List of U.S. Place Names of French Origin

List Of U.S. Place Names Of French Origin

Several thousand place names in the United States have names of French origin, some a legacy of past French exploration and rule over much of the land and some in honor of French help during the American Revolution and the founding of the country (see also: New France and French in the United States). Others were named after early Americans of French, especially Huguenot, ancestry (Marion, Revere, Fremont, Lanier, Sevier, Macon, Decatur, etc.). Some places received their names as a consequence of French colonial settlement (e.g. Baton Rouge, Detroit, New Orleans, Saint Louis. Nine state capitols are French words or of French origin (Baton Rouge, Boise, Des Moines, Juneau, Montgomery, Montpelier, Pierre, Richmond, Saint Paul) - not even counting Little Rock (originally "La Petite Roche") or Cheyenne (a French rendering of a Lakota word), compared to only two that are Spanish (Sacramento and Santa Fe). Fifteen state names are either French words / origin (Delaware, New Jersey, Louisiana, Maine, Oregon, Vermont) or Native American words rendered by French speakers (Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Wisconsin), versus nine state names that are Spanish or Spanish rendered (Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Utah).

The suffix "-ville," from the French word for "town" is common for town and city names throughout the United States. Many originally French place names, possibly hundreds, in the Midwest and Upper West were replaced with directly translated English names once American settlers became locally dominant (e.g. "La Petite Roche" became Little Rock; "Baie Verte" became Green Bay; "Grandes Fourches" became Grand Forks). In contrast, Spanish place names in the Southwest were generally not replaced by English names.