What thing that does puzzle me a little about US place names is the pronunciation of Pittsburgh- i.e. Pitts-berg. Now if I remember rightly the town was established by Scottish settlers- surely it should be pronounced 'Pitts-burra' as the Scots pronounce Edinburgh, etc.?
Now as I understand it it was decided (by the Land Registery?)that place names in the USA with the ending of 'burgh' would lose the 'h' and 'borough' would be 'boro' with Pittsburgh apparently determined to keep it's 'h'.
So- to cut a short story long!- was Pittsburgh, etc. actually pronounced that way back then and it's the Scots that have changed or is it the Americans that have changed the pronunciation? I suspect the Americans as 'burg' simply doesn't sound very Scottish.
Finally, of course 'burgh' is used in some English place names too- particularly in Northumberland (which borders with Scotland) but generally 'borough' or 'brough' is more common.

According to epodunk.com (gotta love it!) "The U.S. Board on Geographic Names ruled in 1890 that the final "h" should be dropped from the names of all cities and towns ending in "burgh," but the citizens of Pittsburgh mounted a campaign to keep the traditional spelling. The board relented in 1911 and restored the 'h.'"

This link is also interesting.

Interesting, Saranita.

I've always pronounced Edinburgh as "ed-in-bur-o."

From your link Saranita- " For reasons of practicality and uniformity"- what terrible reasons to lose a town's distinctive name- bloody bureaucrats!

I wonder if we know how Edinburgh was pronounced in the days when Pittsburgh was founded? Seems the person who named (ca.1758) the early settlement, British General John Forbes [1707-59], called it originally Pittsborough. (Also, he doesn't seem to have been Scottish.)

Edinburgh was originally called Din Eidyn (Eidyn's Fort) in Brythonic (closer to Welsh than to Scots Gaelic Celtic language). Invading Saxons may have meta-analyzed this to Edwin's Fort (Edinburh) on account of King Edwin of Northumbria.

Burg(h) and borough both come from Old English burh (with the h pronounced like the ch in German Bach). You see the same confusion of sounds in other English words ending in -ough. Tough, enough, bough, though, through, borough, etc.

It is a miracle any of us ever learned to spell.

If you shorten the North-Eastern town Middlesbrough, you get Boro. I have no idea whether this is meant to help with pronunciation.