Ten US states have compound, two-word names: New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, and West Virginia. Four of them share the prefix 'New,' each named after a place back in Europe — York, Jersey, and Hampshire in England, and Mexico from the Spanish viceroyalty.

The North/South pairs come from historical splits rather than geography alone. The Carolinas were one colony until it divided into North and South in 1712, and the Dakota Territory split into North and South Dakota when both were admitted as states on the same day in 1889.

West Virginia has the most dramatic origin story of the group. It broke away from Virginia in 1863, during the Civil War, when the western counties refused to join the Confederacy — making it one of the only states ever created by a wartime split.

Rhode Island's name is a little different again. Its official name was 'State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations' until voters shortened it to simply 'Rhode Island' in a 2020 statewide referendum.

This quiz uses those two-word names as an anchor for testing capitals and abbreviations, which is a good way to notice how much history is packed into something as small as a state's name.

North Dakota and South Dakota share an unusual piece of trivia beyond their names: both were admitted to the Union on the very same day, November 2, 1889. As the story goes, President Benjamin Harrison had the paperwork for both states shuffled before signing so that no one could ever determine which one technically became a state first.

No state in the country has a three-word official name, which makes this group of ten the practical ceiling for compound naming in American geography.