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Comment by function_seven | Hacker News Reader

I tried looking up "Hollywood" and apparently the entire country assumes this to mean Hollywood, FL.

I assume this means that intra-city place names aren't considered?

Another anomly is comparing "Moscow" and "Cambridge". Most places consider "Moscow" to refer to the Russian capital, but consider "Cambridge" to refer to the city in Kentucky. I would have assumed the UK city would get the win here, but the nuance is that when people use this name, they're almost always referring to the university, and not the town it's located in.

For the dozen or so other cities I tried, it all seemed right to me. "Springfield" and "Portland" in particular.

This is neat!

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> I tried looking up "Hollywood" and apparently the entire country assumes this to mean Hollywood, FL.

Also, take a look at "Springfield" (unfortunately, I can't figure out to link to a result). It says most of the country thinks it's Springfield, MA, which I frankly don't believe. IMHO, the correct answer is most likely Springfield, IL, because that's the capital of Illinois and you'd learn that while learning states and capitals in elementary school.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springfield,_Illinois

Similarly, I think most of the other Springfields have "catchment areas" (for lack of a better term) that are far too large. They should shrink because of the particular "fame" of Springfield, IL.

Edit: After reading https://pudding.cool/2023/03/same-name/method/, I think their "usually refers to" ratings are actually disinformative. It might be OK for places no one ever hears about except through proximity, but "Wikipedia article length" is not a good-enough proxy for cultural knowledge. They really should base this map on some kind of survey data (even a non-scientific internet survey would be far better and probably get pretty close to the truth).

Springfield, MA is quite a bit bigger, though. In fact, Springfield, MO is also larger (at least comparing metropolitan areas) than the capital of Illinois.

This situation happens again between Augusta, GA (where the PGA Masters are held) and Augusta, ME (the capital), and perhaps most confusingly for students, between Salem, OR (the capital) and tiny Salem, MA, which owes its outsized reputation to the infamous witch trials.

But for me as a child, the winner was surely Juno Beach, FL, colloquially "Juno", which was where the snowball shack and the pier were (with its overcrowded surf break), while for most people the syllables in "Juneau" probably refer to somewhere much colder.

> (unfortunately, I can't figure out to link to a result)

HN doesn't do Markdown hyperlinks to prevent scam / fake links. It also doesn't allow bolding. https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc

When I lived in California, MD I went to Hollywood Elementary School a few miles down the road in Hollywood, MD which is also home to Middle Earth, MD.

I can't make this stuff up.

Western Maryland has an Accident.

https://pudding.cool/2023/03/same-name/method/

They list their main data sets, which looks to go down to Wikipedia’s lists of incorporated and unincorporated communities. Hollywood, being only a neighborhood, doesn’t make this list. That said, they are also routinely adding new places manually.

Definitely it would be cool if this handled unofficial names/nicknames. "The City" would be particularly interesting, or "Chinatown".

Also the inverse: what are the most popular names for the same location. "San Francisco" vs "SF" vs "San Fran", for example, or "DC" vs "Washington".

Funny, I grew up in Hollywood, FL, and have always had to tell people I grew up in Fort Lauderdale, lest they though I meant California. Unless, of course, they're Canadian, in which case they all seem to know the Florida city very well.

Also noticed the "Every place named Hollywood, ranked" section doesn't even mention Hollywood, CA, so that may be why the map is skewed.

Upon further investigation, it turns out Hollywood, CA isn't a city, but a neighborhood of the city of Los Angeles, so it's all starting to make sense now.

> Most places consider... "Cambridge" to refer to the city in Kentucky

By "most places" I feel like we mean the USA? I live in the university town of Cambridge, England and have never heard anyone in Europe talk about Cambridge, Kentucky. I never knew Cambridge, KY existed until today, despite encountering all the lost waifs in /r/cambridge trying to talk about Cambridge, MA or Cambridge, Ontario.

I think this is wrong.

When I hear Cambridge I think Harvard/MIT. I know Cambridge England exists, but don't really know anything about it. I had no idea Cambridge Kentucky existed and I live much closer to Kentucky than I do Massachusetts of England.

I’m in the USA and this is my first time hearing of the Kentucky city. For me “Cambridge” refers 50/50 to either the Massachusetts town or the English university.

There’s also a Cambridge in Ontario Canada. Population 140k.

To me, Cambridge means "Cambridge, MA" first (which is a major part of Boston metropolitan area), or "Cambridge, UK" second. I wasn't aware of other Cambridges.

It said the 2nd ranked "Portland" in NYC is Portland, CT (??) when it should almost certainly be Portland, MA

The Cambridge results are clearly a big of some sort. By their own metrics Cambridge MA should rank much higher.

Hollywood, California isn't really a town, it's more of a district/neighborhood of Los Angeles.

My wording was clumsy (“intra-city place name”) but yeah that appears to be the reason it’s ignored.

I’m thinking the ZCTA database would be a good source of place names that doesn’t restrict itself to cities and towns.

I had the same example. It is cool when you try Paris, Paris still means Paris, FR

surprisingly, it gets Vancouver, WA vs Vancouver, CA and Georgia correct.

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