I was just wondering.......

[iluleah]

It seems likely with human nature.... take a look at houses people purchase and give them a name often associated with them, where they used to live or some other local association they had.

[Mike Morrell (NL)]

I have absolutely no evidence to support or disprove whether migrants gravitated to towns with whose names they were familiar or not. I would be surprised if they did, simply because the countries to which people migrated are so vast. I wonder whether migrants even knew that some towns in the country were named after the town/county which they'd recently left.
 I quickly browsed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_locations_in_the_world_with_an_English_name. My impression is that towns in other countries that have a 'UK equivalent' took their names in a wide variety of ways. In a few cases there was a majority of migrants from one area. In many more cases, the local governor just decided (his birthplace or that of his superior being a factor). In other cases, towns tookon  the name of a farm that had been named by its owner. In still other cases the mayor/council had simply decided that the current name (Swampy ...) wasn't very attractive and decided to rename it "Torbay".

There is undoubtedly some kind of connection between the UK migrants/descents and the names chosen.

The same town names (with a UK town/county equivalent) occur in multiple US, Australian and South African states. Often they are copied from a local (country) town name and not from the original UK town/county name.

Whether migrants migrate to towns whose names are familiar I have no idea. But the basis on which town names were chosen suggests to me that the names were more often than not arbitrary.

[josey]

My 3 x great grandfather emigrated from Midgley near Halifax, Yorkshire to near Halifax Nova Scotia around 1810. I think it was co-incidence though - probably he'd seen an advert of some kind or somehow been told about work & land there. He was a weaver & the area was the epicentre of the Luddite revolt so he must have thought he'd have work and a better life if he emigrated. He became a chair maker.

[iluleah]

Maybe it is a unconscious decision/draw they see/move to a name of a town as it makes them feel more familiar

[Mowsehowse]

Maybe it is a unconscious decision/draw they see/move to a name of a town as it makes them feel more familiar

Interesting research Mike - thank you.

Josey, I suspect your ancestor may have chosen his destination for the reason Iluleah suggests, but who can ever say? 

[jaybelnz]

It's probably the same in a lot of countries, but in NZ there is an amazing number of cities and towns with the names of old English and Scottish towns.  I'm thinking it's probably due to our Early Settlers from England and Scotland naming them!  Now, our towns and cities have dual names, Maori and English!  As it should be! The Mori Ori and Maori people were here long before anyone else, and when the English arrived, they bought the country with muskets buttons and blankets! 

[Rosinish]

Can Roots Chatters provide evidence that people who emigrated from UK gravitated to places named after their own home town?

mh, do you have a particular query with your own family, from where they came, where they migrated to etc?

I believe a lot of Canadian towns were named after Scottish towns as being where the scots settled & names were taken from their scottish homeland towns.

Nova Scotia being New Scotland

This is a prominent one;

"Boisdale is a community in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, located in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality on Cape Breton Island. It was named for Lochboisdale, the main village of the island of South Uist in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland."

My own paternal roots begin in Boisdale, South Uist so it's nice to see the name was re-used.

I also discovered a pub named 'Boisdale' in London although as far as I'm aware this 'Boisdale' did not have his roots on South Uist although I'm sure he's a MacDonald of Clanranald?
I read about it a long time ago but my memory isn't great so I may have my info. muddled like myself 

Annie

[Mowsehowse]

Rosinish - no personal enquiry.  Both you and Jaybelnz highlight the fact of so many "new" places being named after places in  the UK.

(Victoria Wood did a very interesting TV presentation about places around the world named Victoria.)

My train of thought was sparked having driven through Wellington in Somerset after seeing a news report about something in Wellington NZ and then noticing an Rc enquiry including the Wellington name......

Actually, we DO have rellies in Wellington NZ, but they emigrated from Paignton in Torbay. 

[JanPennington]

In New South Wales explorers sent in land by the authorities tended to name places after British officials - Bathurst, Goulburn, Castlereagh or local dignitaries.  My nearest town is called Lithgow named after one of the government surveyors. 
Thomas Brown and his wife, Mary Maxwell came to the area from Dumfriesshire  and they named their house Eskbank after the River Esk in the area they came from.  Thomas tried very hard to get the name Eskbank for the growing community around his house but he was fighting a losing battle, as the maps prepared before he arrived, labelled the area Vale of Lithgow.  He did get a railway station named Eskbank (now closed) and a coal mine called Eskbank Colliery.  He donated money for a school and when the local newspaper said the school would be Lithgow Public School he wrote to complain.  In his house, which is now a museum, there is a silver trowel he used to lay the foundation stone which is inscribed Eskbank School but the school is called Lithgow Public School.
Jan