Quote:
Originally Posted by Hali87
My impression is that Quebec functioned more like a colony of the Catholic Church than a colony of France, at least in practice, for most of its history including the first ~100 years of Confederation. It was extremely Catholic and as you mention it was very common to name things after saints or other references to Catholicism. California is also like this (Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Diego, etc) but most of the other states/provinces were Protestant-dominated back when most of the currently-existing cities/towns were being named.
On the other hand I don't think many people would consider 21st century California to be "very Catholic" and I think present-day Quebec is less Catholic than present-day California. AFAIK Quebec is not one of the provinces that has publicly-funded Catholic schools that require kids to pray. I've been to places where cab drivers would do the sign of the cross every time they passed a church, and Quebec is not like that at all. I would say that the Catholic Church is part of its history, but its culture is more defined by its dissociation from the Catholic Church and Catholicism relative to most other places with that many Catholic churches and things named after saints. I could see people wanting to preserve that logo "because it looks badass", but I think this will be a "rules are rules" case.
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Oui, but there is a difference. California did not continue to be under Spanish rule, and is only about 15% Catholic today, whereas Quebec is still french culturally, and is at least 75% Catholic, and even more by heritage. Besides, when Americans hear "San" etc. it doesn't linguistically register the same as "Saint". Also, I think you are underestimating the sheer number of french "saint" place names in Quebec, in California the percentage of "san" etc. names would not even be close to that.
from Google maps