The 100 States of America

[Del Tachi]

My take on some of the Southern names/capitals:

AL-North:  Cumberland (CL); Decatur (half-way between The Shoals and Fort Payne; Birmingham didn't boom until the turn of the century, Huntsville not until the 1950s)
AL-South:  Alabama (AL); Montgomery
FL-North:  Apalachicola (AP), Dixie (DX) could be a cool, alternative if your list gets too heavy on Native American names; Tallahassee
FL-East:  St. Johns (SJ); Titusville (very central and big enough)
FL-West:  Manatee (MA?  make Massachusetts "MC"?); St. Petersburg (oldest of Gulf Florida's historic port cities)
FL-South:  Miami (MI); Miami (uncreative, but it works given the historic importance of the city/lake/river)
GA-North:  Chattahoochee (CH); Atlanta
GA-South:  Georgia (GA); Macon (most central of the "big-three" in Middle Georgia)
KY-East:  Kentucky (KY); Lexington
KY-West:  Jackson (JA); Bowling Green
LA-East:  Louisiana (LA); New Orleans
LA-West:   Natchez (NA); Alexandria
IN-North:  Tippecanoe (TP); Lafayette (who doesn't love a college town/state capital combo?)
IN-South:  Indiana (IN); Bloomington (see above)
NC-East:  Catawba (CA); Hickory (half-way between Asheville and Charlotte, big enough)
NC-Middle:  Tryon (after William Tryon; TY); Raleigh (isn't very central anymore, but I love RTP too much to move it to Greensboro)
NC-West:  North Carolina (NC); Fayetteville
TN-East:  Franklin (FR); historic capital is Jonesborough, but I like Knoxville
TN-West:  Tennessee (TN); Jackson (half-way between Memphis and Nashville)
SC-North:  Piedmont (PE); Greenville
SC-South:  South Carolina (SC); Charleston
VA-East:  Virginia (VA); Williamsburg (now way more centrally located than OTL Virginia)
VA-West:  Shenandoah (SH); there are some great, smaller, more centrally-located cities but I can't see it anywhere other than Charlottesville

The state that was the hardest to name was LA-West.  Names like Acadiana and Atchafalaya seem to give undue weight to the southern, swampy part of this new state; however, alternative names like Caddo or Ouachita overweight the similary distinct northern half.  I settled on Natchez because, even though the tribe's historical area was pretty small, its pretty centrally-located. 

[Del Tachi]

Wanted to get back to you on a few things:

1)  The Alabama River flows through the southern half of OTL Alabama (from Montgomery to Mobile), so I think its a better name for AL-South.  Cumberland is also too good a name to go to waste, IMO.

2) I don't see any reason why Indianapolis has to be the capital of IN-South; Kansas City isn't the capital of Kansas, Jersey City isn't the capital of New Jersey; New York City isn't the capital of New York, etc.

3) I definitely meant to keep NC-East as "North Carolina", since to me it seems like the coastal states would be the most likely to keep their original "colonial" names.  That's the same reason by I defaulted to keeping VA-East as "Virginia".

4) For NC-Middle I went with Tryon just due to the plethora of American places already carrying the moniker (mostly in NC and NY).  I don't think it's any less patriotic than the U.S. State name of "Georgia" or "Louisiana".  Tryon was my personal favorite of all the names I came up with, FWIW; just because I think its different and rolls off the tongue better than a lot of colonial/American Indian names. 

Of course, this is an amazing project and all of these are totally your call.  Keep up the good work!