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dimhage t1_iqwwpcy wrote

Reply to comment by cwdawg15 in Common City Name Suffixes in the United States [OC] by BoMcCready

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.

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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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