Articles about American placenames in Word Ways have generally reflected their great diversity. But what about their commonality? There\u27s lots of duplication among the names of American places. Isn\u27t it time that we had an article appreciating that fact

Tilque, Dan

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97PLACENAMESabout American placenames in Word Ways have generally ret1ected their great diversity.what about their commonality? There's lots of duplication among the names of AmericanIsn't it time that we had an article appreciating that fact?of the most often asked questions about placenamcs in the US are "What is the most com-name for towns in the United States?" and "What placename occurs in the most number ofBut before answering those questions, let's do a little Q&A to dispel a few myths andml'lIn[ler~:tarIOlIl!!S about this subject.. Aren't the answers to those two questions the same? After all, having two towns in the samewith the same name is not allowed, right?. Not allowed by whom? The Postal Service? Places with post offices only. The states? For;n""r",c>r'ltpr1 towns, otherwise not. Other than that, no one seems to care. So unless you just wantcount post offices or incorporated places, there's no such restriction. Most named places areunincorporated and post ofliceless (they get their mail from another town) and duplications ofthesenames within a state is as common as grass.It's Springfield. Everyone knows it's Springfield. Why are you wasting our time answering aquestion everyone knows the answer to?A2. As it all too often turns out, what everyone knows is wrong. Springfield is not even in the toptenmost common names, either for total names or by state. Just count the places with more than5,000people and you'll find that there are 13 Franklins and only I I Springfields.Q3.But TV lLV<S Springfield as the generic Anytowl! USA, as il! The Simpsons. Surely that mustmeansomething?A3. It means that TV producers have bought into the myth of Springfield. That is, to the extentthat it's used, which is not very much. I could only lind three shows that are located inSpringfield. Besides The Simpsons, there was Father Knows Best and the soap opera GuidingLight. But three is quite a few for an anylown; I doubt any other generic name is used in morethanone show.Q4..OK, it's not Springfield, so it must be Washington. Doesn't every state hove a place named inhonor of the first president?M. Yeah, like they put that requirement in the Constitution or something. Sorry, but while it ismorecommon that Springfield, Washington is still not top lO material.Q5. But what if YOll check mul tiple references? Could you then find a Washington in every stat e?AS.Been there, done that, have the Word Ways article to prove it. See my statcname chain articlein the May 1999 issue, where I found a Washington in 42 states in several references. Some of...""""'......-..._........--------------------------------98those Washingtons no longer exist, of course. For example, the one in Oregon was a post officethat closed 140 years ago. Counting these old names certainly moves it up the list, but even thatdoesn't put it at the top. And to be fair, we would also have to count old occurrences of othercontenders, which I'Il let someone else do it they have the inclination.Search for CandidatesSo what are the answers? Obviously, I was going to have to get out and do some counting to findout. And naturally I turned to the largest gazetteer available. It turns out that that is our goodfriend GNIS, which is more verbosely known as the US Geologic Survey's Geographic NamesInformation Service. It's on the Internet at http://mapping.usgs.t!ov/www/gnisl!:misforrn.html.But what names should I count? Unfortunately, GNIS cannot be queried for the name with themost entries. Nor can it be browsed like a book. I had to browse some dead tree gazetteers such asRand McNally's Commercial Atlas and Marketing Guide to get the candidates. I generated some50 or 60 fairly common names and when I arrived at the point where new candidates wereconsistently getting smaller counts, I figured that I'd probably got all the most common names.Setting the CriteriaGNIS has several kinds of names. For some places, it has one or more variant names (usuallyformer names) that can be optionally included in the query. Plus some names have parenthesizedlabels indicating that they are subdivisions or historical (i.e., no longer exist). And then there'sthe variant spellings issue. For example, names that are pronounced the same as Greenville couldbe spelled several different ways. Should all of them be counted as a Greenville'? There arepeople who would consider some, none, or all of these variations as being the same as theunmodified name. What should I do?After much ruminating, I decided to count the names two ways, a basic count and an extendedcount. The basic count would have just those that have the same current name. Spellingvariations, alternate names, subdivisions, and historical places would be right out.The extended count would include alternate names, subdivisions and historical places. Only onekind of spelling variation would be counted: where the name was a compound or two-word name,an internal space or lack thereof would not prejudice me against it. So a Greeneville would not becounted as a Greenville, but a Green Ville would. Also, an Oakgrove would count as an OakGrove. Since I was counting both alternate names and spelling variations, I had to be careful notto count a place twice (e.g., when a Greenville had the alternate name of Green Ville or viceversa).Multiplicity and a Potential ProblemBefore getting to the actual results, I want to note some extreme cases of multiple names within astate. Here are all those where the extended count was at least 20:Five Points PA 32Fairview 1N 29Oak Grove TN 29Midway TN 25MidwayTX24Five Points GA 23Mount Pleasant PA 23Centerville PA 22Fairview AL 2299But even more amazing is that 6 or those 32 Pennsylvania Five Points are in Mercer County! It'squite possible that some of those 6 entries are bogus. There are some indications, which are tooinvolved to go into here, that there are actually only 2 or 3 actual places represented by those 6entries in the database.While that was the most egregious potential problem of that sort, it wasn't the only one. But Ididn't keep trace of them and I've already put more time into this article than I want to, so I'mgoing to leave this issue alone. For this article, every entry in GNIS will be considered accurateand eligible to be counted.The ResultsSo what did I find? Was some name the runaway winner in both categories for both counts?That'd be nice. Then we could put this question to bed for all time.So much for wishful thinking; the reality is much more ambiguous: The first number gives thebasic count and the second the extended count.Fairview 20 I,256Midway 211,250Oak Grove 160,196Centerville 107,183Five Points 147,163Mount Pleasant 112,153Pleasant Hill 120,151Riverside 119,150Liberty 98,129New Hope 106,128Pleasant Valley 90,126Salem 88,126Well. this is a fine fix we find ourselves in. The basic and extended counts don't agree. Is theanswer Fairview or Midway? I suppose it depend on your personal preferences. Are you a no-nonsense, meat-and-potatoes kind of person? Do you want the ultra-certainty of solidly,unquestionably named places? Then you're squarely in the Midway camp. But those who arewilling to accept the less certain, to live on the ragged edge, to go for the gusto, will find them-selves backing Fairview. (But don't ask me; I'm quite willing to live with ambiguity.)By the way,' the extended count for Springfield was 85 places in 35 states, which puts it quite aways below Salem on the list.Now for the top placenames by number of states:Riverside 46,46 (no AK HI LA OK)Centerville 43.45 (no AK HI NH ND WY)Fairview 39,43 (no AK CT HI ME MN RI VT)Franklin 39,42 (no AK CO DE HI NV ND RI WY)Midway 39,40 (no AK HI ME MA MI NH NJ RI VT WY)Fairfield 36,39 (no AK AZ CO HI KS NV NH RI SC SD WY)Pleasant Valley 35,39 (no AZ CO DE FL HI ME MS NH RI SD WY)Troy 32,39 (no AK CO CT DE FL HI MA RI UT WA WY)Liberty 35,38 (no AK CT HIU MA MN MT ND NH NJ SD VT WY)Union 36,38 (no AK AZ HI ID KS Ivm MA NM RI SD VT WY)\/0 doubts about this one. Riverside has the lead, fair and square, and Centerville is in a solidsecond place. But Hawaii has none of these names, and Alaska only Pleasant Valley, making a;O-state sweep very unlikely. (I'll cheer from the sidelines while you search old atlases.)---_._---

Common Place Names

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Common Place Names

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