Whenever a township became populous enough to have a name as well as a number on the surveyor's map, that question was likely to be determined by the people on the ground, and such names as Christiana, Swede Plain, Numedal, Throndhjem, and Vasa leave no doubt that Scandinavians officiated at the christening.[344] Besides the names of townships, Minnesota alone has no fewer than seventy-five postoffices whose names are unmistakably Norse,--Malmö, Ringbo, Ibsen, Tordenskjold, and the like. It was in organizing these new townships, working the town machinery, carrying on elections, levying and collecting taxes, and laying out roads, that the Scandinavian immigrants learned the rudiments of American politics.[345] In studying the accounts of the formation of scores of towns inhabited wholly or in major part by Norwegians or Swedes--accounts usually written by Americans, and often going into minute details--not one was found which describes any noteworthy irregularity. Except for the peculiar names no one would suspect that the townmakers were born elsewhere than in Massachusetts or New York. [344] Christiana got its name through the carelessness of Gunnul Vindæg, who desired to name the town after the Norwegian capital, but omitted the "i" in the last syllable. _Billed Magazin_, I, 388. [345] Mattson, _Story of an Emigrant_, 50-51; _History of Goodhue County, Minnesota_, 248. In some cases probably more than one-fifth of the men of the community shared in the actual administration of town affairs; and while this ratio decreased with the growth of the town, the tendency of the Scandinavian settlers to move on from one new region to another gave many of them continuing opportunities to gain political experience. Had the same number of men located in the larger towns or cities, their active duties as citizens would generally have ended with the casting of their annual ballot. A few might have become policemen, commissioners, or even aldermen, but they would have made an insignificant percentage; the management or mismanagement of finances, schools, streets, sanitation, and public services would go on without their efforts or participation.