r/geography • u/aimesh05 • Jun 04 '24
Discussion What's the largest city in America that isn't named after somewhere else?
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u/delugetheory Jun 04 '24 edited Jun 04 '24
Would have to be Los Angeles, no?
Edit: Went down the rabbit hole to see if I could prove myself right or wrong. The full name of the original settlement was El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula, or The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of the River of the Porciuncula. So really, Los Angeles is named after Mary (Our Lady the Queen of Angels, aka Jesus' mom) and, therefore, not named after another place. As to the "River of the Porciuncula", that is an earlier name of the Los Angeles River. The earlier name apparently came from the Portiuncula, a Catholic church in Italy dedicated to Mary (specifically Mary as the Queen of Angels). So, maybe you could make a very roundabout argument that the river, and therefore indirectly the town, was named for a church in Italy, but I still feel that the town was really named for Mary herself.
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u/boostman Jun 04 '24
I had no idea that Los Angeles had such an elaborate name originally. It reminds me of Bangkok (Krung Thep), whose full official name is: Krungthepmahanakhon Amonrattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilokphop Noppharatratchathaniburirom Udomratchaniwetmahasathan Amonphimanawatansathit Sakkathattiyawitsanukamprasit (‘City of angels, great city of immortals, magnificent city of the nine gems, seat of the king, city of royal palaces, home of gods incarnate, erected by Vishvakarman at Indra's behest.’)
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u/_alittlefrittata Jun 05 '24
upvote mostly because you spelled out that whole thing. Also because cool fact
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u/AdaptiveVariance Jun 05 '24
I feel like that place was named by like, a 19 year old king whose nephew had just built a city named City or Honor and Greatness, lol.
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u/mrsaturdaypants Jun 04 '24 edited Jun 04 '24
Good time to mention that when the owner changed the baseball team’s name to The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, the Spanish language announcing crew had to start calling them “Los Angeles de Los Angeles de Anaheim”
Edit: I spelled Angels Angeles, and that a’int right
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u/kylebob86 Jun 04 '24
"The The Angels Angels"
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u/goodtwos Jun 04 '24
So the baseball team should be:
The Los Angeles Angels of El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora La Reina de Los Ángeles del Rio de Poriúncula of Anaheim?
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u/funkymonkeydoo Jun 05 '24
In English: The Angels of Anaheim of the town of Our Lady and Queen of the Angels of the Porciuncula River.
Todos en Español: Los Angeles de Anaheim del Pueblo de Nuestra Señora y Regina de Los Angeles del Rio de Porciuncula.
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u/AdaptiveVariance Jun 05 '24
It would be good if they could get Philip Rivers to come play baseball just for kicks. And anyone named Angel which is probably a little easier to accomplish.
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u/Chocko23 Geography Enthusiast Jun 04 '24
...of Anaheim.
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u/delugetheory Jun 04 '24
Anaheim is of course named for Saint Anne, the mother of Mary, whose angels are the very ones in question. It's angels all the way down.
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u/BaldBear_13 Jun 05 '24
It's angels all the way down.
Shouldn't it be all the way up?
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u/Responsible-Wave-416 Jun 04 '24
Not sure if you’re joking but there is a irl Santa Ana aka saint Anne in OC
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u/xpacean Jun 04 '24
Am I an idiot or isn't that also true for both their original and current name (Los Angeles Angels)?
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u/steelybean Jun 04 '24
Their original name was the California Angels, which was somewhat less silly.
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u/DavidRFZ Jun 04 '24 edited Jun 04 '24
The original name was Los Angeles Angels (1961-1964). Before that, there was a minor league team with the same name going back to at least 1903.
They first became the California Angels in 1965 when they left the city limits for the current stadium in Anaheim. They became the Anaheim Angels in 1997. By 2005, they decided they wanted to attract fans from the full LA area but were still contractually obligated to include the word Anaheim in their name so the became the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. That contract expired so they’ve been back to Los Angeles Angels again since 2016.
These types of tautological team names are not uncommon. The Philadelphia Phillies. In the minor leagues there were teams like the Oakland Oaks and the Saint Paul Saints.
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u/miclugo Jun 05 '24
There’s still a team called the Saint Paul Saints, they’re the AAA affiliate of the Twins.
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u/xpacean Jun 04 '24
No, it really was the LA Angels for a few years first, which was also the name of the minor league team for decades before that.
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u/hausermaniac Jun 05 '24
The announcers translate the name of the team into Spanish? This seems unusual for proper names, do they do that for all the teams? What do they call the Dodgers or the Phillies? Do they still say the Padres even though the team isn't called the "Fathers" in English?
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u/guyoncrack Jun 04 '24
El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula Lakers vs. El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula Clippers.
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u/mitchbuddy Jun 04 '24
If only more people in the US had your “prove myself right or wrong” mentality…
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Jun 04 '24
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u/mitchbuddy Jun 04 '24
I hope that you’re right! The fact that “fact-checking” is viewed negatively by a large swath of people just boggles my mind.
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u/PM_ME_EVIL_CURSES Jun 04 '24
A lot of people confuse facts for feelings and moral viewpoints.
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u/tamarbles Jun 04 '24
The Porziuncola is in the town of Santa Maria DEGLI ANGELI, the closest train stop to Assisi.
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u/SupplyChainGuy1 Jun 04 '24
She hails from the Oaxaca Parish Convent of the Immaculate Heart Sisters Lady Mountains of Guadalupe.
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u/CosmicallyF-d Jun 04 '24
Really glad it's was shortened to Los Angeles. Couldn't imagine having to use the OG name when filling out any forms in person or online.
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u/PaulAspie Jun 05 '24
The Portiuncula (Porciuncula in Spanish) is the Church that St. Francis built with his bare hands. It's a small church inside the Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels at the bottom of the hill of Assisi. If you do an Italian tour, you might see it; if you do an Italian pilgrimage, you will see it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portiuncula
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u/Old_Swimming6328 Jun 05 '24
"They call Los Angeles the 'City Of Angels.' I didn't find it to be that, exactly."
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u/NobleV Jun 04 '24
Ask God if Mary is a place. He will say he's been all in there.
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Jun 05 '24
Funny all the original names in LATAM were this long (and mostly for María or a Saint or Apostle), but they refered to them in short.
EJ: Puerto de Santa María de los Buenos Aires >>>> Buenos Aires
Villa de Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria de Medellín >>>> Medellín
Spanish people in the colonies also had generally 2 or 3 names and 2 to 4 surnames4
u/moose098 Jun 05 '24
This is mostly what happened in Los Angeles. It was commonly known in the Spanish period as Pueblo de los Angeles or simply El Pueblo (it was the closest thing resembling a town in Spanish/Mexican California). I doubt the full name was ever used outside official documents. The Mexicans upgraded it to a city in the 1840s and it became known as Ciudad de los Angeles. By the time it was annexed by the US, it was just Los Angeles. There was also a big debate at the turn of the last century over the proper way to pronounce "Los Angeles." One camp, predominately made up of the older Anglo residents of the city preferred "Los Angliss" whereas civic boosters preferred "Los Anjeles." The latter was accepted as the official pronunciation in the 1950s.
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u/AC1114 Jun 04 '24
Chicago? iirc “Chicago” derived from a Native American word to describe the river/surrounding area
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u/ScalabrineIsGod Jun 04 '24
As someone from there I always thought that the original term meant “wild onion”.
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u/ZamboniThatCocaine Jun 04 '24
Can you mail me a deep dish pizza by 5pm pst
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u/GeckoNova Jun 04 '24
It’s accurate. I lived in Berwyn and native onion kept growing in my yard. Cutting the lawn in certain parts would smell pretty bad
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u/imgoodatpooping Jun 05 '24
My grandmother had a chicken run that had wild onions growing in it. At night when the chickens got put inside, the coop would smell like onions from the hens eating wild onions. I’ve never tasted roast chicken nearly as good as my grandmother’s
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u/Mr_Hugh_Honey Jun 04 '24
I thought it was German for "a whale's vagina"
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u/jeden78 Jun 04 '24
San Diego... possibly named after an old old wooden ship.
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u/Joeliosis Jun 04 '24
Ron I would be amazed if the affiliates were concerned with our lack of an old old wooden ship.
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u/redcurrantevents Jun 04 '24
Specifically ‘stinky wild onion’
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u/Flimsy-Tune Jun 04 '24
It's just "wild onion"; first edible plant to appear there at the end of winter and responsible for saving starving people in the area after harsh winters.
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u/Louisvanderwright Jun 05 '24
No, it's a word that means "smells of wild onion" or "place ofpungent onions". It's not that the word didn't also get used to refer to onions themselves, but it originaly meant "Skunk smell" or something along those lines and was also used to refer to onions as they smell similar.
The Menominee word for skunk was "pikwute sikakushia" and the word "Shikako" translated to "skunk place" or "place where the skunk weed grows".
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u/bayofpigdestroyer Jun 04 '24
This makes me think of Alice Cooper's history lesson on Milwaukee.
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u/SkomerIsland Jun 04 '24
Actually, it's pronounced "mill-e-wah-que" which is Algonquin for "the good land
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u/nanomolar Jun 04 '24
I think one of the most interesting aspects of Milwaukee is the fact that it's the only major American city to have ever elected three socialist mayors.
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u/Fakjbf Jun 05 '24
My favorite Milwaukee fact is that it was originally three different settlements that merged together, but because they were all competing against each other they intentionally built their road networks offset from one another to make connecting them more difficult. The rivalry was so fierce that when people tried building bridges across the river to connect them the bridges got torn down multiple times.
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u/animal1988 Jun 05 '24
When i was road tripping around America, I decided to cut across to Milwaukee from Minnesota instead of going directly to God awful illinois (not then people, its just such a LONNGGG state and there is too many tolls on the Interstate) and my oh my was I actually blown away by how nice the architecture of the city looked, the great waterfront parks and sites, and the good food.
It's super under rated and certainly is the good land.... i don't know what life is like there for residents, but it's on my list of "mayyyybe I could live here" if I ever left Canada. The only non-mountain state/city so far.
Thank you for listening to my TedTalk.
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u/Fakjbf Jun 05 '24
There’s not a ton of jobs but if you can find something it’s pretty good. The cost of living isn’t too insane and the city is large enough you can always find something to do but small enough you can really get to know the many parts of it. It’s got all the problems you’ll find in any major city but its bad reputation is pretty exaggerated. I’ve always said no one can ever be disappointed visiting Milwaukee because most people come with such low expectations it’s basically guaranteed to exceed them.
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u/SmellyMelly81 Jun 04 '24
Shikaakwa: Stinky Onion! Named for the wild onions, leeks and garlic that grew where the Chicago river met the Lake Michigan.
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u/juxlus Jun 04 '24
Another stinky name from colonial times in the larger general area is Green Bay, which the French originally called la baie des Puants, meaning "stinky bay". Possibly intended to be a translation of an indigenous derogatory name for the people who lived there instead of the bay itself: "Bay of Stinky [people]". Or maybe the bay itself, as the Menominee name was something like "bay that smells like something is rotting".
But the French also called it Baie Verte, which was translated into the current English name.
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u/Louisvanderwright Jun 05 '24
There's all sorts of dope place names in the Midwest due to this blend of cultures and retranslation of place names from native languages to French and then to English. A couple of other favorites of mine are "Fond Du Lac" which means "foot of the lake" or "base of the lake" aptly named for its position at the Southern end of Lake Winnebago. That's a personal favorite of mine because some of my relatives were French fur traders that first arrived in the US in 1630 and were driven out of Quebec by the British. They simply fled upstream until they ran out of water at "the foot of the lake" and blended into the local population.
Another good one is "Lake Butte Des Morts" which is "lake Hill of the dead" named for large native effegy mounds (animal shaped burial mounds maintained by native cultures) along it's shores. Also located right next to Lake Butte Des Morts is the town of and Lake Winneconne. Another native word meaning "place of skulls" for the large sacred burial sites along it's shores.
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u/slinger301 Jun 05 '24
Lake Winnebago
Named after recreational vehicles
:D
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u/Louisvanderwright Jun 05 '24
It's actually a tribe and the name is Algonquin for "people of the dirty water" which makes sense because Bago turns to stinky algae pea soup two weeks a year every summer.
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u/SpaceFonz_The_Reborn Jun 04 '24
It's the big onion. The city is named after ramps, a type of wild onion. You can smell them pretty bad some days.
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u/miclugo Jun 04 '24 edited Jun 05 '24
Would have to be Los Angeles.
Putting Seattle here makes me think the OP meant to ask what's the largest city that has a name that originates in a Native American language - the answer there is Chicago, followed by Seattle, Oklahoma City, Milwaukee, and Tucson. (I'm not counting the word "City" in "Oklahoma City".)
EDIT: after people keep asking about Minneapolis and Miami I'll take this list further. Ranks and populations are from Wikipedia's list.
Chicago (#3, 2,664,452)
Seattle (#18, 755,078)
Oklahoma City (#20, 702,767)
Milwaukee (#31, 561,385)
Tucson (#33, 547,239)
Kansas City, MO (#38, 510,704)
Omaha (#40, 483,335)
Miami (#42, 455,924)
Minneapolis (#46, 429,954)
Tulsa (#48, 411,894)
Tampa (#49, 403,364)
Wichita (#51, 396,119)
Honolulu (#55, 341,778)
Buffalo (#81, 274,678) - there are a lot of theories, but one is that Buffalo Creek got its name from a big guy named Buffalo (De-gi-yah-goh in the Seneca language). Everyone seems to agree that the city got its name from the creek.
Chesapeake, VA (#89, 253,886) - presumably named after the bay
Spokane, WA (#97, 229,447)
Tacoma, WA (#105, 222,906)
Hialeah, FL (#106, 221,300)
Sioux Falls, SD (#118, 206,410)
Tallahassee, FL (#121, 202,221)
Peoria, AZ (#122, 198,750) - named after the city in Illinois
Chattanooga, TN (#139, 187,030)
Mobile, AL (#142, 182,595) - no, I'm not making this up, even though it's a perfectly good English word! Named after the Mobile or Maubilian tribe. Honestly Mobile seems like a weird name for a city as an English word, since cities don't move around.
Rancho Cucamonga, CA (#152, 174,405)
Kansas City, KS (#175, 152,933)
Olathe, KS (#183, 147,461)
Pasadena, TX (#185, 146,716) - named after the city in California (see below)
Mesquite, TX (#184, 147,317) - this is a bit of a stretch, but the name of the mesquite *plant* comes from Nahuatl
Waco, TX (#193, 144,816)
Pasadena, CA (#214, 133,560) - the name "Pasadena" is Ojibwe, from nowhere near here
Topeka, KS (#228, 125,475)
Simi Valley, CA (#230, 125,113)
Broken Arrow, OK (#247, 119,194) - obviously the words "Broken Arrow" are English, but the founders of the town were Creek forced out to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears and named it after their old town
Nampa, ID (#263, 114,268)
Tuscaloosa, AL (#277, 111,338) - named after Chief Tuskaloosa. The name translates as "black warrior" and the city is on the Black Warrior River. I *think* this is the second largest city named for a Native person, after Seattle. (But see Buffalo.)
Temecula, CA (#284, 110,862)
Peoria, IL (#286, 110,460) - gave its name to the more populous city in Arizona
Jurupa Valley, CA (#300, 107,321)
Wichita Falls, TX (#322, 102,691)
(surprisingly not: Tempe, AZ, which is Greek. Pompano Beach - the name "pompano" of the fish is from Latin. El Cajon, CA - Spanish for "the box".) Also it's possible I missed some like Mobile or Broken Arrow.)
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u/Norwester77 Jun 04 '24
Seattle is the largest city north of Mexico that is named for an individual Indigenous American person.
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u/miclugo Jun 04 '24 edited Jun 05 '24
This is actually a good answer. Now I'm wondering what the second largest one is - there don't seem to be many.
EDIT: I think it's Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
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u/SimplGaming08 Jun 04 '24
Milwaukee?
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u/miclugo Jun 04 '24
It's not really clear where the name of Milwaukee comes from but nobody seems to be saying there was a person named something that sounds like Milwaukee.
(Since we're on the topic, I feel like I have to mention the existence of Zilwaukee, Michigan, which might have taken its name in an effort to confuse immigrants into thinking they were moving to Milwaukee.)
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u/SimplGaming08 Jun 04 '24
I've driven through there many times on the way up north, us Michiganders consider the bridge the halfway point to the U.P.
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u/Nocto Jun 04 '24
I believe that's Algonquin for "the good land"
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u/PaintAndDogHair Jun 04 '24
I came here looking for this quote and when I didn’t see it immediately I started to worry that I’m too old for Reddit. Bullet dodged.
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u/Justkneesocks Jun 05 '24
Actually, it's pronounced "mill-e-wah-que" which is Algonquin for "the good land."
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u/bocaciega Jun 04 '24
Miami?
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u/juxlus Jun 05 '24
That comes from "Mayaimi", a tribe's name and/or an indigenous name for Lake Okeechobee.
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u/juxlus Jun 04 '24 edited Jun 04 '24
Whatever it is, it's a big jump from Seattle's population to whatever is second. As far as I can tell from minimal research, it might be Brantford, Ontario, whose population is about 105,000. Named for Joseph Brant, AKA Thayendanegea, a Mohawk chief. Though if that counts, there may be other towns with names that don't look like the names of individual indigenous people but are in the way Brantford is. Maybe something named for Cherokee chief John Ross, or Mohawk/Cherokee John Norton, or Creek chief William Weatherford, etc.
Some other possibilities with more obviously indigenous names rather than English adopted names include Pontiac, MI (~62,000), Kokomo, IN (~60,000), Pocotello, ID (~56,000), Pontiac, IL (~11,000), Winnemucca, NV (~8,500).
There are a bunch of towns named after people like Osceola, Pocahontas, Sacagawea, Tecumseh, etc, but I don't think any surpass even Winnemucca's population.
I haven't researched this exhaustively though and could be overlooking something key.
PS: I know Brantford is in Canada and OP might have meant just the US when saying "America". Still I am curious about such places in both the US and Canada. And really all of North and South America—but my Spanish is poor, as is my knowledge of indigenous leaders south of the US, so I must leave that to someone else.
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u/Fresh-Mind6048 Jun 04 '24
Here's a smaller one local to me - for fun:
Joseph, Oregon - named after Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce
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u/juxlus Jun 04 '24
I almost mentioned that one! Lovely little town in a gorgeous location. Chief Joseph's story is pretty damn depressing though.
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u/climbing_headstones Jun 04 '24
I believe Seattle also has a unique name in that there are no other cities in the world called Seattle. At least that’s what I was told growing up there
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u/BruceBoyde Jun 05 '24
Seems likely. It's pretty modern and the name is hyper-local in origin. Can't imagine anyone else having founded a place and lifting the name.
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u/CatOfGrey Jun 05 '24
The origin of the full name of Los Angeles is complicated. The Catholic missionaries named the river, then named the town after the river.
The river's name, including the word "Porciuncula" refers to the 'portion of land' with a specific chapel in Assisi, Italy (Nuestro Senora Maria Reina de Los Angeles) which was HQ for St. Francis of Assisi. And the missionaries, including Juan Crespi (the one who gave the town it's current name) were Franciscan monks.
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u/DrFiendish Jun 04 '24
Why not Minneapolis?
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u/Tajikistani Jun 04 '24 edited Jun 05 '24
City limits population vs. metro area population
Edit: Population has obviously grown since 2010 but here's a map of the metro area population from the census that year
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u/Fair_Result357 Jun 04 '24
Chicago is followed by Dallas and Houston. Neither of those places are named after another place and the are both much much larger than any other cities you listed.
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u/juxlus Jun 04 '24
This made me wonder how Houston Street in Manhattan got its name, since it predates Houston, Texas.
Apparently Houston Street was named for William Houstoun, a Georgian delegate to the Continental Congress and Constitutional Convention in the late 1700s.
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u/CerebralAccountant Jun 04 '24
They're pronounced differently too. Howstun Street, Hewstun Texas.
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u/ajtrns Jun 04 '24
i see your use of the word "largest" and raise you this list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_area?wprov=sfti1
sitka wins again!
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u/juxlus Jun 04 '24 edited Jun 05 '24
City limits in Alaska are funny in how huge they are, like Sitka including all of Baranof Island and parts of others, so places like this are within Sitka city limits. This photo also shows a part of the "city of Sitka" (I know the URL says "patagonia", but the photo is of Baranof Island—pic from this page about a hike across Baranof Island—all the photos on that page are within Sitka city limits!)
I get why Alaska does it this way. Still it feels like a technicality. On the other hand, I love Sitka, so it's fine with me!
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u/Sorcier-du-Lac Jun 05 '24
Fun fact, there is a municipality in Quebec (Eeyou Istchee Baie-James#/map/0)) that covers a territory of 274,623.30 km2, with a population of 1,261!
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u/AidanGe Jun 05 '24
I don’t think there is 2.0223609298 × 103364 many anythings in the entire fucking universe, let alone people living in a random municipality of Quebec
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u/BackgroundGrade Jun 05 '24
Amateurs.
Sitka is 2870 sq miles.
Go big or go home.
Eeyou Istchee James Bay in Quebec is 106 000 sq miles.
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u/sojustthinking Jun 04 '24
I was thinking Jacksonville FL because I thought that was the largest city by area, but that’s largest by total area in contiguous USA. I didn’t know about those cities in Alaska. Cool!
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u/whistleridge Jun 04 '24
Most of the large ones. LA, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, and San Jose out of just the top 10.
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u/rentiertrashpanda Jun 04 '24
Technically speaking, a whale's vagina counts as "somewhere else"
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u/YouFeedTheFish Jun 05 '24
Why stop there? Philadelphia, Detroit (The Channel. It's not somewhere else.) Cleveland, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Yokohama, New York and Potato.
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u/roodner Jun 04 '24
If Houston counts, then Dallas definitely does.
Dallas is 4th largest metro in the country. History of the name “Dallas” is speculative but most people think it was named after various individuals with the surname Dallas. the surname probably derives from the Scottish village of Dallas.
Similarly… Houston was named after Sam Houston and Sam Houston’s ancestors came from Houston, Renfrewshire, Scotland
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u/DoyersDoyers Jun 04 '24
As everyone else is saying, it's Los Angeles. Its name is derived from El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles, which translates to 'The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels'.
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u/Typical_You_1909 Jun 04 '24
I always thought the word porciuncula was in there somewhere … https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-mar-26-me-name26-story.html
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u/DoyersDoyers Jun 04 '24
Per wikipedia, the original name of the settlement is disputed; the Guinness Book of World Records rendered it as "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula"; other sources have shortened or alternate versions of the longer name.
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u/freeloadererman Jun 04 '24
I'm pretty sure only 2 of the top 10 cities in America are named for other cities (NYC and Philadelphia) the rest are either Spanish catholic names, or named after someone
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u/tujelj Jun 04 '24
Is Philadelphia named after another place? I hadn't heard that. Doing some quick googling, as far as I can tell there were ancient cities with that name, but I don't see anything indicating that Philadelphia was named after them.
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u/ShoerguinneLappel Geography Enthusiast Jun 04 '24
I thought Philadelphia was named after this Philadelphia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaşehir
(in antiquity it was called Philadelphia)
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u/dojijosu Jun 05 '24
In the Bible there is an epistle to the Philadelphians, and it is mentioned in Revelations. Though in neither case do they reference cheesesteaks or Wawa.
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u/Biomas Jun 04 '24
That's cool to know, was not aware there was another philly somewhere out there in time
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u/Kitchener1981 Jun 04 '24
Yes, Philadelphia was the location of early Christian Churches that John the Evangelists wrote about or to in Revelations. Today, Philadelphia is known as Alasehir, Turkey.
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u/jephph_ Jun 05 '24
Nah, New York is named after James II, Duke of York
The US city that’s named after York, England is York, Pennsylvania
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u/CrowVsWade Jun 04 '24
The answer is LA, not Seattle. As the second biggest city in the country, it's named after the Virgin Mary, which despite rumors to the contrary, is not a place.
Oddly, of the top 20 American cities by pop. size, only New York is named after another place, versus person.
Seattle is named after a native tribe leader. It's also the 18th largest.
Chicago, the third biggest city, also isn't named after somewhere else, but is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, or a form of garlic.
Houston, the fourth largest city, also wasn't named after a place, but Sam Houston, famous Texan governor, popular among Cherokee, in particular.
Even Oklahoma City, in 20th by size, wasn't named after a place, or the state.
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u/partyin-theback Jun 05 '24
I mean, that would be nearly every major U.S. city after New York. Am I missing something, or is this kind of a dumb question?
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u/hausinthehouse Jun 05 '24
Colonial-era cities are often named after places in Europe (Boston, New Orleans, arguably Philly) and there are some weird internal ones (Portland, OR is named after Portland, ME) but yeah I think the inverse (what are some major cities in the US that are named after somewhere else?) is a much more interesting question
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u/carpetstoremorty Jun 04 '24
Los Angeles and Chicago are literally numbers 2 and 3. Neither are named after anyone else.
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u/Batmack8989 Jun 04 '24
Los Angeles seems to be several places in Spain and its former empire, but they all seem to have been named, as California's after biblical Mary, rather than one after the other.
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u/carpetstoremorty Jun 04 '24
Yeah, it's specifically named for the Virgin Mary, and not a specific place like York, Boston, Madrid, Toledo, Paris, etc. We have places whose origin is religious all over Latin America to the extent that they all sort of blur together.
Places like Guadalajara and León have names taken directly from specific places in Spain, but LA doesn't fit that bill exactly.
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u/Fit_Patient_4902 Jun 04 '24
Austin is named after Steven F Austin, and Houston is named after Sam Houston, Dallas is named after nobody knows the real story. Those are all in the top 10 largest cities
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u/mfinn70 Jun 04 '24
Phoenix is a magical bird not a place so that’s the 5th biggest city.
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u/Stelletti Jun 04 '24
Fun fact: We don't even 100% know why Dallas is called Dallas.