memes

There were no Americans when many of those places were named...

As much as Europeans don't like it, Americans are your children.

When you get to the south west it becomes a place in Mexico which is a place in Spain or straight up just named after a Spanish conquistador.

A new place of europe.

and the original European names are also pretty functional:

I believe Amsterdam is just "River Dam"

And York is just "Yew", presumably named after trees that grew there. (Eburacon -> Eboracum -> Eoforwic -> Jórvík -> York)

But New York in the United States isn't even directly named after the English city of York, but rather a person (James Stuart) who was the Duke of York when England took control of the territory from the Dutch.

There are also a lot of places that kept the original native names. Not as numerous as the "New [European place]" ones, but enough that you notice.

Sure but calling them Americans is likely, mostly, sorta true but also ignores an important fact... They were Europeans (or near descendants of) calling the places that. Often a place was named that place because it reminded them of home / to honor their parents home.

Some other notable examples: New Zealand

São Carlos, Brazil

Munich, Saskatchewan

Liverpool, New South Wales

Nueva York, Colombia

Hey hey, we did call it "New". Well, sometimes anyway. I definitely lived in town just called York.

In Québec they were a bit more diverse and also named lots of places after saints.

We also have a few original names, like bucksnort, horsethief basin and truth or consequences

Just add new to the name

In the west coast we typically just used the name of the native tribe we killed in order to take the land.

Hey, give them some credit, they have some diversity - there's place in europe, new place in europe, mispronounced place in europe, british ruler, catholic saint in spanish, american president, explorer related to america, and of course native american place/tribe, and random native american word

And yet we don't have a Shitterton