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BoMcCready OP t1_iqvpf64 wrote

Tool: Tableau

Source: simplemaps.com/data/us-cities

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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..

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techfinanceguy t1_iqvzku5 wrote

Looks like Maryland is popular for everything.

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BigRedRN t1_iqvznae wrote

Would not have expected Indiana in thr top five for -port

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STODracula t1_iqw3daq wrote

Looks for -bury. No -bury. So sad.

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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

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BoMcCready OP t1_iqwbdp5 wrote

Replying to TENTAtheSane (#22,034)

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!

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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.

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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.

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BoMcCready OP t1_iqwe61i wrote

Replying to Emilbjorn (#22,153)

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.

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Legoman718 t1_iqwen8s wrote

the difference between -ton and -town name locations is very interesting

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partizan92 t1_iqwg19j wrote

-ster as in Whatareyoudoingstepsister, Alabama

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jvtrain t1_iqwj4mo wrote

Would be interesting to see what towns are only composed of these suffixes.

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whooo_me t1_iqwj5qt wrote

So we finally have a winner in the eternal Springfield vs Shelbyville contest?

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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?

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digit4lmind t1_iqwmway wrote

Maine dominates -land, and yet there’s not a single dot in Maine. Why?

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OutsideCandidate3 t1_iqwrbfe wrote

That's odd. I wonder how you map Wincherstonfieldville, Iowa? /s

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Kaffohrt t1_iqwtb2r wrote

Can someone elaborate on the -park map. Why the line-like arrangement?

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C4Sidhu t1_iqwvjn1 wrote

What kind of beach are you gonna find in North Dakota?

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Rocket2112 t1_iqww2xt wrote

Cities named after Indian tribes? Cities in other countries?

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---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.

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dimhage t1_iqwwpcy wrote

Replying to cwdawg15 (#22,049)

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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BabaYaga40Thieves t1_iqx0mkl wrote

If “heights” was on here there’d be a huge wash over northeast Ohio

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The_Projectionist t1_iqx1gde wrote

If you're in Delaware, it's not a creek. It's called a "crick."

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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.

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cwdawg15 t1_iqx2vcu wrote

Replying to dimhage (#22,941)

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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GRAWRGER t1_iqx3xzi wrote

"beach" being a suffix for non-coastal (and even non-aquatic) areas. whose idea was that?!

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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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cwdawg15 t1_iqx9spc wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#23,416)

https://www.unlockyourhistory.com/post/2018/11/08/why-burg-why-berg#:~:text=English%20simply%20translates%20them%20both%20as%20%E2%80%98castle%E2%80%99.%20However%2C,of%20cannons%2C%20when%20old-style%20Burgen%20became%20less%20useful%29.

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/

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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.

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Duff_Lite t1_iqxlqor wrote

Does “boro” also include “borough”? I know both are used in Massachusetts. (Judging by the dots, it doesn’t)

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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.

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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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ilrosewood t1_iqy57ma wrote

Now I’m going to have to map all cities that are just prefixes and suffixes.

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BoggeshZahim t1_iqy8i36 wrote

It looks like there are more cities in eastern USA

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BostonTreesMod t1_iqyfxw9 wrote

Replying to ilrosewood (#24,620)

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.

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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

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[deleted] t1_iqz8tne wrote

I love the one -beach in montana/north dakota

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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...?

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