Yes. There are rather a lot, but if we restrict “reasonably important” to places that one might actually encounter on a map or hear of, rather than every tiny township, the list becomes manageable. I’ve also treated namesake fairly strictly—i.e. the American or Canadian place was actually named for the British one, rather than merely happening to have the same name.
England → United States
| British town/city | U.S. namesake(s) |
|---|---|
| Birmingham | Birmingham, Alabama; Birmingham, Michigan; Birmingham, Iowa |
| Boston | Boston, Massachusetts |
| Bristol | Bristol, Tennessee; Bristol, Connecticut; Bristol, Virginia |
| Cambridge | Cambridge, Massachusetts |
| Canterbury | Canterbury, Connecticut |
| Chester | Chester, Pennsylvania; Chester, New York and others |
| Coventry | Coventry, Connecticut |
| Dover | Dover, New Hampshire; Dover, Delaware |
| Durham | Durham, New Hampshire |
| Exeter | Exeter, New Hampshire |
| Gloucester | Gloucester, Massachusetts |
| Greenwich | Greenwich, Connecticut |
| Ipswich | Ipswich, Massachusetts |
| Lancaster | Lancaster, Pennsylvania |
| Leeds | Leeds, Alabama |
| Leicester | Leicester, Massachusetts |
| Lincoln | Lincoln, Nebraska |
| Liverpool | Liverpool, New York |
| London | New London, Connecticut; London, Kentucky and others |
| Manchester | Manchester, New Hampshire; Manchester, Connecticut |
| Newcastle | Newcastle, Indiana, etc. |
| Norwich | Norwich, Connecticut |
| Nottingham | Nottingham, Maryland |
| Oxford | Oxford, Mississippi; Oxford, Ohio and others |
| Peterborough | Peterborough, New Hampshire |
| Plymouth | Plymouth, Massachusetts |
| Portsmouth | Portsmouth, New Hampshire |
| Reading | Reading, Pennsylvania |
| Rochester | Rochester, New York |
| Sheffield | Sheffield, Alabama |
| Shrewsbury | Shrewsbury, Massachusetts; Shrewsbury, New Jersey |
| Southampton | Southampton, New York |
| Warwick | Warwick, Rhode Island |
| Wells | Wells, Maine |
| Westminster | Westminster, California |
| Windsor | Windsor, Connecticut; Windsor, California |
| Winchester | Winchester, Virginia |
| Worcester | Worcester, Massachusetts |
| York | York, Pennsylvania |
There are some particularly interesting cases. Boston, Massachusetts, for example, really was named for Boston, Lincolnshire; the enormous American Boston is therefore ultimately named after a fairly modest English town.
And New London, Connecticut is explicitly London-with-a-“New” attached—exactly the sort of thing you're asking about.
England → Canada
Canada has an even more conspicuous collection:
| British town/city | Canadian namesake |
|---|---|
| Bath | Bath, New Brunswick |
| Birmingham | Birmingham, Alberta |
| Bristol | Bristol, New Brunswick |
| Brighton | Brighton, Ontario; Brighton, Nova Scotia |
| Cambridge | Cambridge, Ontario |
| Canterbury | Canterbury, New Brunswick |
| Chester | Chester, Nova Scotia |
| Dartmouth | Dartmouth, Nova Scotia |
| Dover | Dover, Nova Scotia |
| Exeter | Exeter, Ontario |
| Gloucester | Gloucester, Ontario/New Brunswick |
| Halifax | Halifax, Nova Scotia |
| Liverpool | Liverpool, Nova Scotia |
| Manchester | Manchester, Nova Scotia |
| Oxford | Oxford, Nova Scotia |
| Peterborough | Peterborough, Ontario |
| Plymouth | Plymouth, Nova Scotia |
| Portsmouth | Portsmouth, Ontario |
| Stratford | Stratford, Ontario |
| Truro | Truro, Nova Scotia |
| Windsor | Windsor, Ontario; Windsor, Nova Scotia |
| Worcester | Worcester, Ontario |
| Woodstock | Woodstock, Ontario/New Brunswick |
| York | York, Ontario (now part of Toronto) |
The Canadian list gets especially interesting because several provinces contain clusters of English names. Nova Scotia is almost an exercise in English geography: Liverpool, Manchester, Chester, Windsor, Oxford, Truro, Dartmouth, Brighton, Plymouth, Southampton, Weymouth, Yarmouth, etc.
Scotland → United States and Canada
Scotland contributes fewer really large names, but some quite recognizable ones:
| Scotland | U.S./Canadian namesake |
|---|---|
| Aberdeen | Aberdeen, Washington |
| Dundee | Dundee, Florida; Dundee, Ontario |
| Dumfries | Dumfries, Virginia |
| Dunfermline | Dunfermline, Illinois |
| Perth | Perth, Ontario |
| Ayr | Mount Ayr, Iowa; Ayr, Ontario |
| Banff | Banff, Alberta |
| Bannockburn | Bannockburn, Illinois |
| Stirling | Stirling, Ontario |
| Glasgow | Glasgow, Kentucky; Glasgow, Missouri and others |
| Edinburgh | Edinburgh, Indiana |
| Hamilton | Hamilton, Ontario — although this one is not named for Hamilton, Scotland; it was named for a person, so I wouldn't count it |
The Scottish contribution is a nice reminder that same name and namesake aren't necessarily identical. The lists of U.S. place-name origins contain cases such as Aberdeen, Dumfries, Dundee and Dunfermline where the Scottish connection is explicit.
Wales
And Wales contributes a modest but very recognizable set:
| Wales | U.S./Canadian namesake |
|---|---|
| Bangor | Bangor, Maine; Bangor, Pennsylvania |
| Cardiff | Cardiff, Maryland |
| Swansea | Swansea, Massachusetts; Swansea, Ontario |
| Newport | Newport, Rhode Island — but not named for Newport, Wales, so this is a false friend |
| Pembroke | Pembroke, Massachusetts; Pembroke, Ontario |
| Brecon | Brecon/Beacon, Iowa |
| Haverford | Haverford, Pennsylvania |
| Narberth | Narberth, Pennsylvania |
| New Radnor | Radnor, Pennsylvania |
The Welsh list is unusually prone to American spelling alterations: Brecon → Beacon, for example.
And the “New” phenomenon
There is a particularly entertaining subset where the colonists essentially said “we'll have that one too, but newer.”
New York → York, England
New London → London, England
New Brighton → Brighton, England
New Bedford → Bedford, England
Newbury → Newbury, England
Newcastle → Newcastle upon Tyne, England
New Plymouth → Plymouth, England (especially in New Zealand, though, rather than North America)
New Westminster → Westminster, London
New Windsor → Windsor, England
Newport is trickier because there are several possible sources and shouldn't automatically be assigned to Wales.
The really striking thing is that the American and Canadian naming landscape contains a sort of ghost map of Britain. If you know English geography, places such as Boston, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Dover, Exeter, Manchester, Birmingham, York, Lancaster, Reading, Worcester, Cambridge and Oxford immediately explain a surprising amount of North American geography.
And there are many more if we lower the threshold from “reasonably important town” to “any incorporated town or township.” One compilation, for example, runs through hundreds of Canadian English-derived names, including such wonderfully obscure carryovers as Didsbury, Matlock, Ipswich, Helston, Penzance and Torquay.
If you'd like, I can make the more interesting version: perhaps the 50 biggest/most consequential North American towns and cities that were named after British places, with population and the original British town alongside them. That would reveal some amusing mismatches in size.
Ah! I think you may mean New Castle, Colorado—and that would fit your memory remarkably well.
It is on the old road/I-70 route between Glenwood Springs and Rifle, about 12 miles west of Glenwood Springs. It was—and to some extent still is—a very small mountain town. The present-day town has gas stations and a lodge/hotel right by the highway.
And there's a nice connection to our preceding discussion: New Castle, Colorado is indeed a North American Newcastle name, though its history is a little more complicated than simply “named after Newcastle upon Tyne.” The Colorado town was originally a coal-mining settlement, and the name was associated with Newcastle upon Tyne, reflecting the coal connection.
Your description of “gas station and lodge” sounds exactly like the sort of place one would remember from traveling that road decades ago—one of those Colorado places that was essentially a few buildings and a sign saying you were somewhere. The old lodge building in New Castle even spent part of its history as a gas station/general store before becoming lodging.
So I think you've probably just supplied another one for our list: New Castle, Colorado — Newcastle upon Tyne, England.
Yes, Dover, New Jersey is a good one—and you're quite right that Oxford and Cambridge proliferated partly because they sounded grand.
There is an interesting distinction, though. Some of the names were straightforward commemorative naming by English settlers, while others were almost social advertising: we may be in rural New Jersey, but our town is Oxford.
Oxford and Cambridge are especially bad offenders. There are numerous American Oxfords and Cambridges, and not all are necessarily named after the English cities. Sometimes the name was chosen simply because it had an appropriately cultivated sound. The same thing happened with Athens, Rome, Troy, Corinth, and a host of classical names.
And Dover is interesting because it has become so thoroughly Americanized that one forgets its English origin. Dover, New Hampshire and Dover, Delaware are obvious examples, while Dover, New Jersey was originally called Indian Head and acquired the Dover name later.
I think your larger point is exactly right: if we made a list of all American places whose names came from Britain, we'd get a mixture of homesickness, geographical commemoration, aspiration, and sheer pretension. And it would be fun to separate those categories.
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