I can’t say; people just liked it better that way.
Imagine Frankie singing:
*New Amsterdam, New Amsterdam. *
Doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it? 
Getting back to the OP: There are several cities/towns that use a variant of Canaan.
Schenectady is a Dutch transliteration of a native American term. But there are a lot of Dutch names in our area: Rensselaer (after a Dutch landowner), Watervliet, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Colonie, Voorheesville, Coeymans, etc.
The Dutch settlers didn’t. The English did when they took the colony from the Dutch in the 2nd Anglo-Dutch War in the 1660’s.
Many other Dutch place names remain in what was New Netherland, the present day NY metro area including parts of northern NJ, and the Hudson Valley. Moreover arguably the unique culture of NY within the US still has echoes of the Dutch, because while the British gained political control, the notable Dutch families retained influence long after, even after US independence. The Dutch connection to NY is not 100% historical trivia. Whereas Swedish place names (eg. Christiana DE) left over from the 17th century New Sweden colony in the lower Delaware River region pretty much are just historical trivia, they left little other lasting influence in the area.
On the general topic, seems to me a difference between where English speaking European Americans named towns after semi-random places all over the globe because it sounded cool to them, and places which have an actual connection to the namesake. It’s not a bright line because towns with names of European towns were often settled by people from those countries, but not always. OTOH towns with names from the Arab world, Asia etc were usually of the random/sounds cool variety, but there are probably exceptions.
OK, maybe before taxes and censuses. When people lived in a collection of mud huts, they probably just called it the local equivalent of “home”, or “Them on the hill”.
Philadelphia is Greek.
Greek is non-European? 
One of the most exotic is Cabool, Missouri, the old spelling of Kabul, Afghanistan. Named by a railroad construction engineer who said the area reminded him of Afghanistan, where he also built a railroad.
Across North Africa, there is a Tangier Island VA, Algiers LA, quite a few Carthage and Alexandria, and several Cairo. Also Morocco IN and Egypt PA
Just pointing it out. As it turns out it’s derived from a city in Asia Minor which is considered part of Asia because of the imaginary line that separates it from Europe.
Yes, but even thousands of years ago, Britain was well beyond that point, and there was extensive trade and movement of people. Huge stones for Stonehenge ~2600BC were brought from a quarry 140 miles away in south Wales. Tin mining and trading from Cornwall has existed since ~2000BC.
Getting off topic, so I’ll stop.
Hm. There doesn’t seem to be an Istanbul or a Constantinople in the US, but there is a Constantine.
Yep. On my island of Oahu, only one town has a non-Hawaiian name: Pearl City. Wait, Ewa Beach has the word “Beach” thrown in (Ewa means West).
Honolulu means “Fair Haven” after the harbor, in case you were wondering.
Bethlehem and Nazareth, PA
Here’s what I’d like to know – why York? Why name a settlement after one of the most backwater villages in England?
Was it because New London was already taken?
Also pronounced incorrectly, of course.
There is a Madras, Oregon. Nobody is sure if it was named for the fabric or the Indian city.
It was named after the Duke of York who ended up later becoming King James II.
Interestingly, the title of “Duke of York and Albany” was created after the naming of New York. I wonder if that has anything to do with New York State later designating Albany as the capital.
And Tarzana CA was named after a fictional character.
I was going to mention Madras OR, but someone beat me to it. It was actually named after a bolt of cloth in the general store, Madras being a type of cloth made in the Indian city.
There are places in Texas and North Dakota named Tokio, a 19th century spelling of Tokyo.
As mentioned New York was named in honor of the Duke of York, not the city. But York was as it is now larger than Boston, Lincolnshire namesake of the then largest town in the American colonies. In 1660 Boston MA had around 3k people, seems Boston Lincolnshire might have been similar in size. New York had ~1.5k, York had ~12-13k during the 17th century. London and Amsterdam were enormously larger at ~500k and ~200k respectively at the time New Amsterdam became New York. Maybe it did actually reflect some difference in attitude, though the Netherlands’ eggs were in a smaller basket, that they named their main small town in the New World after their mega-city while the English were OK with a tiny new village taking the name of London in the 1650’s; New London CT only reached a few thousand people in the late 18th century, though nobody could know it would eventually have only ~30k people while NY 8 million. There’s a New London NH also (smaller still) though, named late in the colonial period.
And the team name was the Pekin Chinks until maybe the 60’s. I understand they had a cartoon stereotype Chinese mascot.