Towns in close proximity with names that are related and/or seem to go together?

[GaryV]

^^^

Also Litchfield, one of the CT towns my wife's ancestors were from.

Could it be because of the Western Reserve?

[Dirt Roads]

How about the Oranges in New Jersey?  The city of Orange is surrounded by North Orange, East Orange, South Orange and West Orange.  [I would say that's colorful, but since I live in Orange County NC, I'd be stabbing myself in the foot].

[Buck87]

Could it be because of the Western Reserve?

Yes. The Firelands, originally called Sufferers Lands, was the far western section of the Connecticut Western Reserve set aside as financial restitution for several Connecticut towns that had been burned by the British during the American Revolutionary War. That land is now modern day Erie and Huron Counties, as well as Danbury Township in Ottawa County and Ruggles Township in Ashland County.

[The Nature Boy]

Could it be because of the Western Reserve?

Yes. The Firelands, originally called Sufferers Lands, was the far western section of the Connecticut Western Reserve set aside as financial restitution for several Connecticut towns that had been burned by the British during the American Revolutionary War. That land is now modern day Erie and Huron Counties, as well as Danbury Township in Ottawa County and Ruggles Township in Ashland County.

From what I've heard those towns are also laid out like old New England towns. I don't know how true that is.

[I-55]

25 miles is all that separates Gas City and Petroleum, IN, which also happens to be 5 and a half miles form Keystone, IN.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

No longer applies because she just got married, but two adjacent towns in Idaho form the maiden name of my first college crush.

[empirestate]

Out in Central NY, we have the adjacent towns of Victory and Conquest.  There's also an above average number of towns named after Romans in the area - there's Cicero, Brutus, and Cato.  Broadening out to other classical history figures, we have Lysander and Hannibal.

Yeah, there's a whole slew of names from heroic antiquity all in that area: Romulus, Montezuma, Junius, Tyre, Ovid, Sempronius...and all the way over to Homer, Virgil, Pompey, Fabius, and down to Hector and Ulysses.

These are all similar by design, however, being part of the Military Tract when the area was first laid out into towns. (See the link for the complete list of names.) Not quite as coincidental, or partly so, as some of the other examples given.

[lepidopteran]

How about the Oranges in New Jersey?  The city of Orange is surrounded by North Orange, East Orange, South Orange and West Orange.

Actually, North is the only cardinal direction without an Orange.  The NJTP control city for their exit (15?) used to read "Kearny", and "The Oranges".  Make a cool name for a rock band!  Other control city signage reads or read "The Amboys" for Perth and South.  I think there's at least one sign (on US 46?) reading "The Ridgefields" (R and R Park), sounding like it could be the name of a sitcom.

Also in The Garden State, you got the Brunswicks: New, North, South, and East.  West is the odd-man-out in that case.  There is a plain "Brunswick" in MD, across the river from Harpers Ferry, WV, but that one's kind of far.

[Desert Man]

Winston-Salem NC, you have Wilkes-Barre PA, were they two separate cities at one time?

Indio CA was once Indian Wells, the name of an another town in the Palm Springs area.

And Danbury CT not far from Waterbury CT...you have a lot of Bury towns in western CT.

[GenExpwy]

South and southeast of Utica NY there is a contiguous area, extending into four counties, comprised of the towns of Brookfield, Sangerfield, Litchfield, Winfield, Plainfield, Richfield, Springfield, and Middlefield.

Not contiguous, but in the same area, are the towns of Smithfield, Deerfield, Fairfield, and Pittsfield.

[1995hoo]

In Pennsylvania, Intercourse and Paradise are located near each other.

[Roadgeekteen]

The ham towns in MA- Needham, Dedham, Framingham.

[hotdogPi]

The ham towns in MA- Needham, Dedham, Framingham.

There should be a Gotham adjacent to Needham, but unfortunately, there isn't.

[ilpt4u]

Pittsburg and Harrisburg in Southern IL. I'll go out on a limb and say there were some PA migrants that made it to Southern Illinois in the past

[CNGL-Leudimin]

There used to be Petting, Germany and Fucking, Austria not far from each other, with Wank and Kissing further West in Bavaria. Sadly the well-known Austrian village has grown tired of all those jokes in the Internet, and thus has decided to rename itself Fugging, so in a few years time it won't be more known as any other village in its immediate vicinity.

[paulthemapguy]

Holton and Horton are both towns at major junctions in Kansas, and they aren't even 20 miles from each other.

[MikieTimT]

Perry and Perryville, AR are in Perry County, AR, so really not much creativity in that county.  Unless you also consider Toad Suck, AR is also in that county.

[KEVIN_224]

Mifflin and Mifflintown, PA: Neighboring communities in Juniata County, PA that are separated by the Juniata River

There's also Kennebunk and Kennebunkport, Maine.

Maine also has Norway, Mexico and Sweden.

[KEVIN_224]

Winston-Salem NC, you have Wilkes-Barre PA, were they two separate cities at one time?

Indio CA was once Indian Wells, the name of an another town in the Palm Springs area.

And Danbury CT not far from Waterbury CT...you have a lot of Bury towns in western CT.

Danbury, Southbury, Middlebury and Waterbury...and that's just I-84! We also have the Hartfords, Windsors and the Havens...but that's different since it involves cardinal directions in their names (i.e. Windsor, East Windsor, South Windsor...and Windsor Locks as a bonus).

[briantroutman]

There's also Kennebunk and Kennebunkport, Maine.

There are plenty of examples where a primary community spawned a satellite that was named for its relationship to the original location. For instance Port Trevorton, along the Susquehanna River in Central Pennsylvania, was the port where coal mined near Trevorton was transferred to boats for water transport. Cogan Station, which today is little more than a ZIP code encompassing exurban areas north of Williamsport, was so named because it was the location of the railroad station serving nearby Cogan House Township. And then you also have nearby places that share a common namesake. Pottstown, for instance, was named for its founder John Potts. He named his personal home Pottsgrove, a name which was later applied to a suburban CDP abutting the town.

Given the number of Christian settlers in Pennsylvania who adopted biblical place names for their communities, it's not hard to find "Holy Land"  place names nearby, There's the pairing of Galilee and Damscus in Wayne County; Nazareth, Bethlehem, and Emmaus in the Lehigh Valley, Mount Nebo and Bethesda in Lancaster County; etc.

Since people of various ethnicities tended to settle in pockets, you'll find groupings of foreign place names like Berwyn, Bryn Mawr, and Bryn Athyn (Wales); Nottingham, Barnsley, and Oxford (England), Hanover and East Berlin (Germany).

More interesting, in my opinion, are the coincidental placement of bizarre names (along the lines of Moon and Mars as you previously mentioned):

- Lookout and Stalker in Wayne County
- Panic and Desire in Jefferson County
- Buck Run and Doe Run in Chester County
- Rough and Ready and Fearnot in Schuylkill County
- Mutual and Pleasant Unity in Westmoreland County
- Ono and Jonestown in Dauphin County
- Maiden Creek and Virginville in Berks County
- Beartown and Honey Brook in Lancaster and Chester Counties

Winston-Salem NC, you have Wilkes-Barre PA, were they two separate cities at one time?

No–the community adopted the hyphenated name to honor two members of the British Parliament who supported American independence–John Wilkes and Isaac Barré.

[KCRoadFan]

In Pennsylvania, Intercourse and Paradise are located near each other.

Also Bird-in-Hand and Blue Ball.

[roadman65]

Not exactly towns but counties. Thomas County, GA and Jefferson County, Florida form our third president.

Georgia has a Crisp and a Bacon County near each other.

[OCGuy81]

On US 20 to the west of Bend,OR you have the town of Sisters.

Heading east from Bend on 20, you'll come across the tiny dot on the map that is Brothers

[KCRoadFan]

Georgia has a Crisp and a Bacon County near each other.

And Coffee County isn't too far from Bacon County.

[kernals12]

Marlborough, MA has had Northborough, Southborough, and Westborough split off. They must be bad at hygiene.

Also, New Jersey has dozens of places that are variations on one name, for example, Morris County has Morristown, Port Morris, Morris Plains, and just plain old Morris (no pun intended)