In 1809, a weary ex-president headed west with some friends to the center of the country, and they set up a capital named after him: Jefferson City.
The rest of the state was named after his buddies: Martin St. Louis, Marvin Kansas City, David Independence, Tom Hannibal, Jackie Branson, Gunther Wentzville, Columbia Weed ...
Coincidentally, the latter settler had a bunch of her namesake, so they all got high and built a bunch of trippy Gateway Arches, all but one of which fell down during the great New Madrid earthquake.
