One Name, Two Cities Trivia Quiz

Although it was not named for the English city, the Nebraskan state capital Lincoln shares its name with the county town of Lincolnshire in the UK. It was named after Abraham Lincoln in 1867, only a couple of years after his assassination and the end of the US civil war. Prior to this point it was known by another UK county town's name - Lancaster (the county town of Lancashire).

It was named Lincoln in an attempt to prevent the capital of Nebraska being moved there from Omaha, as it was thought that with the large number of supporters of the confederacy living in that part of Nebraska that its politicians would refuse to sanction the move. The ruse was not successful.

The name of the English city Lincoln comes from a combination of the Celtic "lindo" for pool and the Latin "colonia" for colony ([Roman] colony by the pool) and was recorded in the "Domesday Book" of 1086 as Lincolia.

They are spelt slightly differently but both have a certain degree of fame. Holywood, Northern Ireland is where multiple golf major title winner Rory McIlroy, was brought up and first learned the game. Hollywood, Los Angeles is a little better known for being the place where major movie studios such as Paramount, Warner Bros and Columbia Pictures (now Sony) all had or have lots.

The most notable crossover between the two places is the actor Jamie Dornan, who was born in Holywood and has worked for Hollywood studios on such titles as "50 Shades of Grey".

Birmingham, Alabama earned its nickname "The Magic City" during a period of rapid growth in the early 20th century. The city was planned as an industrial hub built around its natural deposits of key ores and minerals required for the production of steel. It was named after the UK city, England's second largest, because that too was a major industrial centre.

Aberdeen in the state of Washington takes its name indirectly from the Scottish city, via a canning factory that took the name first. As well as sharing a name and a seaside location, both Aberdeens sit at the mouth of two rivers, in the US city the Chehalis and the Wishkah and in Scotland, the Dee and the Don.

Kurt Cobain formed Nirvana with fellow Aberdonian, Krist Novoselic, in the city in 1987. The band became a global sensation in 1991 with the release of single "Smells Like Teen Spirit" from the album "Nevermind". Aberdeen, Scotland can boast the equally successful Annie Lennox as one of its favourite daughters. She first tasted success with the band The Tourists in the UK in the late 1970s before worldwide fame came with the 1983 release of "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" with her next band, Eurythmics.

Cambridge, Massachusetts and Cambridge, England are the sites of two of the greatest universities in the world. An extraordinary coincidence? Well, not entirely. Cambridge, MA was named after the East Anglian town.

The University of Cambridge was founded in 1209, making it the third oldest university in the world. Gonville and Caius College is the fourth oldest of its colleges, founded in 1348. The university has educated countless remarkable men and women over many centuries, such as Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Sylvia Plath. Harvard was founded in 1636 and has an equally impressive list of alumni, including TS Eliot, Barack Obama and J. Robert Oppenheimer.

So this one is in fact three places with one name (you may have spotted that there were two sixes on the map). Richmond, Virginia was named after the Richmond that is now in south-west London. That Richmond was in turn named after the North Yorkshire town.

Richmond in North Yorkshire was an earldom that merged with the English crown when Henry VII ascended the throne. Henry built a palace on the banks of the River Thames in an area known as Shene (then in Surrey). In honour of his earldom, Henry named the palace Richmond Palace and subsequently the area took the name as well. Richmond, Virginia took the name because the view over the bend of the James river was similar to the view over the Thames from Richmond Hill.

Virginia was a key state in The Confederate States of America (CSA). So much so that the CSA voted to make Richmond its capital, taking over from Montgomery, Alabama in May 1861 - a month before it had joined the CSA, and even before the secession of Virginia from the Union had been ratified.

Boston, MA was named after Boston in Lincolnshire because that was the original hometown of one of the Puritan leaders that founded the US city in 1630.

The Boston Tea Party was a political protest by the colonists of the city against the Tea Act in particular, and more generally against the imposition of taxation by a UK government in which they were not represented and had no say ("no taxation without representation").

The tearoom in Boston, Lincs is in Fydell House, an 18th century house built for and owned by textile merchants, reflecting the wealth derived from the key trade of the town at the time. The house, now an event venue and heritage museum, celebrates its namesake in the US with its American Room that was dedicated by then US ambassador to the UK, Joseph Kennedy in 1938.

Plymouth in Devon was not the site of the Pilgrims' first attempt to cross the Atlantic. That began further east at Southampton in early August 1620 with two ships, Mayflower and Speedwell. But after Speedwell sprung a leak on two occasions, Mayflower departed from Plymouth alone and made the 64-day journey to Massachusetts, arriving in late November 1620. They first docked at what is now Provincetown but according to legend first set foot on land at Plymouth Rock, before establishing Plymouth Colony nearby.

Plymouth, MA had already been named New Plimoth by explorer John Smith before the Pilgrims arrived. He named it after the city in Devon and the matching names of the departure and landing sites were purely coincidental.

Manchester, New Hampshire is another US city that was named after its UK counterpart. Like Birmingham, it was Manchester's industrial heritage, as the first city of the Industrial Revolution, that was the inspiration.

The New Hampshire Fisher Cats, based in Manchester, are the only professional sports team in New Hampshire. They play in the minor baseball leagues and are affiliated with the major league Toronto Blue Jays. They won the Eastern League on four occasions between 2000 and 2018.

Manchester, England has two major football clubs that have had a little more success. Manchester United overtook Liverpool in 2011 as the most successful team in English league history with their 19th title. Manchester City have been the dominant force in England in the 2010s and 2020s, winning multiple Premier League titles and in 2023, joining Manchester United as the first two English teams to complete a treble of Premier League, FA Cup and UEFA Champions League titles in the same season.

Dover is not just the biggest passenger port in the county of Kent but in the whole of the UK. It regularly transports more than ten million passengers and close to five million vehicles between the UK and continental Europe each year.

Dover, DE was named after its English namesake by William Penn, who had been gifted the lands of Delaware (and Pennsylvania) by King Charles II of England in lieu of debts owed to the Penn family. It was made capital of the territory in 1777 and therefore became the first state capital in the US when Delaware was the first state to ratify the US constitution in 1787.