List of Texas county seat name etymologies
County Seat County Named for
Daingerfield Morris Captain London Daingerfield , who was killed in an 1830 battle with Indians on the site that became the town in the 1840s
Dalhart Dallam Its location on the border between Dallam and Hartley counties
Dallas Dallas Uncertain : the primary report is that founder John Neely Bryan named it for his good friend Dallas . This person is variously reported as 1 ) George Mifflin Dallas , the eleventh vice president of the United States ; 2 ) his brother , Alexander Junior , an American commodore ; 3 ) their father , Alexander Senior , United States Secretary of the Treasury around the end of the War of 1812 ; or 4 ) some other person named Dallas whose identity is uncertain . Additionally , another report has the town being named Dallas as the result of a town-naming contest in 1842
Decatur Wise Stephen Decatur , a Revolutionary War naval hero
Del Rio Val Verde Its location on the Rio Grande
Denton Denton Methodist preacher and Indian fighter John Bunyan Denton , who was killed in 1841 at the Battle of Village Creek
Dickens Dickens Its location in Dickens County , which was named for a J. Dickens who fought in the Battle of the Alamo
Dimmitt Castro W. C. Dimmitt , a land owner and developer
Dumas Moore Louis Dumas , president of the Panhandle Townsite Company in Sherman
D
The following is a list of Texas county seat name etymologies, taken from the Handbook of Texas. A separate list of Texas county name etymologies, covering Texas counties instead of its county seats, is also available.