U.S. TOWNS MOST LIKELY TO SHARE A NAME WITH A COUNTRY
Lebanon is the country name most likely to appear in a town name in the United States. There are 65 occurrences of this name in a "populated place" according to the U.S. Geological Survey (some extremely tiny), including places like West Lebanon or New Lebanon. Scandinavia does well in this list with 3 entries; in contrast, towns are rarely named for African nations (with the small exception of Angola, which would be #25 on this list). Just because a town shares a name with a country doesn't necessary mean it's named after the country (an acute example is #20 Turkey).
To be included in this list, the town must either have the exact spelling (but not necessarily the exact same pronunciation), be followed by "ville", "city", "ton" or "town" (or preceded by a direction, like "west", or the word "new"). Note that the U.S. Geological Survey Place Name database is extremely extensive (including the tiniest of hamlets).
TOWN NAME
1. Lebanon
2. Holland*
3. Jordan
4. Cuba
5. Scotland**
6. China
7. Denmark
7. Peru
9. Norway
9. Sweden
OCCURRENCES IN THE U.S.
65
41
34
26
23
22
21
21
15
15
* Holland is the alternate name for The Netherlands, so it is used in this list.
** Scotland is a former nation in this list. Source: US Geological Survey Place Name Server, 2007, http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic.
