Submitted by BoMcCready t3_xuje1c in dataisbeautiful
Comments
chills1138 t1_iqwgfws wrote
I can confirm pronunciation. I lived in Clarksville for a time. I also noticed the same pronunciation in Alabama when I lived near Daleville. Yes, I was Army.
caseybvdc74 t1_iqwqag9 wrote
I live in Knoxville and work in Maryville.
cwdawg15 t1_iqwbluj wrote
This is actually a fascinating subject.
The suffixes on many names in the US are European based naming standards abbreviated and shortened. The use of them has something to say about where our country was when these cities were founded.
-ton & -town is British based. -ton is a shorterned -town. Hampton would be the Town of Hamp and it likely had some relationship with another city or person named Hamp or Hamp is an abbreviation of a longer name. -boro is another such English name. It was also common practice to put the type of place at the end in English city names. The name of a river, mountain, creek, woods, so -mont, -port, -wood, -land, -hills was a direct alteration to the naming standards English used to describe what their town was through the name. -mouth would also be the mouth of a river.
-burg is German for castle. Many Germanic cities had small castles that were the banks of their day to protect the cities valueables, so -burg stuck as an informal name for a small city. The areas where these are mapped goes into the Midwest where Germans heavily settled the area.
-ville is very important in American history. It is pervasive throughout the east coast and eastern midwest. Any area with towns settled in the few decades after the success of the American Revolutionary war gave a great deal of praise to France for their assistance. It comes from the name for a French town Ville. So Lawrenceville is Ville Du Lawrence, the Town of Lawrence. It was likely founded by someone with the last name Lawrence, but the Ville came from Americans trying to shed names from Britain, like -ton, and thanking the French for their assistnace. Sadly, because of the linguistic differences between French and English many often take -ville to sound antiquated, substandard, backwards, etc... But it actually has its roots from a very important piece of American history and was to thank the French for their help.
dimhage t1_iqwwpcy wrote
Wouldn't burg be from the Dutch burg, meaning the same but the Dutch actually owned NYC which was called New Amsterdam at the time? Would make sense as most of the cities ending on burg are spread out around NYC area.
cwdawg15 t1_iqx2vcu wrote
It’s a good point, but it’s widely used throughout Germany and it was the German settlers that brought it from the coast across most of the Midwest.
-burg does have distant Dutch origins and is used in some Dutch names, but it’s also pervasively used across Germany more than the Dutch use it.
German city names: Hamburg, Strasburg, duiesburg, Ludwigsburg, wurzburg, coburg, Marburg, Wolfsburg, brandenburg, flensburg, Oldenburg, oranienburg, You also get a wide variety of -berg in Germany.
Other common German suffixes are -heim, -feld, -hausen, -stadt, -haven. These are less common in America, but can happen on occassion.
There is a Oostburg Wisconsin and that is a very, very Dutch name and that area was settled by the Dutch. Most of the earlier Dutch settlements were in NY and NJ along the coasts and they don’t frequently use -burg, but there is a decent amount of -berg and berg- that could likely be attributed to the Dutch over Germany.
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cwdawg15 t1_iqx9spc wrote
This explains it quite well and puts it into perfect context how/why it impacts city names.
Also interesting: https://www.caliglobetrotter.com/what-is-the-difference-between-a-burg-and-a-schloss/
BigRedRN t1_iqvznae wrote
Would not have expected Indiana in thr top five for -port
ilrosewood t1_iqy5fpt wrote
There are way too many -port towns in the middle of the country
BostonTreesMod t1_iqyfxw9 wrote
Funny enough, due to the Mississippi, thousands of inland tributary rivers and streams are functionally ocean ports. They don't manufacture and ship things out anymore, though.
Emilbjorn t1_iqwdy3p wrote
Cool, but also reminded me of this: https://xkcd.com/1138/
It would be interesting to see the frequency of those suffixes per county or state basis, to filter out the fact, that there are more cities on the east half of the US.
BoMcCready OP t1_iqwe61i wrote
Yep, this comic always comes up with maps that look vaguely like population maps :) Randall Munroe actually spoke at Tableau Conference a few years ago, to tie the graph and the comic together!
That's why I included the bar graphs by state! But yes, always a risk when you're mapping cities.
digit4lmind t1_iqwmway wrote
Maine dominates -land, and yet there’s not a single dot in Maine. Why?
C4Sidhu t1_iqwvjn1 wrote
What kind of beach are you gonna find in North Dakota?
OrgyInTheBurnWard t1_iqx0n08 wrote
LaLiLuLeLo_0 t1_iqy79y3 wrote
Let’s found our own city in ND, we’ll call it Beachport Hills
Duff_Lite t1_iqxlqor wrote
Does “boro” also include “borough”? I know both are used in Massachusetts. (Judging by the dots, it doesn’t)
howieinchicago t1_iqy44t3 wrote
Came here to ask the same. Scarborough. ME and many of both varieties in Mass.
STODracula t1_iqw3daq wrote
Looks for -bury. No -bury. So sad.
---Default--- t1_iqww6qn wrote
Not sure what your data set is but I'm 99% sure there are no cities that end in "beach" in NH or anywhere in New England for that matter. Hampton Beach in NH is in the city of Hampton.
miclugo t1_ir0b5q8 wrote
I looked through Wikipedia's lists of municipalities (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_municipalities_in_New_Hampshire is an example; just change the name in the URL to get the others). Looks like Old Orchard Beach, Maine is the only one.
BoMcCready OP t1_iqvpf64 wrote
Tool: Tableau
Source: simplemaps.com/data/us-cities
techfinanceguy t1_iqvzku5 wrote
Looks like Maryland is popular for everything.
Legoman718 t1_iqwen8s wrote
the difference between -ton and -town name locations is very interesting
whooo_me t1_iqwj5qt wrote
So we finally have a winner in the eternal Springfield vs Shelbyville contest?
popkornking t1_iqwkxuc wrote
What is the line down the centre of the country where population seems to drop off rapidly? Is that the Mississippi or some other large river?
DChevalier t1_iqwn31r wrote
OutsideCandidate3 t1_iqwrbfe wrote
That's odd. I wonder how you map Wincherstonfieldville, Iowa? /s
Rocket2112 t1_iqww2xt wrote
Cities named after Indian tribes? Cities in other countries?
BabaYaga40Thieves t1_iqx0mkl wrote
If “heights” was on here there’d be a huge wash over northeast Ohio
ThereGoesDavis2013 t1_iqxaeo4 wrote
I live in a “uga”… not many of them.
rjx89 t1_iqxf695 wrote
Is this on a per capita basis? You have New Hampshire as 3rd place under "beach" but according to the data they only have 2 cities with "beach" in the name (Hampton Beach, and Seabrook Beach). Meanwhile California has 22 cities with "beach" in the name and does not appear in the top 5.
edit: In the data it looks like Florida is indeed first for total number of cities with "beach" in the name with 65 total cities and California would be second with 22.
---Default--- t1_iqyzy6l wrote
Also Hampton Beach and Seabrook Beach are not cities, just beaches.
CatOfGrey t1_iqy0olr wrote
I was looking for California on these lists, before remembering that Spanish is actually our 'native' language here, and we use 'prefixes'. Many city names with Los/Las ("The") or San/Santa (named after saints).
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partizan92 t1_iqwg19j wrote
-ster as in Whatareyoudoingstepsister, Alabama
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calguy1955 t1_iqwmyx2 wrote
And all the -thers
jvtrain t1_iqwj4mo wrote
Would be interesting to see what towns are only composed of these suffixes.
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Maniglioneantipanico t1_iqwlzsy wrote
r/peoplelievein...wait no
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Kaffohrt t1_iqwtb2r wrote
Can someone elaborate on the -park map. Why the line-like arrangement?
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The_Projectionist t1_iqx1gde wrote
If you're in Delaware, it's not a creek. It's called a "crick."
Khyron_2500 t1_iqx2lyt wrote
I’d like to see this for second words.
Being in the Metro Detroit area now I can think of many.
Heights, Hills, etc.
GRAWRGER t1_iqx3xzi wrote
"beach" being a suffix for non-coastal (and even non-aquatic) areas. whose idea was that?!
pspahn t1_iqx5a5x wrote
Including the state borders would be really helpful in determining which dot refers to which city.
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Cause0 t1_iqx6ttm wrote
That one beach in Montana
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Tidusx145 t1_iqxqw82 wrote
Lol I live in a "burg" town in PA. We just call it the burg. Turns out there's a lot of burgs and we were cocky for thinking ours was the king.
ilrosewood t1_iqy57ma wrote
Now I’m going to have to map all cities that are just prefixes and suffixes.
BoggeshZahim t1_iqy8i36 wrote
It looks like there are more cities in eastern USA
Magooose t1_iqz4pll wrote
There is a whole lot of empty in the west.
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VerityParody t1_iqyxeol wrote
This is the stuff I come for!
joyification t1_iqz0aot wrote
Would be awesome if the x axis was labeled, can't tell if it's by population or number of occurrence
[deleted] t1_iqz8tne wrote
I love the one -beach in montana/north dakota
futurebigconcept t1_iqzhrcp wrote
The closest it gets to the west coast is 'Springs' and 'Valley' for Nevada. Hmm, how about those 39M people in California and $2.9B GDP...?
vortexgenie95 t1_iqzmf1i wrote
where is the key for the bar graph?
TENTAtheSane t1_iqwb97i wrote
Ngl, this map looks good, but it just seems like a heat map of US population to me. It's a bit hard to compare which suffices are more common in which parts of the country, when it's the same parts that have a bunch of dots for all of them
BoMcCready OP t1_iqwbdp5 wrote
Yeah, I think that's always a fair critique of maps of places, although I think there are at least a few interesting trends in this one. To me, if it looks like a population map, then the suffix is common but without a distinct regional pattern!
catnapspirit t1_iqvqpw9 wrote
Nice. I can confirm "-ville" is bizarrely popular in TN, having moved there recently. Though pronounced "vul" not "vil" more often than not..