[johnfowles]

Originally Posted by Louise

Oh drat. You've found me out! But it's Moncton, NB (not NS). We don't like to be confused with the Nova Scotians to the south.
Louise

Well all I can say is that the worthy burghers who opened up New Brunswick in common with the original settlers of the States must have had extremely limited imaginations, if both NB and NS have a Moncton, a fact that as a British/Canadian/United States citizen I am ashamed to admit I was hitherto unaware of
I checked to see which came first and after some determined googling I found
http://www.moncton.net/articles/307.htm

which says re Moncton NS
"It was named after Lieut-General Robert Monckton. He was born in Yorkshire, England and came to Nova Scotia as a boy"
and
"In 1855 Moncton was incorporated as a city. As the result of a clerical error the "k" was dropped off the city’s name. While it was possible to correct that, both the public and the Mayor Joseph Salter decided to leave it as is."
The Mayor might have been a predecessor of Niagara Tom??
the Moncton NB wiki at:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moncton

says
"Moncton was founded in 1766 and was initially an agricultural settlement and was first incorporated in 1855. Moncton was named after Lt. Col. Robert Monckton.
So apart from the discrepancy over his rank it would appear to be a chicken and egg situation.
No doubt the worthy man had two families on the same basis as sailors' ports of call??
Any comments Loiuise and/or Omer??
But the name of the province was definitely stolen from the city in New Jersey (if not from Germany)
The province's name comes from the English translation for the city of Braunschweig in north Germany. the ancestral home of the Hanoverian King George III of the United Kingdom.
the colony of New Brunswick was created by Sir Thomas Carleton on
August 16 1784
The New Jersey city of New Brunswick was formed by Royal Charter on December 30,1730
In 1714, the young village was given the name New Brunswick after the city of Braunschweig. in state of Lower Saxony in Germany. Braunschweig was an influential and powerful city in the Hanseatic League, later in the Holy Toman Empire, and was an administrative seat for the Duchy (and later Principality) of Hanover. Shortly after the first settlement of New Brunswick in colonial New Jersey, George, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, and Elector of Hanover, of the House Of Hanover (also known as the House of Brunswick), became King gGeorge I of Great Britain (1660-1727)
This all reminds me of Cape Cod where there is a city and county mistakenly called Barnstable, whereas the original in Devon UK is Barnstaple (often mispelt in the UK too). interestingly these two cities are twinned
Also Bridgewater in Somerset county New Jersey is possibly named after the original in Somerset county UK and should therefore have been spelt Bridgwater.
Here endeth today's Geography and History lessons , ladles and jellyspoons