# USA city names - origins **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 28, 2016, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-city-names-origins/773270 "2016-11-28T09:58:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Gretchion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8edcca/32.png) [@Gretchion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gretchion)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2016, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-city-names-origins/773270/1 "2016-11-28T09:58:06Z")
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? ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2016, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-city-names-origins/773270/2 "2016-11-28T10:20:19Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2016, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-city-names-origins/773270/3 "2016-11-28T10:39:33Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![kk\_fusion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kk_fusion/32/15276_2.png) [@kk\_fusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kk_fusion)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2016, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-city-names-origins/773270/4 "2016-11-28T10:58:23Z")
Jerusalem and variations, though the origin is probably more mythological than geographical. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2016, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-city-names-origins/773270/5 "2016-11-28T10:59:07Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > 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. You may well be correct but: > [@](#): > > “Beijing” is the atonal pinyin romanisation of the Mandarin pronunciation of the Chinese characters 北京, the Chinese name of the capital of the People’s Republic of China. > > The spelling Beijing was adopted for use within China upon the approval of Hanyu Pinyin on February 11, 1958, during the Fifth Session of the 1st National People’s Congress. It became obligatory for all foreign publications issued by the People’s Republic on 1 January 1979. It was gradually adopted by various news organizations, governments, and international agencies over the next decade > > [Names of Beijing - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Beijing) ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2016, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-city-names-origins/773270/6 "2016-11-28T11:04:35Z")
I believe the OP is speaking of [Pekin, Illinois](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2016, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-city-names-origins/773270/7 "2016-11-28T11:06:26Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > in England, a lot of villages didn’t really have names until the map makers or the census takers came along and asked. 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. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2016, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-city-names-origins/773270/8 "2016-11-28T11:17:41Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2016, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-city-names-origins/773270/9 "2016-11-28T11:31:09Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2016, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-city-names-origins/773270/10 "2016-11-28T12:56:30Z")
> [@Meurglys](#): > > 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.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_biblical_place_names_in_North_America) ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2016, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-city-names-origins/773270/11 "2016-11-28T12:59:13Z")
Oops! Quite right. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2016, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-city-names-origins/773270/12 "2016-11-28T13:02:09Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![mcgato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac8455/32.png) [@mcgato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mcgato)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2016, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-city-names-origins/773270/13 "2016-11-28T13:13:33Z")
Memphis, TN, is named after an Egyptian city. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2016, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-city-names-origins/773270/14 "2016-11-28T13:17:19Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2016, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-city-names-origins/773270/15 "2016-11-28T13:17:41Z")
There is Cairo, Mississippi (and Cairo, Illinois.) ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2016, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-city-names-origins/773270/16 "2016-11-28T14:06:51Z")
[Nearly half of the U.S. States have a town called Lebanon.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanon_(disambiguation)#United_States) ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2016, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-city-names-origins/773270/17 "2016-11-28T14:10:35Z")
Angola, New York is, an fact, named after the country in Africa. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2016, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-city-names-origins/773270/18 "2016-11-28T14:15:11Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > You may well be correct but: 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. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2016, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-city-names-origins/773270/19 "2016-11-28T14:16:18Z")
Truth or Consequences, NM was named after the game show. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2016, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-city-names-origins/773270/20 "2016-11-28T14:47:10Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > Names also change; New York was originally named New Amsterdam by Dutch settlers. Why’d they change it? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/usa-city-names-origins/773270.md?page=2)