About Us

Every town name started with somebody's decision. A railroad surveyor honored his boss. A postmaster picked a name off a list. A mining camp borrowed a word from the ore it was chasing. Town Name Stories digs up who made that call, when, and why.

We're a small, independent site. We aren't connected to any government agency, chamber of commerce or tourism office.

How we work

• Sources first. Every story lists its sources at the end: federal records like the U.S. Geological Survey's Geographic Names Information System, old state place-name books, county histories and newspapers. No source, no claim.
• We say how sure we are. Right under each title you'll see Documented, Disputed or Unknown. When the popular story doesn't hold up, we tell you.
• No made-up details. We don't invent dates, quotes or the meaning of Native American words. If nobody knows, we say so.
• Real maps, no AI pictures. Our images are historic maps and properly licensed photos. We never use AI-generated pictures of real places.
• A second check. We use AI tools to help gather and draft research. Every story then goes through a separate fact-check against the sources, and a person approves it before it's published.

Corrections

History gets messy, and we'll get things wrong now and then. If you spot a mistake, or you know a local source we missed, write to us at contact at townnamestories.com. When we fix something, we note the date and what changed. We never change a story silently.

Coverage

We're going state by state, starting with South Dakota and Nebraska, plus the story behind each state's own name. See everything we've published so far in the Directory.