New names are hard, ok?

Sure but calling them Americans is likely, mostly, sorta true but also ignores an important fact… They were Europeans (or near descendants of) calling the places that. Often a place was named that place because it reminded them of home / to honor their parents home.

Some other notable examples: New Zealand

São Carlos, Brazil

Munich, Saskatchewan

Liverpool, New South Wales

Nueva York, Colombia

A new place of europe.

When you get to the south west it becomes a place in Mexico which is a place in Spain or straight up just named after a Spanish conquistador.

In Québec they were a bit more diverse and also named lots of places after saints.

There are also a lot of places that kept the original native names. Not as numerous as the “New [European place]” ones, but enough that you notice.

As much as Europeans don’t like it, Americans are your children.

Hebron, Lebanon, and Bozrah CT have entered the chat.

Jamaica, VT has entered the chat

We also have a few original names, like bucksnort, horsethief basin and truth or consequences

Consequently people from New England are the only ones who know how half the current English place names are pronounced.

And yet we don’t have a Shitterton

Just add new to the name

and the original European names are also pretty functional:

I believe Amsterdam is just “River Dam”

And York is just “Yew”, presumably named after trees that grew there. (Eburacon -> Eboracum -> Eoforwic -> Jórvík -> York)

But New York in the United States isn’t even directly named after the English city of York, but rather a person (James Stuart) who was the Duke of York when England took control of the territory from the Dutch.

Hey hey, we did call it “New”. Well, sometimes anyway. I definitely lived in town just called York.

There were no Americans when many of those places were named…

Meanwhile in the UK they have Bath and Bedford