Couldn't Think of an Original Name Quiz

Answer: Market town in eastern England

Boston was originally settled in 1625, when William Blaxton elected to remain in Massachusetts when the rest of his expedition returned to England. Blaxton settled in an area on the Shawmut Peninsula. Five years later, a puritan colony led by John Winthrop was founded at Charlestown, just across the Charles River from Shawmut.

The colony was not well sited owing to a lack of fresh water, and so Blaxton invited the colonists to move to the peninsula, which had an available spring. The colony accepted, and purchased land from both Blaxton and the local Massachusett tribe.

The settlers initially named the new settlement 'Trimountaine' after a set of three hills on the peninsula. However, upon the official foundation of the new town, Winthrop announced that its name would be Boston, after the town in Lincolnshire where a number of the more prominent colonists had originally come from. Upon its foundation, Boston became the capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and has remained capital of Massachusetts in its various incarnations ever since, the longest continuously-running capital in the United States. Boston eventually received its charter as a city in March 1822.

Answer: Port in southern England

Dover was founded in 1683 to serve as the county court location for the newly incorporated Kent County in what eventually became the Delaware Colony. Eventually incorporated in 1717, the city was named for the port town of Dover in Kent. Delaware's capital was moved from New Castle to Dover in 1777, as the city was in a fairly central location offering a measure of protection from British raiders on the Delaware River.

Although an act passed in 1779 allowed the Delaware Assembly to meet in a location of its choice, by 1781 Dover became the permanent capital. On December 7 1787, a group of thirty delegates elected to a state convention met at the Golden Fleece Tavern in Dover and unanimously approved the new Constitution of the United States, making Delaware the first state to ratify the document.

Answer: County town in southern England

The area around Hartford was originally occupied by various tribes of the Algonquin people. The first European explorations occurred in 1614, when a Dutch expedition sailed up the Connecticut River. This exploration was expanded on in 1623, when the Dutch West India Company established a fur trading post called Fort Hoop on the south bank of the Park River.

Despite the Dutch presence, English migrants regularly came to the area to settle, beginning in 1636. The English settlement, located just north of Fort Hoop, was originally named Newtown, but in 1637 was renamed as Hartford, in honour of Hertford, the home town of Samuel Stone, one of the pastors who led the migrants to the area. Upon its foundation, Hartford became the capital of the Connecticut Colony, a status it retained until 1686, when Boston was named as the capital of the new Dominion of New England.

This lasted until 1689, when the colonies regained their former status. Hartford then served as the joint capital of Connecticut, with the Assembly holding a session in the city in May of each year, with its October session held in New Haven. Hartford was incorporated as a city in 1784, and was appointed as the sole capital of Connecticut in 1875.

Answer: Township in southern Minnesota

Although native tribes had lived in the area of what became Helena for thousands of years, it was only in the early 1800s that white settlers came to the area, when traders from both the United States and Canada began exploring for fur bearing animals along streams and tributaries of the Missouri River.

By the early 1860s, gold strikes in the Idaho Territory led to so many people arriving in the region that the US government founded the new Montana Territory in May 1864. In July of the same year, a major gold strike saw the foundation of a mining camp alongside a creek that the miners named "Last Chance Gulch". By October, the population was 200, and it was decided to formally recognise the camp as a town, which led to a decision to rename it.

Many of the prospectors had come from Minnesota, and so a number of the suggestions were in honour of towns in Minnesota. The one that was eventually accepted came from John Summerville, who suggested the town be named Helena, after the Helena Township in southern Minnesota.

The pronunciation was hel-EE-na, who caused uproar among former Confederates in the population, who insisted it be pronounced HEL-i-na, in honour of the town of Helena in Arkansas. In April 1875, Montana's territorial capital was moved from Virginia City to Helena, a status that the town retained after Montana's admission to the union as the 41st state in 1889.

Answer: Town in central New York state

Although the first person of European descent to reach the area that is now Lansing did so in 1790, the area itself was not surveyed until the late 1820s, with no land offered for sale until 1830. Five years later, two brothers from New York undertook a survey of the land, finding it in a floodplain and thus underwater for most of the year.

The two returned to the town of Lansing, New York and then proceeded to sell plots for a town that didn't exist. 16 men purchased plots and proceeded to Michigan, only to find no town in place.

A handful elected to stay, naming the new settlement Lansing Township, after their home town in New York. In 1847, Michigan's legislature began debate on moving the state's capital from Detroit, as many were concerned over the proximity of Michigan's largest city to Canada - Detroit had been captured by the British during the War of 1812, and there was a view that the capital should be closer to the state's interior. Several towns lobbied hard for the position, and, unable to reach a consensus, the state legislature privately chose Lansing Township on its own. Temporarily named the "Town of Michigan", in April 1848 the name Lansing was awarded to the new capital, while it received its city charter in 1859.

Answer: Mediterranean coastal city

European settlers began arriving in the area of central Vermont from the 1600s, although there was no permanent settlement until the 1780s. The town that became Montpelier was originally chartered in 1781 by Massachusetts as a grant to settlers. However, it wasn't until 1787 that people began living in the region, when Colonel Jacob Davis, who had come from Massachusetts to undertake a survey, built a large house on the North Branch of the Winooski River. Settlers began to migrate to the area, building up a community along the banks of the river that numbered just over 100 by the time Vermont was admitted to the union in 1791 as the 14th state.

The town was named Montpelier after the French city of Montpellier, owing to the then general enthusiasm for the French, after the support they had offered to the fledgling United States in the Revolutionary War. By 1805, when Vermont was looking for a permanent capital, Montpelier's population had grown to over 1200.

The town was seen as ideal, with a central location and good transport links, and that year the capital was moved to the town from Windsor. Montpelier was incorporated as a city in 1895.

Answer: Mountain range in the Pacific North-West

The area on the southern tip of what is now called Puget Sound had been inhabited by a number of Lushootseed-speaking tribes for many centuries before the first recorded visit by Europeans in 1792, when the site was surveyed by Peter Puget. In 1833, Fort Nisqually was established as a fur-trading settlement by the Hudson's Bay Company.

This led to a number of trading posts established, which the company eventually converted into farms. One of these settlements was established by Thomas Otchin in 1841, although it was abandoned in 1842. Later settlers returned to the site to establish a community called New Market, the first permanent settlement on Puget Sound.

In 1846, two men, Edmund Sylvester and Levi Lathrop Smith, made a joint claim to more land in the area. Two years later, after Smith's death, Sylvester took control of the entire site, at which time he began planning the new town.

After early names honouring Smith, in 1853, the town was named as Olympia, after the Olympic Mountains that can be viewed to the north-west of the town.

In March of the same year, the new Washington Territory was founded, with Olympia named as its capital, a status it retained upon Washington's admission as the 42nd state in 1889.

Answer: Borough of Greater London

Following the establishment of the first permanent English settlement at Jamestown in 1607, explorations up the James River saw English settlers come into contact with the native Powhatan tribe. This led to the establishment of the settlement of Henricus in 1611, at the confluence of Falling Creek and the James River.

By the 1640s, following a number of conflicts, the Powhatan agreed a peace treaty with the English and the settlers began to fortify the area. By the early 18th century, the population was still only around 200 but, by 1730, the Virginia legislature passed an act requiring inspection to grade tobacco at different locations, one of these being the area around Falling Creek.

This led to William Byrd II providing land in the area for the development of a new town, which he named Richmond after the area of London, as he felt that the view of the James River was similar to views of the River Thames from Richmond Hill. Richmond was named as the new capital of Virginia in 1780, as Virginia's population was increasing in the west of the state, and Richmond provided a more central location than the previous capital, Williamsburg.

In 1861, Richmond became the national capital of the Confederate States of America in addition to Virginia's capital, a status it retained until the end of the Civil War and the defeat of the Confederacy.

Answer: City in northern Massachusetts

Native tribes had lived in the area of the north-west now occupied by Salem for 10,000 years, with the Kalapuya, who occupied the Williamette Valley, calling the area Chimikiti, or 'meeting place'. Although the first European settlers arrived in 1812, it wasn't until 1840 that a permanent settlement was established by the Jason Lee Methodist Institute.

Initially called Chemeketa, it was known locally as 'the Mill', owing to its location on Mill Creek, before then becoming known as 'the Institute', after the Oregon Institute, a school for white settlers, that was established there.

A town was established following the dissolution of the Methodist mission in 1844. When plans for the town were being filed, it was suggested that a Biblical name be adopted - William H. Wilson, who filed the plans, suggested an Anglicized version of the Hebrew word 'shalom', while the Rev. David Leslie, President of the Trustees, suggested the last five letters of 'Jerusalem'; Leslie was educated in Salem, Massachusetts, which is also regarded as a source for the name.

In 1851, Salem became the new capital of the Oregon Territory and remained so, apart from a few months in 1855, when Oregon became the 33rd state in 1859.

Answer: Tributary of the Sangamon River

The land now occupied by Springfield was first settled by Europeans in 1818, when fur traders first started coming to the Sangamon River. The first permanent building was put up in 1820 by John Kell, and the settlement that followed was named 'Calhoun', after John Calhoun of South Carolina, who was serving as Secretary of War under President James Monroe. Settlers from Kentucky, North Carolina and Virginia saw the expansion of the town, which had become the county seat of Sangamon County in 1821. By 1832, John Calhoun had fallen out of favour with the public, and the town was renamed Springfield at the suggestion of John Kelly's wife, after Spring Creek, a tributary of the Sangamon, which flowed through an area called Kelly's Field.

In 1839, following the efforts of a local lawyer called Abraham Lincoln, who also served as Sangamon County's representative in the Illinois House of Representatives, and his associates, Springfield was named as the new state capital of Illinois, receiving its city charter the following year.