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From the early inhabitants of the original 13 colonies, to the pioneers who moved West and South as America expanded, there was one common problem when it came to establishing new settlements: What would they name their city? Some US cities and towns were named after a founder, a nearby geological feature, or a place the settlers had come from, but others had very unusual names.
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Most folks don't put much thought into how various cities in the United States got their name
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except for the people in charge of naming them. That doesn't mean these city namers got it right the first time, though
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A lot of famous American cities have changed their names over the years
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sometimes more than Diddy. So, today we're going to take a look at the surprising reasons why some U.S. cities
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change their names. Okay? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet
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unless you named it something really dumb. When the settlement that would someday become Cincinnati
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was built on land opposite the mouth of the unfortunately named Licking River
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it was given the name Losantiville. The name was derived by combining
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the first letter of the river's name, L, the Greek for mouth, os
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the Latin word for opposite, ante, and the French word for town, ville
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So between three different languages, it sort of means Elmouth opposite town
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presumably intended to suggest town opposite the mouth of the Licking River
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Even the guy from the Da Vinci Code would agree. That puzzle ain't worth solving
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People hated the name, and two years later, they changed it to Cincinnati
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But where did that name come from? The most widely accepted theory credits a surveyor named Israel Ludlow
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who suggested naming it after a group of American Revolution officers called the Society of Cincinnati
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And where did that name come from? Those officers were named after a 5th century BCE Roman soldier
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with a bodacious name, Lucius Quintius Quinquenatus, who was said to have turned down the chance to become dictator
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after saving Rome from tyranny. Man, that is way better. Truth or Consequences, New Mexico
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sounds like it was named after a game show. And that's because it was
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The show Truth or Consequences ran on both radio and television from the 1940s to the 1980s
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When it was approaching its 10th anniversary, host Ralph Edwards asked his staff to come up with an original way to celebrate this milestone
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A suggestion was made to find an American town or city that would be willing to change its name to Truth or Consequences
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then do the anniversary broadcast from that location. Several cities applied, but the winning application came from the small resort town of Hot Springs, New Mexico
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the Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce was looking for a way to separate the town
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from all the other areas named Hot Springs in the United States
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And in an effort to drum up some tourism bucks, they decided to make a deal with this game show name
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pressing their luck along the way. They spun the Wheel of Fortune
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even though it might put their town's future in jeopardy. A special election was held on March 31st 1950 and the name change passed by a vote of 1 to 295 Based on this precedent we look forward to visiting the inevitable future towns of Weakest Link Nevada and the Gong Show Wyoming
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For hundreds of years, the land that would eventually be the site of Atlanta, Georgia, was occupied by indigenous people known as the Creek
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But in 1821, the U.S. government took that land and forced the Creek out so they could give it to settlers
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The settlers called that area Canebrake. But in 1837, railroad engineer Colonel Abbott Hall Brisbane
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who sounds like a guy who regularly makes impressive decisions about trains, decided to call the settlement Terminus
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Sounds like the name of a Decepticon, but he actually picked it because the site marked the end point of the railroad line
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However, Terminus was never the official name, and from 1837 to 1842, it was also known as Deanville and Thrasherville
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The Deanville heads must have been really jealous of Thrasherville, an objectively cooler name
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Then in 1842, the town was formally incorporated as Marthasville. The name was selected in honor of the governor's daughter, Martha Atalanta
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But a few years later, it was bizarrely suggested that the name should be changed to a simultaneous nod to Martha and the railroad
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which must have made Martha feel great. Since there's no single word that captures those two things, they mashed up Atlantic from the name of the railroad with Martha's surname, Atalanta
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And on December 29, 1847, Marthasville was officially incorporated as the city of Atlanta
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Titus Bronson arrived in southwest Michigan in June of 1829 and in March 1831 founded the village of Bronson
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The problem was he was against alcohol, tobacco, gambling, dancing, and anything fun
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Consequently, people didn't really like him. And in March 1836, in what is essentially the municipal naming equivalent of giving someone the finger
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they changed the town's name to Kalamazoo, which is about as close to being the opposite of Bronson as a word can be
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That led to Titus Bronson leaving the area to go inspire the main antagonist from Footloose
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But there are conflicting accounts about what Kalamazoo means. The most widely accepted story is about a man named Fleetfoot
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a member of the indigenous Potawatomi people. According to legend, he won his bride by running from the settlement to the river and back again
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before water heating in a pot boiled away. Adherents of this theory translate Kalamazoo as something like boiling pot
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though they had to look away while translating because a watched pot never boils
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There are over a dozen other possible explanations. But interestingly, an atlas from 1823
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identifies the river located on the eastern edge of the modern city as Kikalamazo It the only known mention of a word that is similar to Kalamazoo and it sure fits the time period but we too fleet to know for sure
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In 1867, Civil War veteran Jack Swilling was living in the mining town of Wickenburg, Arizona
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when he realized that the land in the Salt River Valley would make excellent land for farming
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if it only had a water source. To right this wrong, he formed the Swilling Irrigation C Company
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And by 1868, a small settlement named Swilling's Mill had been built in the valley
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Way to be a self-starter, Jack. But the settlement's name changed several times during the first few months of its existence
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going from Swilling's Mill to Helling Mill to Mill City. Residents may not have been sure what name they wanted, but they damn well knew it had
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to contain the word mill. Swilling, who'd been a Confederate soldier, later wanted to name the settlement Stonewall
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after Stonewall Jackson, while other residents suggested the name Selena, possibly because
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they were fans of the singer. But neither of these suggestions took. Finally, a man by the name of Daryl Dupa suggested the settlement be named Phoenix, as it was
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built on the ruins of a civilization built by the indigenous tribes that had previously
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lived in the valley. He managed to avoid suggesting his own name, which was admittedly pretty cool
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The name Phoenix was officially recognized on May 4, 1868, and the town was incorporated
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in 1881. The Roanoke Valley in Virginia is full of salt marshes, or salt licks if you're folksy
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and when the first village in the valley was established in 1834, it was wonderfully named
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Big Lick. Really, Big Lick. Car companies are better at picking names, and they shouldn't be
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By the time Roanoke County was established in 1838, Big Lick had grown to a whopping population
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of about 50 people. Then, in 1852, the railroad came to Roanoke Valley. But it bypassed the people
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of Big Lick, whom we assume were called Big Lickers. Knowing they were licked, the settlement moved
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down the railroad tracks. The original non-railroaded settlement became known as Old Lick
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And because they were apparently very attached to the name, the new settlement was named Big Lick
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again. But whatever the charm of the name was, it wore off quickly. And in 1881, the new biglick
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became Roanoke, named after the county in which it was located. Incidentally, the name Roanoke
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was derived from the Native American term Roanoke, which referred to the shell beads worn by
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indigenous people of the area. Roanoke quickly became a crossroads for what would become the
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Norfolk and Western Railway. And in 1884, a charter officially established the city of Roanoke
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They took a licking and kept on ticking Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Sounds like it was named after a lot of pits in Pennsylvania But it wasn The state remains mostly unperforated to this day
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Located at the confluence of the Allegheny River and the Monongahela River, which combined to form the Ohio River
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it was originally the site of a series of British and French forts. The first known reference to the city's name
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came in a letter from British General John Forbes to William Pitt, the prime minister of England
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In the letter dated November 27, 1758, Forbes told Pitt the camp, then known as Fort Duquesne, had been renamed in his honor
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Forbes spelled the city's name P-I-T-T-S-B-O-U-R-G-H because it ain't British unless there's an extra U in there somewhere
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The city was granted a charter on March 16, 1816. But although the British Pittsburgh spelling was used in the original document
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a printing error caused the city's name to be spelled without the H on official copies
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In 1891, the United States Board on Geographic Names recommended that any place name ending in B-U-R-G-H
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Berg, should drop the final H. The board justified the decision by pointing out
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Pittsburgh had been spelled without the last H on the official copies of the 1816 city charter
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not acknowledging that it was the result of a printing error. Nonetheless, Pittsburgh, with an H at the end
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officially became Pittsburgh with a G at the end, resolving the issue once and for all
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Except, not really. Several companies and organizations refused to adhere to the board's ruling
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including the University of Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh Gazette, and the Pittsburgh Stock Exchange
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Then, after about 20 years of public pressure, the board reversed its decision
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And on July 11, 1911, they restored the spelling of the city's name to Pittsburgh with an H
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Congratulations with 12 H's. until 1996
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So why'd it take so long? Well, in 96, General Motors beheaded its Hudson River plant
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which led to the loss of approximately 4,000 jobs in the town
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Locals voted to change the village's name to Sleepy Hollow in hope of bringing tourists to the area
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Although the short story is fictional, we hope, the tale is set in the area around the village
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of what was then known as North Tarrytown. And Washington Irving, for his part
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is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. That is, when he is not out riding the trails at night, searching for his head