American settlers remembered their native towns and rivers as well as their great thinkers, writers, composers, poets, religious and political leaders when they named their newly established towns and settlements in the New World.

In the early history of the United States Anglo-Saxon elements predominated, and they gave their names to the great majority of towns and hamlets originating in that period. While advancing from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean they changed French and Spanish names of the regions they traversed for their own. The same thing happened in the case of settlements founded by the Dutch, the Swedes and others: New Amsterdam became New York, New Sweden became the state of Delaware, etc. Each of the nationalities which has taken part in forming modern American civilization has left traces of itself in American geographical names.

Each of the presidents of the United States, beginning with George Washington and ending with Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover, has been honored in that several 2cities have been given his name About forty cities thus memorialize Washington; thirty-eight, Lincoln; thirty-four, Jefferson; and twenty-three, Cleveland. Of American statesmen, self-taught Benjamin Franklin has always been particularly revered. Forty-nine cities and towns have been named in his honor. A number of cities have remembered American writers and poets when christening their newly founded settlements.

Of American cities bearing "foreign" names, by far the largest number have German names. There is nothing surprising in this when the fact is recalled that the first considerable flow of German immigration reached the shores of America in the second half of the seventeenth century. At the present time twenty American cities bear the name of Berlin; eighteen, Hamburg; eight, Darmstadt; nine, of Dresden; eight, Germantown. A large number of American cities have been named in honor of German reformers, scientists, and composers.

There are nearly one hundred towns bearing Swedish names. They include five 3Stockholms, and cities named in honor of Erickson, Holmquist, Lindberg, Olson, and Norbeck. Three cities bear the name of Christiana; and in Minnesota there is a town named Oslo. Eleven cities have the name Denmark, and in New York there is a town called Copenhagen. The towns of Abo in Missouri and New Mexico, and the town of Viborg in South Dakota--these show through their geographical designations traces of Finnish participation in building up America.

In the western and southern states are an abundance of cities and towns bearing French and Spanish names. Among such, we find seventeen bearing the name of Paris; nineteen, that of Lafayette, ten, that of Lyons. There are towns named in honor of Napoleon, Lamarck, Hugo, Rousseau, and Voltaire. Among the towns bearing Spanish names we find twelve called Buena Vista; twelve, Cordova; ten, Alamo; and twelve, Caledonia.

About two hundred towns and cities bear Italian names. Among them there are twenty-eight Florences, fifteen Romes, thirteen Genoas, fifteen Milans, and seven Venices. Twenty cities bear the name of Columbus; and there are towns named in 4honor of Italian national heroes. Among other cities with foreign names we find eleven named Warsaw; three, Prague; fifteen, Geneva; fifteen, Athens; eleven, Vienna; eleven, Dublin; nine Edinburgh; four, Hague; four, Bern; two, Brussels; two, Sophia.

All Slavonic countries are represented in the names of American cities. Even small Jugoslavia, for instance, is thus commemorated; for five American cities are called "Belgrade"; and about a dozen other towns and hamlets bear the names of the missionary, Karagi, and the inventor, Tesla.

The majority of American cities bearing Russian names are of recent origin and this, of course, clearly indicates the participation of Russians in their founding. A popular census of 1840 discovered the existence of two settlements bearing the name of Moscow; four that of Petersburg; and two settlements called Russia. There were no other imprints of Russian influences on American life at that time indicated by geographical names.

At present we find that the name of Moscow is used twelve times; of Moscow [sic], 5seventeen; of Odessa, eleven of Volga, four, and of Kremlin, three. In the states of New York and Pennsylvania there are towns named after Prince D. Galitzin, a Russian missionary. In North Dakota, dissenters who came to America from the province of Kief founded towns named Kief, Ukraine, and Russe [sic]. In South Dakota they named one town Tolstoy, and another, Mazeppa. In Texas there are towns of Chita and Dobrovolsky; in Colorado, a town named Kazan; in Montana, a town of Rus; in Indiana, one called Siberia; in South Carolina, a town of Lugov; in West Virginia, a town of Czar and of Ivan. Named after the Russian "Ivan" are also towns in the states of Kentucky, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. In Mississippi there is a town named after Sebastopol; and in Missouri, one called Moskovskie Melnitsy [Moscow Windmills]. The latest list of United States post offices includes seventy names of towns bearing Russian names. This list is, undoubtedly, incomplete. There are a number of towns and settlements bearing Russian names whose dwellers receive their mail from the nearest post office. Of such settlements is, for instance, the hamlet Churaevka, founded by the writer Grebenshehikov, in the Puritan state of Connecticut.