> > You realise, of course, that all of York, Jersey and Hampshire are places in the United Kingdom, which is outside the entire United States of America? If the "New" places you speak of were to drop the "New" part, the names would become ambiguous.
>
> I'm sure he realizes this, yes. Howard's style is to promote thought or humor by dismissing the rote facts that cut it off. It doesn't work if you don't play along.

I'm sorry if I interpreted him wrong. As a continental European, I guess I'm touchy about Americans ignoring the rest of the world.

> As for ambiguity, some statistics that haven't caused any problems from ambiguity yet:
>
> - We've got a state and a district named Washington.

Yes, that's what I've learned as well. It's particularly amusing because they're on opposing coasts.

> - We've got 201 different cities called "Fairview."
> - 29 of those 201 Fairviews are in Tennessee. 22 of them are in Alaska.
> - There is a similar plethora of U.S. towns called "Franklin," "Centerville," "Mount Pleasant," "Five Points," "Oak Grove," "Salem," "Midway," and "Riverside."

Wow, that many? Here in Finland, all names of major cities (that you'd expect the whole country to have heard of) are entirely unique. Some minor population places (less than 10'000 people) might be duplicated. I myself found a place in Lapland with the same name as a district my father used to live in, in Espoo (close to Helsinki, on the south coast).