastopol, California; and Volga, South Dakota.
Johannesburg, CA is named after the city in South Africa.
There’s also Delhi, Louisiana; Calcutta, Ohio; Madras, Oregon.
Probably hundreds more.
I believe the OP is asking about towns in the USA whose names are derived from languages apart from the ones mentioned. i.e. any US town names derived from, say, Swedish, or Hungarian perhaps.
Could be wrong, of course.
The OP specified “non-European” words. Which would let out Texas towns: Praha, Panna Maria, Schulenberg–and all the Spanish ones.
Aside from Native American words, most non-European names in the US are probably from the Bible.
Oops! Quite right.
Hannibal, Missouri, is named for the North African conqueror. Aside from maybe hundreds of places that have borrowed the names of places in Asia or Africa.
Most places in Hawaii area have names in that Pacific Island language.
Memphis, TN, is named after an Egyptian city.
There’s Angora, MN and Angora, NE, named after the Turkish city now called Ankara.
When I was a child, I thought Peoria, IL and Pretoria, South Africa had the same name.
There is Cairo, Mississippi (and Cairo, Illinois.)
Angola, New York is, an fact, named after the country in Africa.
Right, it’s the transliteration the Chinese government themselves have chosen, but there are many places in the Western world where readers will not read it as someone familiar with pinyin would. People do read it as if it was written in their own language, leading to all kinds of pronunciations for a single spelling. Saying that “it leads to a closer pronunciation” is therefore not always correct.
Truth or Consequences, NM was named after the game show.
Why’d they change it?