These games are fun enough, but daily postings are getting tedious, so this will probably be the last one.
I set a timer for five minutes and listed every U.S. city I could think of with a religious name. I came up with eleven. See how well you do. My answers are after the jump.
San Antonio, Texas
San Diego, California
San Francisco, California
Santa Rosa, California
San Bernardino, California
Los Angeles, California
Santa Fe, New Mexico
St. Paul, Minnesota
St. George, Utah
Corpus Christi, Texas
St. Louis, Missouri
NOTE: Yesterday I complained about the western half of the country not having the classical names of the eastern half, but the dominant influence on the west is pretty clear here: so many western cities are named after natural features, American Indian names, or, as seen here, Spanish Catholic names. Nearly half of my list comes from California.
I always figured St. George, Utah, was named after the medieval legend of St. George and the Dragon, but just found that it’s named after the early LDS Apostle who founded the town. I guess that makes sense; I admit that I was confused why there would be a Catholic name for a Southern Utah city. Still, it’s a religious origin, so I used it. Now I realize that if my goal was “religious” names, I could have included a ton of Utah places I hadn’t thought of: Lehi, Nephi, Bountiful, etc. California would have been eating its heart out!
I don’t speak Spanish, but I know enough to know that “San” means “saint,” as in “Saint Diego,” “Saint Francisco,” etc. I guessed that Santa Fe would mean “holy faith,” and was right. Everybody knows that Los Angeles means “The Angels.” I also figured that “Corpus Christi” (body of Christ) was Latin, but shouldn’t have been surprised that the name was still originally bestowed by Spanish missionaries in the area.
Here’s a list I found of American cities with Biblical names. As you can see (as with all of these games), I missed quite a few. Here’s another.
How the heck did I forget Salem, Massachusetts?
Gently Hew Stone 