No, we have tons of direct names from the UK, and many other places. We have Londons, Norfolks, Portsmouths, and probably any other major city or region in Britain.

I’m from Connecticut, the town names of which* fall roughly into three categories: Native American names, biblical place names, and English names. Under the latter category, we have new Britain and new London (arguably the only two which fit that pattern, though maybe New Haven is referencing an older British city I don’t know about), but we also have Manchester, Bolton, and Glastonbury, and of course just English language words or last names, like Plainville, Plainfield, and Putnam.

*This is also true for most other New England states and probably most of the east coast, with substitution for French or Spanish (and a little Dutch) for English/British as appropriate. Actually, I could see this being mostly true everywhere in the US, with the relevant settling nationality taking over for British town names and last names, but I could also see biblical place names being less popular in some states, maybe superseded by other religious references.

Like New Boston, right?

They wrote: "at the University of Kentucky (UK)", they could write "at the University of Kentucky (a.k.a. UK)" or "at the UK (University of Kentucky)" any of those would be less ambiguous.