DBWI: names of places after American victory in Mexican-American War

If the US had won the Mexican-American war, rumor has it they'd go as far as to annex not only Texas but all the way to California!

I imagine they'd keep the name "California"... But what about New Mexico, how would it be called? And how would the Americans call cities like Los Ángeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, San Diego, Cabo San Lucas, etc.?
 
If the US had won the Mexican-American war, rumor has it they'd go as far as to annex not only Texas but all the way to California!

I imagine they'd keep the name "California"... But what about New Mexico, how would it be called? And how would the Americans call cities like Los Ángeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, San Diego, Cabo San Lucas, etc.?

I am sure that Polk would rename some of the cities after himself.
 
The Americans winning the Mexican-American war is a really under-used POD, I think. It was a much closer affair than people tend to think. (Similar to the way they misjudge the Austro-Russian War, you know?)

If you want to ensure Mexican defeat, you can always have them end up with a less balanced constitution. I read a TL where Mexico is really screwed and constant internal power struggles destabilize the country. That would allow the Americans to win the war later on, I'd say.

As for names: remember that Polk was a big fan of his predecessor, Jackson, so I'd bet you would see a 'state of Jackson' being carved out somewhere. Maybe it would be the name of OTL's Nuevo México? Cities - they'd probly go for typical uninspired names. Los Ángeles might be 'Angelton', San Francisco would be 'Francistown', etc.

And I agree that there would be a 'Polkville' or two about the place.
 
I think people tend to forget just how much land that is - even going to Alta California would be more than half of Mexico, and more land than the US had already gained with Louisiana. Yeah, it may have been underpopulated - but so was the rest of the western US at the time. What would prevent a post-Recovery Mexico from pulling the same stunt as the US with Texas, and sending settlers up into lands the US only nominally ruled? Not to mention that the US couldn't even agree on how much land it wanted to take, with the whole slavery debate going on and all.

That being said, if it did happen, names would probably be rather boring. Short stuff that comes out well in English would probably be preserved - see how they kept the French name for Louisiana and the Spanish one for Florida - but otherwise, stuff will probably get renamed for early American settlers or cities back east, kind of how cities in the Louisiana territories got named IOTL. Or native-sounding stuff. The US tried to use Idaho, god forbid, several times for a state's name. Do you know what Idaho means? It doesn't mean anything, it just "sounded native"

OOC: The Idaho thing is contested origin, but I thought it was still a fair point.
 
If the US had won the Mexican-American war, rumor has it they'd go as far as to annex not only Texas but all the way to California!

I imagine they'd keep the name "California"... But what about New Mexico, how would it be called? And how would the Americans call cities like Los Ángeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, San Diego, Cabo San Lucas, etc.?

I dunno, exactly, but I do recall Norman Turtledove writing a TL back in the early '90s about the U.S. winning the war; but the President in that TL was Henry Clay, and not Polk as in our world(btw, every single one of California's major cities kept it's original name ITTL.). In fact, Turtledove, for a long time, has advocated the view that Polk could never have been one to successfully expand the country beyond Texas. And frankly, given his failures IOTL, I believe him.

But then again, without the war being lost by the Americans, I doubt there would have been a Republic of California later on; Santa Anna's failures eventually cost him his presidency, and the successful secession of California proved to be more humiliating for Mexico, at least in the short term, than any loss in the Mexican War could have been. Though perhaps if the last-minute reforms of 1839 hadn't been made at all(instead of being merely disregarded by Santa Anna before his removal), Mexico might have ended up even worse off than here.

OOC: California's not that large, by the way. It does have most of OTL California(with the exception of San Diego, which is part of Mexican Baja California), and most of OTL Nevada as well. Another idea I had was for a Mexican state called "Montezuma", which is comprised of southern Utah and Colo. up to the 39th parallel, with the sole exception of anything east of the Rockies.
 
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OOC: Was kind of trying to shoot for "all the land from Louisiana to California," rather than just California - IE, roughly OTL expansion
 
OOC: Was kind of trying to shoot for "all the land from Louisiana to California," rather than just California - IE, roughly OTL expansion

OOC: Yeah, I understand, though, TBH, getting Louisiana into Mexico would probably require butterflying the Louisiana Purchase, or at least to the point were Spain at least keeps the OTL state, or even just it's southern half(even if the *Florida Parishes go to the U.S.).
 
OOC: Yeah, I understand, though, TBH, getting Louisiana into Mexico would probably require butterflying the Louisiana Purchase, or at least to the point were Spain at least keeps the OTL state, or even just it's southern half(even if the *Florida Parishes go to the U.S.).

Actually, I was kind of aiming for the US gets the Louisiana Purchase as OTL, and working with numbers from there. IOTL, the Mexican Cession was larger than the Louisiana Purchase, assuming you count the land that Texas claimed but didn't necessarily control
 
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