US Cities That Changed Their Names, And The Surprising Reasons Why

“Truth or Consequences” was a long-running game show on both radio and television from the 1940s to the 1980s. When it was approaching its 10th anniversary, Ralph Edwards, the show's original host, asked staff to come up with an original way to celebrate this milestone. A suggestion was made to find an American town or city that would be willing to change its name to Truth or Consequences, then do the anniversary broadcast from that location.

Several cities applied, but the winning application came from the small resort town of Hot Springs, NM. Originally called Palomas Hot Springs in 1882, the town was named for the area's many mineral hot springs thought to have healing powers. It was quickly shortened to just Hot Springs. 

Tourism was the main industry, but by 1950 the Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce was looking for a way to separate the town from all the other areas named Hot Springs in the United States. So when the New Mexico State Tourist Bureau informed them that the game show was looking for a town to change its name to Truth or Consequences, they jumped at the idea. A special election was held on March 31, 1950, and the name change passed by a vote of 1,294 to 295. 

Edwards and the show's crew flew into town, and on April 1, 1950, the game show did its 10th anniversary broadcast from the newly christened Truth or Consequences, NM. The event received a lot of publicity, although because the broadcast was on April Fools' Day, some believed the name change was a joke. 

Edwards developed a real bond with the New Mexico town. Before his passing in 2005 he returned to Truth or Consequences almost every year for its annual Fiesta, often bringing other celebrities with him. And the town honored the game show host by making April 1 “Ralph Edwards Day.”

At the conclusion of the Mexican-American War in 1848, Mexico ceded its northern territory to the United States. This land, which included the area that would eventually become Phoenix, AZ, became part of the New Mexico Territory, and all of its residents became US citizens.

In 1863, the Arizona Territory was formed out of the western part of New Mexico Territory. Four years later, Civil War veteran Jack Swilling was living in the mining town of Wickenburg when he realized that the land in the Salt River Valley would make excellent land for farming if it only had a water source. He formed the Swilling Irrigation Canal Company, which began digging a canal. By 1868 a small settlement, named Swilling's Mill after its founder, had been built in the valley. 

The settlement's name changed several times during the first few months of its existence, going from Swilling's Mill to Helling Mill to Mill City. Swilling, who'd been a Confederate soldier, wanted to name the settlement Stonewall, after Stonewall Jackson, while other residents suggested the name Salina. But neither of these suggestions took. Finally, a man named David Duppa suggested the settlement be named Phoenix, as it was built on the ruins of a civilization built by the Indigenous tribes that had previously lived in the valley.

Phoenix was officially recognized on May 4, 1868, when the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors formed an election precinct there. An official townsite was selected in October 1870. The town was incorporated in 1881.

For hundreds of years, the land that would eventually be the site of Atlanta, GA, was occupied by Indigenous people known as the Creek. In 1821 the Creek people were forced to cede their land to the US government, and in the following year white settlers began to move into the area.

These earliest settlers called the area Canebreak (or Canebrake), but in 1837 Col. Abbott Hall Brisbane, chief engineer of the Western and Atlantic (W&A) Railroad, named the settlement Terminus, because the site marked the end point of the railroad line. However, Terminus was never the settlement's official name; from 1837 to 1842 it was also Deanville and Thrasherville. Other suggested names included Lumpkin (after former Gov. Wilson Lumpkin, who was the president of the W&A Railroad) and Mitchell (after Samuel Mitchell, who had provided the land on which the terminus was established).

On December 23, 1842, the town was formally incorporated as Marthasville, named for Lumpkin's daughter Martha Atalanta. A few years later, it was suggested that the name should be changed to one that was both a nod to Lumpkin's daughter as well as to the railroad that had established the young city as a transportation hub in the Southern United States. Which is how, on December 29, 1847, Marthasville was officially incorporated as the city of Atlanta.

Throughout its history, Cincinnati, OH, has been given flattering nicknames such as “Little Paris,” “Athens of the West,” and “Queen City of the West." It was given this last moniker in the early 19th century, when it was the capital of the Northwest Territories and the largest inland port in America. 

But it was given a less melodious name, Losantiville, when the settlement was built on land opposite the mouth of the Licking River. The name was derived by combining the first letter of the river's name; “os,” which is the Greek word for “mouth”; “anti,” which is Latin for “opposite”; and “ville,” which is French for “town.”

According to one legend, Gen. Arthur St. Clair, the first governor of the Northwest Territories, was not happy with this name. He visited the settlement in 1790, and as soon as he stepped foot off the boat, allegedly exclaimed: 

What an awful name, damn it. Call it Cincinnati!

A less colorful version of how the settlement became Cincinnati says the city is named after a group of American Revolution officers called the Society of Cincinnati. These men, who were all civilian soldiers eager to return to their regular lives once the conflict ended, were named after a fifth century BCE Roman soldier named Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus, who is said to have turned down the chance to become dictator after saving Rome from tyranny, instead choosing to return to his life as a farmer.

Settler Titus Bronson arrived in southwest Michigan in June 1829, and in March 1831 recorded the first plot of land for the village of Bronson with the county's Register of Deeds office. But other settlers didn't like Bronson's beliefs; he was against alcohol, tobacco, gambling, and dancing. In March 1836 the town's name was successfully changed from Bronson to Kalamazoo, which led to Bronson leaving the area.

There are conflicting stories about what Kalamazoo means. An atlas from 1823 identifies the river located on the eastern edge of the modern-day city as “Kikalemazo”; this is the first known mention of a word that is similar to Kalamazoo. The most widely accepted story concerning the name's origin is about a man named Fleet Foot, a member of the indigenous Potawatomi people. According to legend, he won his bride by running from the settlement to the river and back again before the water heating in a pot boiled away.

This legend is the source of the following translations of Kalamazoo: “boiling pot,” “where the water boils in the pot,” “boiling water,” and "place where the water boils.” 

Other possible meanings include “mirage,” “reflecting river," and “stones seen in the water from which reflection looks like otters.” Yet another possible meaning of Kalamazoo, “smothered,” comes from a legend about a Native American who was nearly slain in a forest fire.

Until 1848, San Francisco was under the control of first Spain, then Mexico. The first Spanish explorers arrived in San Francisco Bay in 1769 and claimed the nearby land as part of Las Californias Province of New Spain. In 1821, control of Alta California, which included land that would later be known as the site of San Francisco, passed from Spain to Mexico. Englishman William Richardson, who was determined to act as a liaison between Bay Area ranchers and the ships that would anchor in the bay, established his operation at Yerba Buena Cove in 1835. Yerba Buena, which translates to “good herb,” was a plant commonly found in the area. This settlement became known as simply Yerba Buena, and soon was the largest settlement in the Bay Area.

The Mexican-American War broke out in 1846, and in July of that year US soldiers claimed Yerba Buena by raising an American flag in the town square. But the settlement's name change from Yerba Buena to San Francisco was apparently for financial reasons, not military ones. In January 1847, shortly after a nearby village attempted to call itself Francisca in an attempt to give it a strong connection to the San Francisco Bay and establish itself as the capital of the region, the mayor of Yerba Buena issued an ordinance that read:

WHEREAS, the local name of Yerba Buena, as applied to the settlement or town of San Francisco, is unknown beyond the district; and has been applied from the local name of the cove, on which the town is built: Therefore, to prevent confusion and mistakes in public documents, and that the town may have the advantage of the name given on the public map; IT IS HEREBY ORDAINED, that the name of SAN FRANCISCO shall hereafter be used in all official communications and public documents, or records appertaining to the town.

Following this move by San Francisco, the rival village had to settle for being named Benicia. In 1848 the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo resulted in California becoming a territory of the United States; in 1850 it was admitted to the Union as a state.