After Independence why did New York not change its name (houses, neighborhood)

[dizzybint]

I wondered why New York never changed its name after independence losing its ties with Britain,


Upon the English Claim on March 12 1664, Charles II gave the colony of New Amsterdam to his brother James, the Duke of York as a proprietorship. The colony was renamed New York in honor of the Duke. Only when the Duke was crowned King James II on February 6th, 1685, did New York become a royal colony.

[tpk-nyc]

Maryland, Virginia, Georgia and the Carolina’s also had royal names. And then there were hundreds of towns, rivers, or mountains, plus thousands of buildings and streets with royal connections. Some were changed, but most weren’t. It didn’t see important at the time, unlike more recently independent places like India and Ireland.

[Drover]

There are numerous government units with names connected to British locations or persons (New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, Prince George's County, Queen Anne's County, Baltimore, Manchester NH, Bristol CT, Pittsburgh PA, etc. etc.) that didn't change their names. No point in it I suppose.

[PerseusVeil]

You could say this about a lot of places, and it's not just in regards to English colonial names. For example, why did St. Louis remain St. Louis since it's named named after King Louis IX of France? There's also New Orleans, etc.

[JerseyGirl415]

As everyone else has said, other states kept their British ties in regards to naming, not just New York. Most of the 13 colonies were named after something British - a person, territory, city, county. Half of NJ today, it seems, has very British names for everything - it's either British or Native American here. I guess changing things would have been annoying, not really sure.

[LINative]

Originally Posted by dizzybint

I wondered why New York never changed its name after independence losing its ties with Britain,


Upon the English Claim on March 12 1664, Charles II gave the colony of New Amsterdam to his brother James, the Duke of York as a proprietorship. The colony was renamed New York in honor of the Duke. Only when the Duke was crowned King James II on February 6th, 1685, did New York become a royal colony.

The colony was renamed (New Netherland to York Shire) because the Dutch were a conquered "foreign" people and the English wanted to get rid of the Dutch names. It only partially worked because today New York and New Jersey still have quite a number of Dutch names.

When New York and the other 12 colonies broke away from the British Empire, they changed some of their names but kept the many others. They were not rebelling so much against British culture but more so against King George III and Parliament because they could not get equal rights in the British Empire. The Americans probably considered themselves to be the Continental British, as opposed to the British back in the British Isles - thus the names Continental Congress, Continental Army, Continental Navy etc.

So in New York City for example, certain English names like Crown Street were changed (renamed Liberty Street) while other like Hanover Square and Chatham Square kept their names.

All up and down the US east coast you will find many many English names for towns, cities and even counties.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/York_Sh...ce_of_New_York)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Street_(Manhattan)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanover_Square,_Manhattan

[LINative]

Probably one of the names that should have been changed in New York but never did is Fort Tryon Park in Manhattan.

Fort Tryon Park is named after Fort Tryon, a British outpost in Northern Manhattan during the Revolutionary War. The fort is in turn named after Governor Sir William Tryon, the last colonial governor of New York. Before New York he was governor of North Carolina in the 1760s.

From the wickapedia article on Governor Tryon "Tryon's policies during the Revolutionary War were described as savagely brutal by persons on both sides of the conflict.....Tryon became unpopular first because he obeyed the instructions of his superiors prior to the war and then disobeyed them during the war by being overly harsh in his conduct of the war in the neutral ground in New York. For example, historian Thomas B. Allen notes on p. 202 of his book Tories that 'Tryon's desolation warfare shocked many British officers and outraged Patriots.' According to Allen, 'Joseph Galloway, a leading Tory, charged that marauding and even rape was officially tolerated by the British and the Loyalists. Galloway said that "indiscriminate and excessive plunder" was witnessed by "thousands within the British lines." In a "solemn inquiry," backed by affidavits, he said, "it appears, that no less than twenty-three [rapes] were committed in one neighborhood in New Jersey; some of them on married women, in presence of their helpless husbands, and others on daughters, while the unhappy parents, with unavailing tears and cries, could only deplore the savage brutality." Similarly, in New York City, citizens and officers accused Hessians, Redcoats, and Loyalists of robbing houses, raping women, and murdering civilians."

Tryon of course is not responsible for of all of this himself but rather should share some of the blame. So it is strange that not only the park but a number of towns and roads are still named after Tryon.

Fort Tryon Park - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William Tryon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[BajanYankee]

They should have changed the name to True York.

[EnricoV]

Originally Posted by tpk-nyc

It didn’t see important at the time, unlike more recently independent places like India and Ireland.

The problem with this comparison is that those places, names are changed back to what they were before they were Anglicized. It's a different situation.