qiy's linguistics world

Download/view the image in high resolution

Evidently, yes – Tennessee is obsessed with antiquity. But so is the rest of the United States – there are over a dozen cities named Athens in the United States, as well as several cities named Rome, Troy, Sparta, and so on. It makes sense: many landowners and settlers at the time were educated Europeans with great aspirations for their cities – and so they drew inspiration from tales of great civilizations from Antiquity. 

There are also cities named after western European cities, which reflect the immigration patterns of Tennessee and the people in power at the time – look no further than Wartburg, TN (named by a German landowner after Wartburg Castle in Germany) and Dresden, TN (named after the founder’s father’s hometown). European city names may also be taken in veneration of those cities or people from those cities: Paris, TN was named such to honor Parisian Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette, and Bristol, TN was named such because its founder saw great potential in the land. 

But there are also times where the origin and reasoning are unknown: for instance, I couldn’t find a story behind how Smyrna, TN got its name, but it can’t be coincidence that it was also the name of a major Ancient Greek city. 

This leads me to wonder: How commonly are U.S. cities named after places in Asia, Africa, Oceania, or even eastern Europe? Maybe that’ll be something to explore in a future map…

References: http://u.pc.cd/6Nr