insert flex tape meme slapping “New” onto the European name
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.
Meanwhile, Alexander the Great: You’ll be me lol
Also of note: the name of Important Train Company Man
Meanwhile in the UK they have Bath and Bedford
Not to mention my whole country is named after a place there. New Zealand
Zealand being in the Netherlands, though. The way you replied made it sound UK.
Ridiculous. How could a place named in 1645 be named after a WWII anti-aircraft platform?
A new place of europe.
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.
More evidence that Egypt is European.
“Americans” as in white Europeans?
Exactly - they weren’t “Americans” yet.
Let’s name our town “New [someplace we miss back home].”
It would be amazing if they had arrived to the Americas and ask some natives about how they call a place and they said “this? This is New Amsterdam. We don’t know what’s Amsterdam but this is a newer version of it”
This reminds me of a story about a French ship that landed someplace, and a native of the area walked down the beach and greeted them, saying “Bonjour.” Shocked that the locals spoke perfect French, the sailors asked “Parlez-vous francais??” and the local, confusedly asked “what did you say?” in the local language.
As it turns out, both the local language and French had apparently arrived at more or less the exact same word for a greeting by pure coincidence.
“It’s called Noo Amsterdam, I don’t know why you think it’s referencing some place we’ve never heard of, it just means big harbor”
Removed by mod
My ancestors had great names for places. Then the white invaders killed most of us and named our land after their home.
I think this meme would be better suggested to say white European immigrants to America.
A lot of states are named after the natives they genocided
First read this as “naming new borns” and I was thinking of names like Paris or London, and all of the comments kind of made sense but were still slightly off. It was a fun, confusing time for me, until I scrolled up and re-read OP. Thanks for listening to my story.
But you forgot, we also have to mispronounce it then get mad if you don’t mispronounce it the right way.
-someone that was born in New berlin, not “new berLIN”, But “new BURlin”.
Yea apperantly Worcester is pronounced “wis-tah”
If you think of Worcestershire sauce it make sense.
Strong levi-o-sa energy.
100% it’s all in the emphasis. It’s subtle, but just different enough that you can tell if someone is from the area based on their pronunciation.
For a better example: Versailles, Kentucky. Guess how that one is pronounced.
Shit like that is embarrassing imo
Oh God,I had an ex from Georgia that would hit me with these. Let’s go with “verse-ay-lees”.
Verse-ales
I will go with ver-sales
Winner!
How about naming the town after a city in Austria, but still the Roman way? Not just once, not just twice, but
(EDIT: I’m having déja vu after the last time had I brought up the several dozen Springfields)
Hey, give them some credit, they have some diversity - there’s place in europe, new place in europe, mispronounced place in europe, british ruler, catholic saint in spanish, american president, explorer related to america, and of course native american place/tribe, and random native american word
I think you’re just describing how the etymology of most named places works.
In my country we name places after the surrounding area/environment. If it’s an area with a big hill it will probably have a name to reflect that.
I love visiting other areas “Old Barn Rd”, and “Swamp Rd”
These days you can’t even tell the name comes from the area. They use old words to describe it. An area with a hill could be called a “Something-bjer”. Bjer means hill and is close to the modern word Berg but if you don’t know about it then you don’t think about it.
Sure, we could have old barn road. But I am not talking about roads. More like City names, local village names, local area names and such.
Gotcha.
That’s interesting, I’ve never heard of bjer beforeUnless you are from Sweden it’s not that surprising you never heard about “bjer” haha. I only learned about it pretty recently and I am born and raised here 😅 The majority of people probably never think about why places are named the way they are
The Spanish names barely count because those were originally Mexican and had been named before USA was born.
mispronounced place in europe
Americans can’t pronounce Illinois
Illin-wah
N’wah!
Kansas
Arkansas
Kansas
Arkansas
Kansas and pirate Kansas
There’s a town in Illinois called Sauget with an ongoing debate over how to pronounce it. None of the dozens of pronunciations are what you’d think.
I vote they settle on changing the name to sausage.
It was Europeans who named those places.
Well, Americans citizens were all immigrants, most were European
Americans citizens were all immigrants,
Don’t let ICE read that!
Yeah, people from that city or place moved there and named their new home after their old home. There’s a very Dutch area of Michigan with many immigrants from the Netherlands still there. Want to know a couple town names? Holland and Zeeland.
Can’t forget Noordeloos, Vriesland, Overisel, Drenthe, and Borculo. Been to Borculo a few times. Lotsa folks with Dutch or otherwise Low German surnames in the area, including the (in)famously wealthy Van Andel and De Vos families of Grand Rapids.
Supposedly, the phrase “if you ain’t Dutch, you ain’t much” used to be common here, but I’ve never heard it used unironically. Likely died off with time.
Memphis, Tennessee has entered the chat, y’all.
TIL it’s an ancient Egyption capital.
I mean haven’t you seen the Bass Pro Shops Pyramid? It’s obviously a tribute to ancient Egypt.
Along with Paris, Tennessee
Paris, Texas has a pace in my cinematic heart.
I’m fairly sure Paris is Europe, not Africa.
Tennessee just loves being cultured. Did you know that Nashville has a full-scale replica of the Parthenon?
They say of the acropolis where the Parthenon is …
There is a small village in Ohio named Buena Vista.
The locals pronounce it in a way that rhymes with Loona Fista
Ohio also has a town named Versailles. Imagine the worst way to pronounce the name of the historical palace in France. That’s right, they pronounce it (VUR - SAY- els).
Michigan and Ontario both have Bois Blanc Islands. Michigan’s is “Boys Blank” and Ontario’s is “Bob Low”.
Home of Bob Loblaw’s Law Blog.
Wasn’t Bob Loblaw’s Law Blog the place where an anti-obesity statute was first proposed referred to colloquially as the Bob Loblaw “Blob Law”?
Lima Ohio. Pronounced lime-uh
Wow, really? We have a own with the same name in CO as well. We pronounce it like, “Byoona Vista” too.
There is a town in Georgia called Martinez.
They pronounced it Mart-inn-ez
Yeah those people are idiots though. They even claim it’s the Spanish words, they just don’t want to pronounce them like Spanish. So fucking stupid.
To be fair, many Spanish words are bastardizations of Arabic words. This is just how languages evolve. For example the word Guadalupe is believed to derive from Arabic wādī al-lubb (hidden river). When people in my town pronounce it “Guadaloop,” it’s actually closer to the OG than the Spanish is lol
I think there’s a difference between happenstance and purposefully doing it though. What you said is very true, but not purposeful. The people in buena vista know they are mispronouncing it, yet they still call it Spanish and they still do it. Either don’t call it Spanish or don’t do it.
I mean, the Christian precursors to Spain were at war with a series of Islamic Caliphates on the Iberian Peninsula for the better part of 800 years. They didn’t like each other very much. It’s totally likely they intentionally mispronounced words
We also have a town named Limon.
Guess how that’s pronounced.
Shit like this is just so typical American. I hate it.
Lol there’s a “byoona vista” is south Ga as well.
And a Bone-a-Vista in NC.
