As Dave suggested, any place could have the name “city” after it, no matter how small the settlement is. There is a town, population 360, near where my daughter lives called Dominion City. I guess the founding fathers had high hopes for their settlement when they changed the name back in 1880.
Back where I grew up, there’s a Golden City Road. Golden City was an oil boom village that I don’t think ever broke “a few tents” on the population scale.
An interesting historical precedent:
Frank Ellison’s Delta Lines was operated point to point with two terminals and a mid-point engine change/division yard. The division yard was named after the street his house fronted on, while the termini were named after the cross streets to the north and south. Of course, New Orleans had named streets. If the nearest intersection is at 12th Avenue and 23rd Street…
You can honor (or insult) yourself, your friends or your in-laws with (Name,) with …town, …burg, …ton, …ville suffix. Using this with the male offspring of my favorite DDG blonde would yield the Mobysville, Cedston and Nicksburg RR. Note that the (Name) can be a given name, a surname or even a nickname.
On my layout, the stations are all named after people, but the Japanese surnames used are also common geographical names. (Takamiyama, the Sumo name of a well-remembered rikishi, literally translates as High-Seeing Mountain. Lookout Mountain is close enough for our American purposes - it’s the highest landform on my layout.)
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with names changed to protect the guilty)
You might consider using the word “saint” as part of the name. For instance, if you had a son/father/grandfather etc. named Tom, a town name could be named “St. Thomas”.
I named the little community on my layout Redwood because of all of the pine trees I have scattered around. However, there’s actually no end of possible names. My best advice is to either come up with one you like on your own or pick one from a map that closely fits the community that you plan on modeling. Always remember that you can rename it later if you don’t like the first name you give it… Good luck to you on that.
Tracklayer
- A person’s name + town or ton or tun. They’re everywhere, not just in Ohio but across the U.S. 2) A name from Britain reused here. Kent. Wessex. Bristol. Lancaster. Again, just looking around the U.S., these names are everywhere. 3) New ‘Something.’ Once more, there are tons of names borrowed from more famous cousins elsewhere in the U.S. that are reused elsewhere. These can either come with the prefix ‘New,’ or instead just be the name (Manhattan, KS; Boston Harbor, WA, etc.).
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I understand the Simpsons creators chose “Springfield” as the town name because every state had one Springfield in it. Not sure if that’s true - but my state (Minnesota) has two.
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I doubt there’s any city in Europe that doesn’t have a city of the same name in America. Sometimes they carry on the ethnic traditions. There are cities here in the Midwest settled by Germans for example, who’s buildings are built in the old German 'half timbered" style.
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Check the area you’re interested for name changes…a lot of early towns changed names over time, and you can use an old name to represent a fictional version of the real town now under a newer name. I have a “Fort William” on my layout, a name based on Fort William, Ontario, that was one of the cities that merged to become Thunder Bay in 1970. Course I’m writing this from Saint Paul, Minnesota, that was originally called “Pig’s Eye”…
Here’s one: West Sandusky! I took the real city name of Sandusky, Ohio, the setting for the movie “Tommy Boy”, where Tommy’s dad owned an auto parts factory. The auto parts factory isn’t the main industry in that town, but it is there, and it is Callahan Auto Parts, the same name as the auto parts factory in the movie. I even found the logo on the internet for the factory that was used in the movie, downloaded it and used it for signage on the factory structure. After all, I am modeling a feeelance version of northwestern Ohio. As has ben suggested here, you can use “north” “south”, “east” or "west’ and come up with something plausible that would fit the geographic area that you’re modeling.
The towns on the south side of Buffalo are referred to as the “South Towns.” Just use that as Southtown, NY. taaaadaaa. Ridgeville works too as long as it is not right on Lake Erie. It would have to sit inland a way (10 miles-ish) unless of course it was named after someone named Ridge.
It is you railroad. Make up whatever names you want.
Thank you everyone, especially P&Slocal, I love both names (Ridgeville and Southtown). It might take some time to decide which one I will choose. Cool little story about south towns. Millard Fillmore grew up in a south town, and I am related to him. Keep the great ideas comin’.
I live in Tennessee now (ex NYorker) and there are some really ‘non generic’ towns down here; Soddy Daisey, Ooltewa, Big War Creek, Shady Grove, Scaggston and then there is Paris and Philadelphia! Quite a range. Just google ‘(your state) small towns’ and you will get lots of names to choose from. Just a thought!
-Bob
Place names can travel not just from say Europe to America, but from state to state. For example, when iron mining started in northeast Minnesota, many of the first miners and mining engineers were from Upper Michigan, where iron mining had already been established. They brought some Michigan place names with them, so there’s a Saginaw, MN and Grand Rapids, MN. Later, the kids and grandkids of some of these folks went to Nevada when mining started there, so there’s an Ely, MN and an Ely, Nevada.
Of course, some place names relate to a railroad itself. St.Louis Park, MN was named after the railroad that ran through it, the Minneapolis & St.Louis. It’s a suburb of Minneapolis, and the M-St.L promoted buying houses there to people who worked in downtown Mpls, and ran commuter trains for about 40 years. Enderlin, North Dakota, was the “end of (the) line” for the Soo Line in it’s early days. I believe there’s a St.Paul Pass in Idaho (?) on the Milwaukee Road; in the 19th century, the Chicago Milwaukee & St.Paul was called “The St.Paul Road” and only later became the Milwaukee Road.
Like most, I wanted to “personalize” my layout. I have an “around the room” layout, so I broke it down into 4 areas (walls) and based the name on several factors = main function/theme, local area (where we live) and family.
One area is an interchange yard, it has an inside and outside main, with a track in the middle for dropping off and picking up rolling stock. Since it also provides an area for trains to switchover and I live in Las Vegas, NV, I named it Sidewinder Junction.
The next area is for industry (lumber yard, grain, etc) and has several sidings. Due to the industry, the area is flat with very little change in elevation for the track. I had a very loyal dog (whose name was Dusty) that died of kidney failure, so putting all this together, this area was named Dusty Flats.
Another area is the transition from the helix to the main layout, so there is a slight rise in track elevation on the outer main. There is also some industry with sidings that come off the inner main. Since our area of the Las Vegas Valley is called Southern Foothills, I named this area Foothill Ridge.
The last area of the layout has a slight drop in elevation for the outer main to tie into the helix. The industry for this area will have a coal mine. While I was installing the outer main, I used thumb tacks to piece the track together so I could at least run trains continuously. Since the temporary set-up lasted several months, this area was blessed as Thumbtack Canyon.
Stix: “St. Louis Park (MN)” is generic? I grew up there (Park High '72) and I “resent being from a generic place”[:P]
Seriously, towns where the name ends in “- dale” or “- ville” or “-town” or “-ton” are generic.
If near the Buffalo NY area, look to Greek place names (similar to Rome, Utica, Syracuse…) for ideas.
Rivers lend themselves to town names: if nearby the “Spring River”, the town is named Springville, etc.
Be creative- use a map of one state’s town names and transpose them to the state/ area you are modeling…
Also, the ethnic makeup of an area may figure into town names: Germantown, Finndale, etc.
Since part of your layout is in Ohio, the Amish (German) influence may be applied- look at town names in Germany for inspiration…
Cedarwoodron
WOW, that makes a few of us from Minnesota, I grew up around Minneapolis/Edina/Chaska area.
Some of the small towns near me would make fun names for any layout’s town. Try this list (After the township part!)
I always thought it a little odd that there’s a Park High School in St.Louis Park MN and a Park High School in Cottage Grove MN…though the Cottage Grove was apparently originally attended by kids from Cottage Grove and next-door St.Paul Park. Come to think of it, in the Twin Cities there’s St. Paul Park, St. Louis Park, and Brooklyn Park…so I guess it is kind of ‘generic’. [;)]
BTW forget if anybody mentioned it, but there are (or were before some were removed) thousands of saints that towns could be named after. Here in Minnesota there must be a couple of dozen saintly place names. Saint Paul, Saint Paul Park, St. Louis Park, St. Cloud, St. Anthony, St. James, St. Charles, St. Michael, St. Peter, etc. etc.