When my wife and I travel by car, she drives and I navigate. This makes sense for two reasons. She gets car sick quickly if she reads the map. And it's harder for her to criticize my driving when she is driving.
One thing I believe I have discovered reading Michelin maps is that no two cities in France have exactly the same name. This is in contrast to the U.S. (e.g., Arlington, VA; Arlington, MA; Arlington, TX). Of course, similar names do occur in France, but there is always some official distinction (e.g., St. Germain-des-Pres and Saint Germain-en-Laye).
The chances of this happening on its own are infinitesimal. Some "city name czar" must make sure things work out this way.
Can anyone confirm this conjecture?
Only indirrectly... Romania (where I live) has modeled its system after that of Belgium and France. City names and all are seen more like a matter of public infrastructure. This combined with a low rate of new cities, well, I don't think that anyone makes a full-time job out of this but most of the name conflicts have been resolved by the State.
Posted by: Gabriel M. | July 21, 2006 at 06:33 AM
Speaking as a resident of Arlington, MA, I'll tangentially note that much of the duplication of names in the US comes from the memorialization of other places.
At least, that's what I heard someone say in Paris, Texas.
Posted by: TJIC | July 21, 2006 at 07:49 AM
Maybe it's federalism vs a strong national government?
Arlington MA, vs Arlington VA / Philadelphia PA vs PHiladelphia MS are always in different states. Perhaps French states are "weaker" than the US's and the official names come from up on high, whereas cities/town are incorporated within the state.
Somewhat related, Pennsylvania had at least two "Oaklands." When the railroads were built, shipping or travelling to "Oakland Pa" would add confusion. One was named "Oaks" instead. Similar deal with Greenville, Pa. One was renamed East Greenville...
Posted by: AlexC | July 21, 2006 at 12:13 PM
There are some duplicate names in France without postfix. For some example lookup Aix, Castres, Mirepoix or Gargas on the http://fr.wikipedia.org web site.
French forms and id cards have both your city and "departement" number to identity your birth place, likely because this is necessary to uniquely identify a city in France.
But no ig czar here (but Napoleon administration did most of the work here, and he can be qualified as czar :).
Posted by: Laurent GUERBY | July 21, 2006 at 02:57 PM
Did you know that the departments are numbered in alphabetical order. 06 is Alpes Maritimes where I used to live. It is fun to find out about the exceptions. Corse (Corisica) was split so there is no 20, just 2A and 2B. Ages ago Seine (75) basically Paris was split and the new numbers were in the 90s (since Algeria was no more a colony where those departments used to be). There are other oddities, like Territoire de Belfort and the odd place that has been renamed that makes knowing the department for any given number quite tricky. The numbers are most obvious on the ends of car registratoin plates, although apparently this is set to (maybe has?) changed. When I lived near Nice, 75 (Paris) meant tourist. And it even worked for rental cars since Hertz etc registered all their cars in Paris anyway.
Posted by: Paul McLellan | July 21, 2006 at 10:50 PM
Maybe it's because the US is a much younger country than France. In France all the cities have existed for centuries. Their names were given a long time ago by locals. In contrast, US is founded by immigrants. When immigrants from a single place settle in different places in the US, they all name the new settlement after their place of origin. Let's say European immigrants from the town of X come to US. Some go north and found X, Illinois and some go south and found X, Georgia.
Of course this is just a guess.
Posted by: Kerim Can | July 22, 2006 at 05:28 AM
Well Dr. Miron, you will note that many of the places in France which have similar names are named for saints, and then the part that is added to them is descriptive of the region. Just like Paris Texas is different from Paris Maine. The state acts as the describer or locator.
Posted by: KAS | July 22, 2006 at 09:54 AM
There used to be many places in France with the same name. But when the postal system was created in the 19th century, names were complexified in order to introduce a differentiation. For instance my hometown of ROMANS became ROMANS-SUR-ISERE (ISERE being the name of the local river) and thus can be differentiated from the other places named also named Romans. Obviously, except for offical purposes, everybody uses the shorter version.
Posted by: fabrice | August 05, 2006 at 10:32 AM
I went to see RUSH HOUR 3 and I regret that I had to spend money on it! Movie was a failer!~
Posted by: CaloCypelesee | August 18, 2007 at 08:01 AM