I am going to give a short "timeline" for each city. They may be slightly off target but bear with me while I work on the research.
Starting with
Peshawar:
origins: (not sure/unknown/debatable -> but in records)
It has been argued that an ancient city named Pushkalwati, founded by Bharata's son Pushkal, from the Indian epic Ramayana, may have existed in this general area during early Indo-Iranian times before their invasion past the Indus into South
Known Origins:
The region containing the present city of Peshawar was associated with Gandhara kingdom (prior to 500 BC) as Purushapura was annexed by Achaemenid Empire (around 500 BC - 400 BC). It was annexed later for a brief period by Alexander the great before being ceded to Chandragupta Mourya (300 BC to 200 BC).
It then went to Greco-Bactrian Kingdoms (170-150BC).
To Gondopharid dynasty (central asians) (until the firct centruy AD)
before falling back to Kushans (Kujula Kadphises, grand father of kanishka I) during the furst century AD. Kanishka built the largest Buddhist Stupa there which was recorded to be in existence during 634 AD
Turkic Muslims invaded the area by 988 AD
Babur (Mughals) established Begram (are close to Peshawar in 1530)
Akbar (Mughal) formally named the place Peshawar
Went to Persian control under Nadir shah in 18th century (early 1700's) and joined Ahmad Shah Durrani' Pakthun regions in 1747.
1758 it came under Marathas,
he city remained under Maratha control till year 1759 in which Abdali forces reconquered the fort.
The final leg before Pakistan's independence, The Sikhs invaded and conquered Peshawar in 1834 after wresting it from Afghanistan. The city was under Sikh control following the death of Ranjit Singh, before which Hari Singh Nalwa completely controlled the area. The British influenced and then ultimately ruled the region from 1849 to 1947, when it became part of the new nation of Pakistan.
If we, for time being, assume Gandhara to be an indigenous Indo-Iranian culture separate from the Vedic culture (The name Gāndhāra is not recorded in Vedic Sanskrit, it first occurs in the Classical Sanskrit of the epics.(from wikipedia on gandhara).
The area was repeatedly captured by greeks, persians, mongols (mughals), turkic, central asian, Indian peoples.
That city must be loaded in historic layers one on top of the other. I request forum members from that city to kindly share any pictures that they may have depicting each of these layers.
Hmm in Pakistan there was no islamization. The names r kept as it is in most of the cities.
But it will be interesting if u ask the same question abt Israel to Israelis.
The point is Pakistan is not Israel.
some of pakistan's cities that I know of - Islamabad, Faisalabad, Jalalabad, Abbotabad are "islamic" names. Surely with the immense amount of history in the region, these cities (if they existed before) would have other names before islam (and other names during each "occupation") I am trying to get a rough time line of different cities in the region to arrive at how all these "paths" coincided to get a collective Pakistan. The idea is the develop the "identity" of the region based on historical facts. It is not only the place where you are that is important. It is also how you arrived there.