I was trying to find something on Buffalo, New York. I can’t remember what it was exactly, although that’s not actually important to the discussion. However, a random search led me to another Buffalo, a town with the same name in Wyoming. I considered it rather odd. When one thinks of Buffalo as a city, one generally thinks of the place in western New York on Lake Erie with the football team. I suppose if one wishes to find the animal then Wyoming might be a better option (bison really, but whatever). But not so much as a town.
Then I started wondering if I could find other examples of towns completely overshadowed by more famous locations with the same name. I don’t mean places like London in Ontario, Manhattan in Kansas or Paris in Texas. Instead, I wanted to discover much greater extremes.
Places like this
What, you don’t recognize Los Angeles, um, Texas? Population 20? That’s what I mean. Wouldn’t it be completely ridiculous, even outrageous, to try to compare this Los Angeles to the one in California? The thought of a Hollywood movie star living in that trailer amuses me way more than it should.
Yet, it does have a similarity. The Texas State Historical Society says that in 1923, “it was named Los Angeles to encourage comparison with the climate enjoyed by the California city”. Maybe I’ll concede that one tiny tenuous point. Even so, I believe the comparison probably ends there. I’d say the same is probably true for the Beverly Hills in NSW, Australia too.
Kolkata / Calcutta
Kolkata in West Bengal, India, anchors a metropolitan area of more than 14 million people. It has a long history including service as the capital of British India. Also it played a key role in India’s independence. Kolkata was known previously as Calcutta, and that former name spread to various remote corners of the British Empire. I can’t imagine that Calcutta, Belize will ever be confused with Kolkata, India. The town in Belize, as you probably already surmised, arrived in Central America along with natives of India who worked plantations that once formed part of British Honduras.
Manila
I’ve never been to Manila, the one in the Philippines, or this one located between Chapmanville and Turtle Creek in West Virginia. I can’t wrap my mind around the possibility of a large Filipino community living in Appalachian coal country and of course it never happened that way. Mountain folk don’t generally speak Tagalog. Yet, this Manila in West Virginia is allegedly named for the one in the Philippines. It might help to understand that the town traced its founding to around 1900. Thoughts of the Spanish-American War and the resounding U.S victory at the Battle of Manila Bay were still fresh in people’s minds.
Moscow
I also wanted to put a special focus on Moscow, East Ayrshire, Scotland. A gentleman recently sent an email message requesting more Scottish examples, so here you go. “The name is thought to be a corruption of ‘Moss-hall’ or ‘Moss-haw’ but its spelling was formalised in 1812 to mark Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow.”
Here are a few others
I’m sure the vast 12MC audience can find many more.
- New York, Lincolnshire – population 150
- London, Kiribati – on Christmas Island
- Berlín, El Salvador
- Lima, Sweden – population 418
- Copenhagen, Louisiana
- Belfast, Limpopo Province, South Africa
- Jeruselem, New Zealand
- Washington, West Sussex
Yes, I take special requests. I can’t guarantee that I can always respond right away or with something meaningful but I’ll give it a go.
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