Brilliant Maps

Making Sense Of The World, One Map At A Time

  • BOOK!
  • Newsletter
  • Board Games
  • Posters
  • Scratch Maps

Most Common Words In Incorporated Place Names By US State

March 3, 2023 2 Comments

Most Common Words In Incorporated Place Names By US State

Map by reddit user darinhq

Ever wonder what word most commonly appears in your State’s place names? Me neither, nevertheless the map above is really interesting. The overwhelming majority of states have the rather unoriginal ‘city’ as the most common word.

However, there a few interesting outliers, for example the most common word in West Virginia’s place names is ‘west.’ To make sure people know they’re in Hawaii, a lot of place names include the word ‘Hawaiian’. And people in Montana seem to like the word ‘lodge’, a lot.

Less surprising, New Mexico and California both have a lot of place Spanish originating place names.

The data is based on:

US Census (all cities/towns/villages which would appear on a list of a state’s largest places by population – basically all incorporated places with the exception of WI towns, MI charter townships, and HI CDP’s)

Note that the word had to be a separate word, so ‘Lakeville’ or ‘Bearcreek’ did NOT have ‘creek’ or ‘lake’ counted for them.

…

Highest word counts: 53 Lake’s in WI (fyi Wisconsin has the most places of any state by far, with 1,852), 51 Beach’s in FL, 44 Lake’s in MN, 41 City’s in MO, 40 City’s in TX

For more read:

  • Names On The Land – A Historical Account Of Place-naming In The United States
  • A Place Called Peculiar: Stories About Unusual American Place-Names
  • California Place Names: The Origin and Etymology of Current Geographical Names

Did you find any of these surprising? Let us know in the comments section below:

Filed Under: United States Tagged With: names, words

Other Popular Maps

  • Dispersion of Syrian Refugees Around Europe

    Dispersion of Syrian Refugees Around Europe

  • Map of The United States in Esperanto

    Map of The United States in Esperanto

  • Islands of Remain in the Brexit Sea

    Islands of Remain in the Brexit Sea

  • Every Country Invaded by France

    Every Country Invaded by France

  • 14 Best Ticket To Ride Board Game Versions & Expansions

    14 Best Ticket To Ride Board Game Versions & Expansions

  • Kazakhstan Was The Last Soviet Republic To Leave The USSR (4 Days After Russia), Which Means That For 4 Days, This Was The Map Of The Soviet Union

    Kazakhstan Was The Last Soviet Republic To Leave The USSR (4 Days After Russia), Which Means That For 4 Days, This Was The Map Of The Soviet Union

  • Where You Can & Can’t Flush Toilet Paper Around The World

    Where You Can & Can’t Flush Toilet Paper Around The World

  • Incredibly Detailed Map Of The World’s Religions

    Incredibly Detailed Map Of The World’s Religions

Comments

  1. richard trk says

    January 7, 2015 at 12:39 am

    “park” in new jersey sure makes sense considering it is the garden state

    Reply
    • Brilliant Maps says

      January 7, 2015 at 7:07 am

      Indeed, although you’d think they might also just go with garden.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.


World Atlas · Settlers of Catan · Risk · Game of Thrones · Coloring Books · Globes
Monopoly · Star Wars · Game of Life · Pandemic · Ticket To Ride · Drinks Cabinets
Copyright © 2023 · Privacy Policy · Fair Use, Attribution & Copyright · Contact Us
Follow Us: E-mail · Twitter · Facebook · Pinterest · Flipboard