Convention speaker made me ponder Spanish influence on place names in the United States

"As a consequence of former Spanish and, later, Mexican sovereignty over lands that are now part of the United States, there are many places in the country, mostly in the southwest, with names of Spanish origin. Florida and Louisiana also were at times under Spanish control. There are also several places in the United States with Spanish names as a result to other factors. Some of these names preserved ancient writing.

States

Arizona (either from árida zona, meaning "Arid Zone", or from a Spanish word of Basque origin meaning "The Good Oak&quot
California (from the name of a fictional island country in Las sergas de Esplandián, a popular Spanish chivalric romance by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo)
Colorado (meaning "Red [colored]" or "Ruddy". Named after the Colorado River, whose waters were of that color.)
Florida Meaning "Flowery" or "Florid", because it was discovered by Ponce de León on Easter Sunday, called Pascua Florida to distinguish this holiday, which occurs in springtime when flowers are abundant, from other Christian holidays called Pascua in Spanish, such as Christmas and Epiphany.
Montana (from montaña, meaning "Mountain&quot
Nevada (meaning "Snowfall", from Sierra Nevada, meaning "snow-capped range of mountains". Sierra means "a range of mountains,", literally "a saw," from Latin serra.
New Mexico (Calqued from Nuevo México)
Texas (based on the Caddo word teshas, meaning "friends" or "allies", which was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in East Texas). The letter x had a "sh" sound in 16th-century Spanish which gradually evolved to an "h" sound, which under later spelling reforms was assigned to the letter j (which o riginally also had a "zh", "j" or "y" sound). Thus the modern Spanish spelling Tejas, which sounds like "Tehas".
Utah (Spanish word of Nahuatl origin, first used by friar Gerónimo Salmerón as Yuta or Uta in Spanish[1])
...
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see MORE at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_place_names_of_Spanish_origin_in_the_United_States

The list of counties and cities are FAR larger. Just never really thought about it before.