Blues, Jazz, Country and Rock Towns and How They Got Their Names
The Mississippi Arts Commission says the Mississippi Blues Trail draws blues fans “from around the globe,” and by 2017 more than 170 of its markers had gone up since the trail opened in December 2006. That’s what music does to a map. You plan a trip around a sound, a hall of fame or a singer’s hometown, and you end up standing in a place that had a story long before the first record.
Here’s the twist: the music came after the names. Only one town on this page is named for a musician, and it became Gene Autry in 1941, after going through three earlier names. The rest are older than any record label. Memphis borrowed its name from the ancient city on the Nile. Detroit is French for a strait, and Chicago comes from a Native word for its river. Nashville, Cleveland, Austin, Vicksburg and Shreveport honor men who had nothing to do with a song, and Hattiesburg is named for a railroad builder’s wife.
This page is for you if you’re planning a trip around jazz, blues, country, bluegrass or rock and want to know what’s behind the name on the sign. Each stop has one checked fact tying it to the music, with its source, and a link to the full story of how the place got its name.
How we picked these. The place is tied to a music genre or musician by an official source (the National Park Service, a state or city, or a national museum or hall of fame based there) or by a serious state encyclopedia, or the site's own article names it as a musician's hometown or namesake. Each story below lists the source that confirms it.
Orleans Parish, LANew Orleans had a storekeeper before it had a store: in October 1717, France appointed one for a post still to be built at a place called New Orleans.
DocumentedThe National Park Service runs New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park here and says early jazz was heard in neighborhoods all over town. Source: Jazz Origins in New Orleans - New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service)
Harrison County, MSBiloxi, Mississippi, carries the name of a tribe whose people, a Mississippi historian reported, called themselves Taneks and refused to be called Biloxis.
DocumentedA Mississippi Blues Trail marker says Jelly Roll Morton lived in Biloxi in the early 1900s and heard the blues at a Reynoir Street den. Source: Biloxi Blues - The Mississippi Blues Trail
Escambia County, FLThe people who gave Pensacola, Florida, its name were gone when Spain built a town on their bay in the 1690s. The name is Choctaw for "hair people."
DocumentedThe Mississippi Blues Trail calls Pensacola an important early center of blues, ragtime, vaudeville and jazz. Source: Pensacola Blues - The Mississippi Blues Trail
Forrest County, MSHattiesburg, Mississippi, is named for Hattie, the wife of railroad builder W. H. Hardy, who picked the town's spot while eating lunch in the pine woods.
DocumentedIn July 1936, a temporary studio upstairs in the Hotel Hattiesburg recorded blues and gospel acts, the Mississippi Blues Trail says. Source: Roots of Rock 'n' Roll - The Mississippi Blues Trail
Hinds County, MSThe men sent to find a capital near Mississippi's center in 1821 picked a bluff about 35 miles (56 km) south of it, and the town there became Jackson.
DocumentedTrumpet Records started on Farish Street in 1950, and the Blues Trail calls it Mississippi's first label to reach national stature. Source: Trumpet Records - The Mississippi Blues Trail
Warren County, MSNewitt Vick planned the city that became Vicksburg, Mississippi, but he died in 1819 before he could sell a single lot, and the town took his name anyway.
DocumentedBlues songwriter Willie Dixon was born in Vicksburg on July 1, 1915, a Mississippi Blues Trail marker says. Source: Willie Dixon - The Mississippi Blues Trail
Caddo Parish, LAShreveport, Louisiana, is named for Henry Miller Shreve, a steamboat captain sent to clear a logjam choking the Red River for nearly 180 miles (290 km).
DocumentedLouisiana's tourism office says the Municipal Auditorium, former home of the Louisiana Hayride, is a National Historic Landmark. Source: Shreveport Municipal Auditorium | Explore Louisiana
Montgomery County, ALEverybody agrees Montgomery, Alabama, is named for a man called Montgomery, but the old books don't agree on which one.
DisputedThe Hank Williams Museum, a tribute to the musician, opened in Montgomery in 1999, the Encyclopedia of Alabama says. Source: Hank Williams Museum - Encyclopedia of Alabama
Shelby County, TNMemphis, Tennessee, borrowed its name from the ancient city on the Nile, and an 1820 notice about the new town called the Mississippi "the American Nile."
DisputedA Blues Trail marker in Memphis says the world found Memphis blues largely through Beale Street bandleader W. C. Handy. Source: Memphis Blues - The Mississippi Blues Trail
Davidson County, TNHenry Gannett's 1905 place-name book said Nashville, Tennessee, honored Abner Nash, a governor, and only then mentioned General Francis Nash.
DocumentedNashville is home to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. Source: Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
Hamilton County, TNChattanooga, Tennessee, took a Native name in 1838, but Cherokee speakers told James Mooney it wasn't a Cherokee word and had no meaning in their language.
DocumentedBessie Smith was born in Chattanooga and started out singing for change on Ninth Street, the Tennessee Encyclopedia says. Source: Bessie Smith - Tennessee Encyclopedia
Daviess County, KYRiver travelers called the spot Yellow Banks, the 1816 town plat said Rossboro, and by 1818 it was Owensborough, for a colonel killed at Tippecanoe.
DocumentedKentucky's tourism office says Owensboro's Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum houses the bluegrass association's Hall of Fame. Source: Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame - Kentucky's Musical Legacy (Kentucky Tourism)
Cook County, ILChicago, Illinois, takes its name from a Native word for its river, and the oldest records tie that word to the wild garlic that grew there.
DisputedChicago made the Chess Records Office and Studio a city landmark in 1990, citing its blues and rock 'n' roll recordings. Source: Chicago Landmarks - Chess Records Office and Studio
Wayne County, MIDetroit, Michigan, took its name from the river, and the river got it from French explorers who called it a détroit, a strait.
DocumentedMotown Museum, home of Hitsville U.S.A. and its Studio A, is in Detroit. Source: Motown Museum | Home of Hitsville U.S.A.
Cuyahoga County, OHCleveland, Ohio, is missing a letter: the surveyor it's named for, Moses Cleaveland, spelled his name with an a.
DocumentedThe Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is in Cleveland. Source: Visit | Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
St. Louis County, MNIn 1856, a missionary was promised two town lots if he could find a good name for Duluth, Minnesota, so he went hunting through other people's old books.
DocumentedBob Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman in Duluth on May 24, 1941, says a 2016 proclamation by Minnesota's governor. Source: Bob Dylan Day proclamation, State of Minnesota (2016)
Jackson County, MOKansas City, Missouri, almost became Port Fonda. Its founders called it Kansas in 1838, years before there was a Kansas Territory to borrow the name from.
DocumentedThe American Jazz Museum sits in Kansas City's historic 18th & Vine Jazz District. Source: About us | American Jazz Museum
Carter County, OKBefore it took the name of a singing cowboy in 1941, the little town of Gene Autry, Oklahoma, had already been Lou, Dresden and Berwyn.
DocumentedBerwyn was renamed Gene Autry in 1941 for the singing cowboy, who had bought a ranch nearby, the Oklahoma Historical Society says. Source: Gene Autry (town) - The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture
Okfuskee County, OKOkemah, Oklahoma, is named for a chief called Okemah. A 1952 local history says he helped scare off rowdy cowboys with a shotgun that had no shells.
DisputedWoody Guthrie was born in Okemah on July 14, 1912, the Oklahoma Historical Society's encyclopedia says. Source: Guthrie, Woodrow Wilson - The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture
Travis County, TXAustin, Texas, got its name by law in January 1839, before anyone had picked the spot where the new capital would stand.
DocumentedAustin officially adopted the slogan "Live Music Capital of the World" in 1991, says a guide from the city's Austin History Center. Source: Austin's Live Music Scene Subject Guide (Austin History Center, Austin Public Library)
King County, WALong before Seattle got its name from Chief Seattle, a trader at Fort Nisqually was writing the chief's name as "See yat."
DocumentedSeattle Parks says Jimi Hendrix Park is in the Central District, near where Hendrix grew up. Source: Jimi Hendrix Park - Parks | seattle.gov
Sources for this page
- The Mississippi Blues Trail and Beyond: Teacher's Guide (Mississippi Arts Commission) (accessed Oct 31, 2026)