I live in Citrus Heights, CA, just down the road from Orangevale, Fair Oaks, and Antelope.
We also have:
Arden-Arcade
Clay
Foothill Farms
Freeport
Fruitridge Pocket
Gold River
Herald
Hood
Lemon Hill
North Highlands
Parkway
Vineyard
Walnut Grove
There might well have been buffalo that far easy way back in the day.
The city gets its name from Buffalo Creek; the origin of THAT name isn’t known for sure.
My late uncle and aunt’s postal address was in Maple City, Kansas. If you went there hoping to find a verdant town with lots of maples, you’d be disappointed.
Surprisingly misleading. It’s understandable that the former seal caused a bit of controversy.
I stopped counting at 30 something a third of the way into the list of villages in New York, but it did refresh my memory about Falconer, which I was trying to remember for my list: I knew there was a village-that-means-something-in-English whose name I only knew from the events my dad went to where various volunteer fire departments from around Chautauqua County were represented, but I couldn’t remember its name before seeing the Wikipedia list.
Then there are the place names that only seem to be actual words in English:
Mobile, Alabama—from a Muskogean village named Mabila built by Chief Tuskaloosa to fight the Spaniards.
Mystic, Connecticut—from Pequot *missituck *‘stream in which the wind makes waves’.
Scituate, Massachusetts—from Wampanoag satuit ‘cold stream’.
Beaver, OK
Auburn, IN
Granger, WA
Show Low, Kingman, and Flagstaff, AZ
minster is an English word, so the many towns named Westminster should count.
Arab, Brilliant, Eclectic, Enterprise, Normal, Skyline, Tanner, Warrior, in Alabama.
Also Scarce Grease and Cross Key, but neither is a town/city.
I skipped over compound words myself since there are so many of them: just looking around a map of Syracuse I see Lyncourt, Kirksville, Brewerton, Westvale, Fairmount, Plainville, Morrisville, and the very stretchy Baldwinsville and Atwell Corners.
Pleasanton, CA is only a pleasant town in comparison to its neighbor, Livermore.
North Dakota and Minnesota have a fix of strange-sounding town names with Scandinavian origin, but also some straightforward English ones. Every time I drove across North Dakota, I passed through Valley City, one of the most appropriate names possible. Also: Tower City, Northwoods, Grassy Butte. And in Minnesota: Maple Bay, Fertile, Pelican Rapids, Little Forks, Big Falls, Blackduck, Cotton, Granite Falls, Mountain Lake.
Missouri has a Marshfield.
Both New Jersey & Maryland have municipalities called Ocean City.
Oklahoma has a Stillwater.
California has a Riverside.
Oh, and of course Plains, Georgia; though that stretches the definition of “city.”
I’m not counting Hill City, Kansas, because it’s named after Mr Hill, it’s in western Kansas, & well, you know, there are no hills there.
A very long time ago, a lad who came from Buffalo advanced the theory to me, that the name originated – at however many removes – with the French doing their stuff in the area, centuries ago. Linguistically, though, extremely bad French, viz. Beau Fleur – Beautiful Flower (sic.). Others, who I feel were likely in a position to know, have poured scorn on this idea.
Not least because *beau *is masculine, while *fleur *is feminine. It should have been belle fleur, if it was anything.
I said it was extremely bad French; and the guy who originally told me of it, agreed as to said badness. Anglophone Yankees with an absolutely minimal knowledge of French. mucking things up??
The old story from my youth in Minnesota regarding the towns of Fertile and Manley (in southern Minnesota). A couple got engaged, she from Fertile and he from Manley. The wedding announcement in the paper was “Manley man marries Fertile woman.”
Minnesota also has Apple Valley and Blooming Prairie. The Blooming Prairie school mascot is the Blossoms, which strikes fear in nobody.
Interesting, thanks
I just drove past Speculator, NY this weekend.
There’s a spot (definitely not a city) called Brushy Prairie in northern Indiana.
Non-intimidating mascots would be a great thread.