Albany County, New York
The city of Albany was the first municipality within this large county, founded as the village (dorp in Dutch) of Beverwyck by the Director-General of New Amsterdam, Pieter Stuyvesant, who also established the first court in Albany. Albany was established as a city in 1686 by Governor Dongan through the Dongan Charter after the English took over the colony. Schenectady to the west was given a patent with some municipal rights in 1684 and became a borough in 1765.
Albany, Alabama
Though New Decatur was built to complement, not compete with, the existing city of Decatur (by then called "Old Decatur"), the influx of "Northerners" angered many residents of the existing city. As a result, hostility between inhabitants of Old Decatur and New Decatur began to surface as wounds from the Civil War were still healing. In 1916, the need to ease these rivalries led New Decatur to adopt the new name of Albany, giving it an identity completely separate from Old Decatur. The city's residents nominated the name in honor of Albany, New York. By this time, the cities of Albany and Old Decatur had formed a major metropolitan area with an estimated population of 8,000.