Anschel

OK I had to look this one up and it's close to true! Vancouver is named after a guy whose ancestors were called van Coevorden, Coevorden being a town in the Netherlands whose name means for "cow-ford". So Oxford and Coevorden are synonyms (unless we quibble about "cow" vs "ox"), and Vancouver is more like "from cow ford".

Also, in English a ford is very different from a fjord—a ford is part of a river so shallow you can wade across, and a fjord is an ocean inlet with steep cliffs—although they do apparently share the same root with each other as well as "firth" and (more distantly) "port".

#That got kinda pedantic but I can't help myself

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in reply to @Anschel's post:

Cliff 🦖 Pervocracy @pervocracy8/23/2024, 3:41 PM

Bellevue and Buena Vista

Anschel @Anschel8/23/2024, 5:44 PM

YES

@garak8/23/2024, 3:57 PM

Belgrade - White Castle
Johannesburg - Jamestown

Pittsburgh is named after William Pitt, so if one is feeling ornery you could argue it's synonymous with Williamstown.

There's gotta be something for Philadelphia, right?

ceɑꞃᵹæꞅꞇ @ceargaest8/23/2024, 5:07 PM

Johannes and James are different names tho. But Jamestown might work with Santiago kinda?

@garak8/23/2024, 5:23 PM

Dang, I thought those names were etymologically related. Apparently James is the same as Jacob and John is the same as Jack, but Jack is not always the same as Jacob =P.

Brilliant find on Santiago, wasn't aware of that. I tried looking for Ivangrad, apparently used to exist but was renamed in 1992.

Tony Finch @fanf8/23/2024, 4:56 PM

Oxford - Bosphorus

Anschel @Anschel8/23/2024, 5:44 PM

ooooh this may be my new favorite

ceɑꞃᵹæꞅꞇ @ceargaest8/24/2024, 1:15 AM

I looked to see if there would be an equivalent Chinese place name since some end in 津 jīn "ford" and lol turns out
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%89%9B%E6%B4%A5#Chinese

ceɑꞃᵹæꞅꞇ @ceargaest8/23/2024, 5:09 PM

There's a zillion "new city" ones, but Cartagena is special because it's actually "new new city" (it's from Latin "Carthago Nova" = "New Carthage", but Carthago itself is from Punic for "new city"

ceɑꞃᵹæꞅꞇ @ceargaest8/23/2024, 5:13 PM

But some others are:
Newton
Newtown
Ville-Nouvelle
Novgorod
Novigrad
Nowogród
Uusikaupunki / Nystad
Nové Město
Raħal Ġdid
Ciudad Nueva
Neuburg
Uivar / Újvár

Neapolis (ancient name of Naples but also several other cities)

Neapoli (several places in modern Greece)
Nablus (Palestine)
Nabeul (Tunisia)
Yenişehir / Neapoli (Cyprus)
Mandelieu-la-Napoule / Mandaluec la Napola (France)

Noviodunum (Celtic "new town")

Diou
Neung
Nevers
Nyon / Neuss / Nione

Anschel @Anschel8/23/2024, 5:48 PM

Extensive! I wasn't sure whether to include Newton since "town" is not exactly "city", but this is a great list. I had definitely known about some of these in the past

Anschel @Anschel8/23/2024, 6:03 PM

Oh! I had never considered where the "n" came from in "Cartagena", that's even better