If there are any examples of place names like this in the Americas, or even other areas colonized by Europeans, feel free to point them out. I always found these odd place names in France and England.
Names that describe geographical location? Well in California I can think of many, there's Oceanside, Riverside, Long Beach, Seaside, Quartz Hill. And with the Spanish heritage, California is not limited to English names, there are some in Spanish too: Arroyo Grande (big spring), Morro Bay (bluff), Cerritos (little hills), La Mesa (plateau). In indigenous languages there's Mojave, which means beside the water.
But I guess they're not common in the Americas because towns in Europe didn't document their founding (I can recall Rome has a myth of being founded); and in the newly discovered territories they colonists tried to leave their personal mark on the towns being founded (family name, crown, religious, or even the new version of were they came).
I can only speak for France, but in the early modern era, the central government decided that for ease of administration, no two villages would be allowed to have the same name. Most French towns that are named (Village)-sur-Mer or (Village)-sur-(river) tacked on that suffix in that era to comply with this decree. In the ensuing centuries, towns have been renamed or abandoned, so many of these villages lost their "twin" town with the same name, but retain the suffix anyway.
Source: "The Discovery of France" by Graham Robb
Also, keep in mind that there are many towns and cities in the Americas whose names are corruptions of Native American names for the locations and that those names frequently are descriptive of their locations. For instance, the name of Saco, Maine is derived from an Eastern Abenaki term meaning "land where the river comes out."^1