State Headcanons based on city research
Thanks to Ben's city name videos, I have started researching the etymology of different places in the United States. And naturally I've come up with lots of different headcanons based on all of my research.
Pronunciation Headcanons: How some states will pronounce other states names
- Louisiana says "Eye-way" instead of Iowa. [From place Iowa, Louisiana. Which was founded by a bunch of people from the Midwest]
- Kansas says Arkansas's name wrong, but that's on purpose because he's a little bugger.
- Kentucky says "Lee'siana" instead of Louisiana. [This one is just a personal thing. I'm from Kentucky (ok, Ohio-Kentucky hybrid, but I pick Kentucky) and that's just how I sometimes slur Louisiana together.]
- Texas says "Colo-ray-do" instead of Colorado. [Colorado City, Texas. The "Mother City of West Texas"]
- Wisconsin says Arkansas's name correctly, he just spells it "Arkansaw". West Virginia also spells it this way sometimes. [Arkansas, West Virginia (or sometimes Arkansaw) and Arkansaw, Wisconsin.]
- Then Nevada's name... 3 pronunciations
(a). Ne-vad-uh = how the state says it
(b). Ne-va-duh = the Spanish pronunciation (How I headcanon New Mexico says it. Gov/DC also uses this pronunciation)
(c). Ne-vey-duh = The one used by cities in Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Ohio, Texas, and Arkansas. [Nevada County, Arkansas actually, not a city. And it's named that because it's shape is/was similar to that of the state of Nevada.]
- Alaska's name comes from an idiom. So I propose this
New York: It's an idiom!
Florida: You're an idiom.
Alaska: Actually I'm an idiom, he's an unoriginal copy.
- Kentucky named Washington. The original proposed name was "Columbia" for the Columbia River and Columbia District. However a Kentucky representative (Richard H. Stanton) felt that was too similar to the District of Columbia. So the name Washington, after the president, was proposed and obviously accepted.
There is still confusion between the city and the state though, so it wasn't really a thought out decision.
- Pennsylvania named Wyoming. The name comes from the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania and is derived from a Munsee word meaning "at the big river flat".
- Wyoming is indifferent towards being named by Pennsylvania. Washington is looking into maybe changing his name, but hasn't said anything aloud to avoid hurting Kentucky's feelings. [Based on the fact that name changes have been proposed to avoid confusion if/when Washington DC becomes a state]
- Florida's name means "Little Flower". He was given the name from the lush greenery and the fact that it was Easter season when Juan Ponce landed. (Pascua Florida).
- There is apparently a state holiday in Florida called Pascua Florida. It's celebrated around April 2nd. Florida, the state personification, absolutely celebrates it. I'm still not 100% sure what festivities entail, but Florida wears a flower crown that day (Orange Blossoms and tickweeds specifically)
- Florida has tried to include some of the other states in his festivities. But given that the holiday falls right around/sometimes on April 1st, they think it's just an April's Fool Prank and don't join.
- In a universe where Georgia and Florida have a father-son relationship, Georgia would call Florida "Little Flower" as a nickname when Florida was younger. He still does occasionally, but not as often anymore.
- There exist a few cities named "California". I'm going to focus on California, Kentucky (totally not because that's my favorite state, what?) The city was set up 1852 and was named California because of the Gold Rush. The occupants would receive lots of news and letters about it.
My headcanon: California and Kentucky are pen-pals. In fact, they are pen pals who don’t know that they know each other in real life (which, at this point everybody’s giving them questioning looks bc they’ve been sending letters since the 1840s and it’s the 2000s. Who else would they be sending letters too?) They're just dumbasses.
Literally everybody else in the statehouse has figured it out except for these two. Like, the others will watch one of them write the letter and send it. The letter will arrive at the statehouse after a few days and the other one will be reading it in view of the first one
After the first few times, even the mailman was like “this letter is just coming back here?? Why should I take it??” But I also headcanon Kentucky with OCD/Autism (totally not projecting here...). He would get upset if the mailman wouldn't take the letter because OCD/Autism Logic TM. So the mailman humors him.
Does this mean that Kentucky and California should recognize the return address and stuff? Yes. Do they? Of course not.
I will need to do a separate post just for my Kentucky and California headcanons.
- Kentucky just... can not pronounce things. That, or he has his own way of doing it and will not listen to others. Specifically when it comes to French or Spanish based names. There's a lot of cities in Kentucky pronounced differently then their foreign language source. [Louisville, Versailles, Cadiz, Erlanger, etc]
- Kentucky sings under his breath a lot. The three most common songs are "My Old Kentucky Home" [state song], "My Bonnie Lies Over the Sea" [Bonnieville, Kentucky], and "Pastoral Elegy" [Corydon, Kentucky].
- Kentucky supplies Utah with most of beekeeping equipment. [Walter T. Kelly Beekeeping company started in Leitchfield, Kentucky].
- Virginia no longer names anything Fayette anymore. He named a place Fayette County, in honor of Marquis de LaFayette. Then Kentucky became a state and took it. So in 1830, Virginia named another place Fayette County. Then West Virginia became a state and took it.
West Virginia and Kentucky have joked that maybe District should change his name to Fayette and he'll get statehood a whole lot sooner and easier.
- Georgia really likes bacon. [Bacon County, Georgia and Baconton, Georgia. Both are technically named for people who's last name was Bacon, but shh]. He will argue with you if you don't like bacon.
- Whenever the BBQ argument pops up between the South, North Carolina likes to point out that his BBQ is the best, he even has a place named Barbecue! The other states are not amused.
- Kentucky is the type of person who gets his paperwork done ahead of time. He's very busy with it. (Not to the point of ruining his sleep schedule though). [Busy, Kentucky. Named because the enterprising citizens were "busy as bees".]
(Is it obvious I have a favorite state?)
That’s all I have for now. But I’m going to keep up the research still anyway and may update it with new revelations and thoughts.
