Why does America have a Paris, Texas AND a Paris, Kentucky — plus 20+ other Parises? The surprising history of copycat town names, from gratitude to homesickness.
There’s a diner in Paris, Texas — I won’t name it, because the pie’s already good enough that it doesn’t need my help drawing a crowd — where you can eat coconut meringue while looking at a 65-foot Eiffel Tower wearing a giant red cowboy hat. I sat there once, fork in hand, genuinely stuck on a question that sounds like a bar bet: why is there a Paris, Texas and a Paris, Kentucky? And about twenty other Parises besides?
Quick answer: America has at least 23 places named Paris. Paris, Kentucky (renamed 1790) was a thank-you to France for its help in the Revolutionary War. Paris, Texas (named 1844) simply borrowed the glamour of the French capital, as did most others. Copycat town names are one of America’s oldest habits — born of gratitude, homesickness, and ambition.
The short version is that Americans have been copying town names since before we were technically Americans. The long version — which involves a French king, a land speculator, and an interstate Eiffel Tower arms race — is way more fun. Alright, let’s get into it.
So Why Is There a Paris, Texas AND a Paris, Kentucky?
The Kentucky One Came First — and It Was a Thank-You Note
Paris, Kentucky, is the elder statesman here, and its story is genuinely sweet. The settlement dates to 1776, and in 1789 the town was formally established under the deeply forgettable name Hopewell. One year later, in 1790, it was renamed Paris — explicitly in gratitude to France for helping the colonies win the Revolutionary War, according to the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.
The whole county got in on the sentiment: Bourbon County is named for the French royal line, per Morehead State University’s Kentucky county histories. Yes — the county that gave the world bourbon whiskey is named after French royalty. Fuhgeddaboudit. You can’t make that up, and I’m not gonna lie to you, I find it delightful.
Today, Paris, Kentucky, is a horse-country town of 10,171 people (2020 Census), all white fences and foals. It’s less “copycat” and more “handwritten letter of thanks, in municipal form.”
The Texas One Was Pure Ambition, Wearing a Cowboy Hat
Paris, Texas, arrived 54 years later and for a completely different reason. Merchant George W. Wright founded the town, and in 1844 it was named the seat of the new Lamar County — with the name “Paris” reportedly suggested by Wright’s employee Thomas Poteet, after the French capital. It was incorporated in 1845, according to the Paris Economic Development Corporation.
No war debt here. Naming your raw frontier settlement after the most glamorous city on Earth was a branding move — aspiration, plain and simple. And it worked out fine: modern Paris, Texas, holds 24,476 people (2020 Census) and the aforementioned Eiffel Tower, built in 1993 by a local ironworkers’ union, per the city’s official tourism page.
Here’s the catch, and it’s my favorite detail in American roadside history: in 1998, town boosters added a large red cowboy hat to the top of the tower, tilted at a jaunty angle — according to Roadside America, partly because Paris, Tennessee, had built its own Eiffel Tower and the Texas one needed to stay the biggest little Eiffel in the game. An interstate height war, fought with sheet metal and a giant Stetson. God bless this country.
How Many Parises Are There, Anyway?
This is where it gets fun. Counting towns, townships, and unincorporated communities, there are at least 23 places named Paris in the United States — Paris, Idaho; Paris, Arkansas; Paris, Illinois; Paris, Maine; New Paris, Ohio; and so on. Estimates range from 22 to 24 depending on whether you count townships, so treat the exact number as “two dozen, give or take a township.”
America’s Parises: The Greatest Hits
| Paris | State | Founded/Named | Claim to Fame |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paris | Kentucky | 1790 | Named in gratitude for French aid in the Revolution; horse country |
| Paris | Texas | 1844 | 65-ft Eiffel Tower with a red cowboy hat |
| Paris | Tennessee | 1820s | Its own Eiffel Tower — the rival that forced Texas to add the hat |
| Paris | Illinois | 1820s | Edgar County seat, classic courthouse-square Midwest |
| Paris | Maine | 1793 | Home of a genuine “Paris Hill” historic district |
Five of America’s 20+ Parises. Not one of them serves a decent croissant. (Kidding. Mostly.)
Why Does America Keep Copying Town Names?
Once you notice the pattern, you see it everywhere — and it turns out there are four big engines driving America’s copycat town names.
1. Gratitude
Paris, Kentucky, is the textbook case. After the Revolution, naming something after France or the Marquis de Lafayette was the 1790s equivalent of a very public fist bump. That’s also why there’s a Fayetteville in roughly every state that existed before 1825.
2. Homesickness
The biggest driver, full stop. According to Wikipedia’s sprawling list of U.S. places named after non-U.S. places, the majority of transferred names came from immigrants naming their new home after the old one. Hence New York, New England, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New Mexico — settlers packing the one thing that weighed nothing: a name.
3. Aspiration and the Classical Fad
In the early 1800s, educated Americans were deep in a love affair with ancient Greece and Rome, and town names followed. Memphis, Tennessee, founded in 1819, was named after the ancient capital of Egypt — the logic being that it sat on the Mississippi the way old Memphis sat on the Nile, a “place of good abode” with metropolitan ambitions, per the history documented on Wikipedia.
Same era, same impulse: Athens, Georgia, was named by John Milledge after the Greek home of Plato’s Academy, because the town was being built around a brand-new university — Franklin College, chartered 1785 — and the founders hoped it would become a center of classical learning, per Visit Athens, GA. That’s not a copycat name. That’s a mission statement.
4. Straight-Up Flattery and Promotion
Some names were chosen to butter up a railroad executive, honor a founder, or make a land speculation sound prestigious. Nineteenth-century town-building was part civic project, part real-estate hustle — and a famous name was free marketing.
When the Copied Name Gets a New Accent
Here’s a pattern you’ll notice on any long American road trip: we don’t just copy the names — we redesign the pronunciation. Sometimes aggressively.
The famous case is Cairo, Illinois, which locals pronounce nothing like the Egyptian “KY-ro” — reported variously as “KAY-ro” or “CARE-ro,” depending on which southern Illinoisan you ask, a split documented by The Week and confirmed by the University of Illinois’ own place-name pronunciation project. And Versailles, Kentucky? Say “vur-SIGH” in the Bluegrass and you’ll get the same look you’d get ordering a hot dog with ketchup in Queens. It’s “vur-SALES,” on the reg, forever.
My read on it: the mispronunciation isn’t ignorance. It’s the final step of making the name ours. France gets Paris. We get Paris — and we’ll say it with a twang if we feel like it.
“A town name in America is less a label than a fossil — dig two inches down and you find out who the settlers loved, missed, or wanted to impress.”
Who Keeps All These Names Straight?
Fair question, because duplication got genuinely out of hand. Depending on how you count, Washington is the most common place name in the country — World Atlas tallies 88 across all place types, while a stricter cities-only count by BatchGeo puts it at 46, followed by Franklin (43) and Clinton (39). Either way: if you tell an American “meet me in Washington,” you have not, technically, communicated.
The traffic cop for all this is the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, run through the U.S. Geological Survey, which has been standardizing federal place names since 1890. And the Post Office played enforcer long before that — through the 1800s, postal authorities routinely pushed duplicate town names to change, because two Springfields in one state is how your letters end up in the wrong zip code and your great-great-grandmother never gets her seed catalog.
It’s the same stubborn local pride that explains why Americans wave at strangers — the name on the water tower might be borrowed, but the town under it is theirs, no cap.
Quiz: How Copycat-Fluent Are You?
Test yourself. Answers at the bottom — no peeking. 🇺🇸
- Which American Paris was named to thank France for Revolutionary War help?
- What sits on top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Texas?
- Memphis, Tennessee, is named after a city in which country?
- True or false: There are more places named Washington in America than any other name.
- How do locals pronounce Versailles, Kentucky?
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is there a Paris, Texas and a Paris, Kentucky?
They were named independently, decades apart, for different reasons. Paris, Kentucky, was renamed from Hopewell in 1790 to thank France for its Revolutionary War support. Paris, Texas, was named in 1844 after the French capital as an aspirational choice by the town’s founders. Neither copied the other — both borrowed from the same famous original.
How many towns named Paris are there in the United States?
At least 23, depending on whether you count townships and unincorporated communities. The roster includes Parises in Texas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois, Arkansas, Idaho, Maine, and Missouri, among others. Several — including Paris, Texas, and Paris, Tennessee — have built their own Eiffel Tower replicas.
What is the most common town name in America?
Washington, by most counts — 88 places across all geographic categories, per World Atlas, or 46 if you count incorporated cities only, per BatchGeo. Franklin and Clinton round out the top three. The exact ranking shifts with methodology, but Washington wins under every counting system.
Why do American towns have European names?
Mostly because immigrants named new settlements after the homes they left, and partly because early Americans admired — or wanted to borrow prestige from — famous Old World cities. Gratitude (Paris, Kentucky), homesickness (New England’s English names), and aspiration (Athens, Memphis, Rome) are the three big reasons.
Is the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Texas, bigger than the one in Paris, Tennessee?
Yes — deliberately. The Texas tower stands 65 feet and gained its famous red cowboy hat in 1998, a move local lore ties to staying ahead of Tennessee’s rival tower. Both are dwarfed by the 1,083-foot original in France, but neither Texas nor Tennessee has ever let France’s opinion count for much.
Back to the Pie
So here’s where I landed, finishing that slice of coconut meringue under a 65-foot Eiffel Tower in a cowboy hat: America’s copycat town names aren’t a failure of imagination. They’re the opposite. Every duplicated name is a little time capsule — gratitude in Kentucky, ambition in Texas, homesickness in New England, daydreams of Athens in Georgia.
The name is borrowed. The town is original. That’s the whole trick, and it works every single time.
Next road trip, pull over when the sign says a name you recognize from somewhere else. There’s always a story under it — and usually, a diner nearby.
Quiz answers: 1) Paris, Kentucky (renamed 1790). 2) A giant red cowboy hat, added in 1998. 3) Egypt. 4) True — by any counting method. 5) “Vur-SALES.” Say it right or don’t say it at all.
5. Source List (in order of first use)
- https://www.achp.gov/preserve-america/community/paris-kentucky — Paris, KY renamed 1790 in gratitude for French aid
- https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1146&context=kentucky_county_histories — Bourbon County named for French royal line
- https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/pariscitykentucky/PST045225 — Paris, KY population (10,171, 2020 Census)
- https://selectparistexas.com/live-in-paris/our-history/ — Paris, TX county seat 1844, incorporated 1845, named after Paris, France
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris,_Texas — Wright/Poteet founding detail, corroborated by Tour Texas
- https://data.census.gov/profile/Paris_city,_Texas?g=160XX00US4855080 — Paris, TX population (24,476, 2020 Census)
- https://www.paristexas.com/eiffel-tower/ — 65-ft tower, first erected 1993
- https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/6995 — red cowboy hat added 1998, ironworkers’ union
- https://www.spudart.org/blog/what-if-all-23-cities-america-named-paris-had-own-eiffel-tow/ — ~23 American Parises (corroborated by Wikipedia’s Paris disambiguation page)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._places_named_after_non-U.S._places — immigrant naming as majority driver
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Memphis,_Tennessee — Memphis founded 1819, named for Egyptian capital
- https://www.visitathensga.com/plan/about-athens/ — Athens, GA named by Milledge after Athens, Greece; incorporated 1806
- https://theweek.com/articles/463423/20-towns-named-other-towns-but-pronounced-differently — Cairo/Versailles pronunciation divergences
- https://aces.illinois.edu/news/you-say-cairo-i-say-cairo-new-online-resource-provides-audio-pronunciation-illinois-places-and — U. of Illinois pronunciation resource (“CARE-ro”)
- https://www.worldatlas.com/cities/most-common-city-names-in-the-us.html — Washington ×88 ranking
- https://blog.batchgeo.com/most-common-us-city-names/ — cities-only counts (Washington 46, Franklin 43, Clinton 39)
- https://www.usgs.gov/us-board-on-geographic-names/domestic-names — U.S. Board on Geographic Names standardization role
- Internal: https://americurious.com/why-americans-wave-at-strangers/