So like
were the first people in Kanto and the surrounding areas from Pallet Town? And the first-ever Pokemon Trainer was REALLY BAD AT NAMING THINGS?
So this first Pokemon Trainer leaves Pallet Town, no one has ever ventured outside it, no human, they probably arrived to the region on boats to the south shore of it, and this person just goes into this field with some birds and rats and says “this path shall be named! Route 1.”
They move on to more fields and a forest area and declare, “this path shall be named! route 2.”
They keep going until they hit mountains. Nope, not gonna climb that. Head east. “this! name! route 3.” They hit another mountain but find a path through it, and upon emerging they declare route 4. Then they head south for some reason, that’s route 5. And the routes are just numbered in the order they visited? For some reason they didn’t notice 24 and 25 until everywhere else, and then after they mapped it all out they headed back home only to notice more stuff to the west and they headed to route 26 and Johto? I guess they went back to the mountains for route 28 and then route 29, etc.?
After they mapped Kanto and Johto, and maybe subsequently Hoenn and Sinnoh in that order, people left Pallet Town and began to build new towns. These people were better at naming things. They were kind of creative but derivative and homesick so they springboarded from pallet.
Obviously in Unova, Kalos, and Alola there was a different First Pokemon Trainer who was also usually pretty bad at naming things. Everything not named route _ was named by someone else later.
The Pokemon World is weird. Yes, the naming conventions of locations is what makes it weird.
Duth Olec's Cuckoo Cosmos 