Anybody know?
I’m betting it wasn’t New New York.
Carthago Nova? Fell to the Romans in 209 BC.
Naples (it. Napoli, founded as Greek nea polis) is probably older.
Neapolis, 6th century BC. Yep. Anything older?
Even Old New York was once New Amsterdam.
Why they changed it, I can’t say.
Maybe they liked it better that way?
Presumably the name was changed when the English took control of Manhattan island from the Dutch.
Whoosh?
Actually “Carthage” itself is a romanization of Phoenician Kart-hadasht “New Town”. “Famous” Carthage, in todays Tunis, was founded 814 B.C.
Using “New” in town names is an interesting practice, esp. in this case. Carthage founded a colony in Spain called “New Carthage” or “Cartagena”. The Spanish then later founded a city in Colombia called “New Cartagena” (but the “New” was later dropped). So it’s name once could be thought of as “New New New Town.”
I suspect that Egyptians had a “New” city at least 3000 years ago.
Cain raised his family in a town he named New Eden.
[sup]Top that![/sup]
OK, start over.
I submit that all the “new town” equivilants should be tossed. To qualify, a place should be named after an already (or formerly) existing place name. Therefore, despite semantic quibbles, a New Newtown counts even though Newtown itself does not. Unless, of course, there was a place simply named “Town.”
That, I believe, brings us back to New Carthage.
There’s a town bordering mine called Newtown.
Not once, in the 20 some odd years that I’ve lived here, did the New Town etymology once dawn on me.
Man, I’m thick.
Probably the “New World.”