Discussion Main / PleaseSelectNewCityName

"Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania refused to let go of its "H"."

Not that that stopped map makers and news media. There's a lovely mixture of 'Pittsburgh' and 'Pittsburg' Pennsylvania's on record from the late 1980s/early 1990s.

"Speaking of Oregon, the area was once jointly controlled by the Americans and British, and known as both "Oregon" and "Columbia". When it was split in half along the pre-existing US/British border, the British kept the "Columbia" name for their half (which later joined Canada as, obviously, "British Columbia"), and the US kept the "Oregon" name. When the Americans split their part in half again, the southern part kept the name "Oregon", and the northern part was planned to go back to "Columbia", until a rather last-minute change named it "Washington" instead."

Part of the reason for not naming the northern section of the Oregon territory Columbia was to avoid confusion, not just with Canada's territory, but with the District of Columbia in the east. You know, the United States capital, Washington, D.C.? (Wikipedia mentions this in its article on Washington State.) A source of much hilarity and annoyance for residents of the State.

I have reorganized the examples by media type, and am pretty sure I didn't omit any from the previous unorganized format, if I did, please feel free to correct me.