tODD and I got this going in the comment thread on my post about last Sunday, and I can’t resist opening it up to the rest of you. I said I liked the name Walla Walla, in Washington. He came back with other towns in that fair state: Sequim (pronounced “squim”) and Puyallup (”pyoo-wallop”). I rejoined with “Hicksville, Indiana.”
What are some other good–in the sense of amusing or interesting or fun to pronounce–names of small towns? If you live in one of them, that’s a bonus, and I’d appreciate hearing about whether the name is a problem or an asset. I hope also to hear from folks in Australia, where there is a town called Wagga Wagga.
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Lizard Lick, NC. also Scotland Neck, NC
Punkey-Doodles Corners, Ontario.
Trois-Pistoles, Qc (My favourite).
When I was a kid we would drive through Wahoo NE. All of us in the back seat would yell out Waaaahooo.
Mississippi has Rolling Fork, Hot Coffee, and Panther Burn as some of the more unusual names for towns.
Some say that our capital sounds somewhat apocalyptic to you English-speaking people: Helsinki.
There are quite a few funny town names in Finland, but they’re impossible to translate or not as funny after you translate them (a bit like explaining a joke). However, my favorite is a STREET called “Home street” (Kotikatu). Located right next to a prison.
You haven’t been anywhere until you’ve been to Hell . . .
Michigan.
(And, of course, Hell freezes over every year here.)
This is one of my all time favorites:
Embarrass, Wisconsin.
And what list is complete without:
Breed, Wisconsin
I hope this is clean: Intercourse, PA
How about Rabbit Hash, Ky?
How about Slapout, Oklahoma?
Ha! So I could go straight from Intercourse to Hell!
Or perhaps a dual parish should be formed at Intercourse-Wahoo.
I know a town in Wisconsin called Gratiot. The first syllable is pronounced “grass,” but I can’t tell you how to pronounce the second, because it sounds like a word for fecal matter.
In terms of mere silliness, there’s a town near where I grow up called Wanamingo.
I hate to burst the embarassing bubble, but Embarrass (at least in MN) comes from a French phrase dealing with portaging around rapids.
I would humbly like to add Bootjack and Bodfish, both in California; Baraboo, WI; Koochiching, MN; LoAmmi, IL (From Hosea–meaning “not my people”; and the two I always use when teaching commas/semicolons: California, Missouri; and Mexico, Missouri.
I’d be interested in hearing the history of some of the names mentioned.
Don’t forget Holyrood, KS, which used to be Hollyrood until an L blew off the sign.
Lars @ 14: I thought Wanamingo was what you asked when one wanted to dance (especially compared with the nearby town of Kenyon).
He: Hey, Wanamingo?
She: Kenyon?
I always appreciated the irony of the little North Dakota town on the Montana border called “Beach”, where the only body of water of any size in town is the swimming pool.
There’s a Hicksville in New York.
There’s a Gratiot somewhere (I’ve lived in too many places to remember exactly where) pronounced GRAY-shot.
And there’s always Horseheads, New York. I’ll leave it to you to look up the history of that name.
Lars @ 14: I thought Wanamingo was what you asked when one wanted to dance (especially compared with the nearby town of Kenyon).
He: Hey, Wanamingo?
She: Kenyon?
He: Sure!
I grew up near the town of Mayer, MN. People always enjoy asking about the mayor of Mayer (pronounced the same way.)
My pastor growing up occasionally reminded us that he had left “Paradise” … (California) to come to our congregation.
Any one aware of any one who has moved from Hell, MI to Paradise CA?
Wisconsin has lots of good one, I worked for UPS in Wi and had then all memorized at one time.
Spread Eagle, Wi (unincorporated)
Oconomowoc, Wi
Then there is the ‘wau’s – Wausau, Wausaukee, Waunakee, Waukesha, etc…
Oh how could I have forgot…
Disco, Wi
Oriana: Very good. Kenyon’s my home town. Unfortunately, I ken’t.
Tis the season in Santa Claus, IN and can’t forget about French Lick, IN
Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. The town was originally named Hot Springs, but changed its name at the inducement of the radio quiz show.
Love Beach, ND. Why has no one said Zap? Then there is Ismay, MT, a great name in itself, which changed its name (temporarily) to “Joe” in efforts to get the great star to visit. He did not.
I live in Glendive, so if Dr. Veith would like to start a list of ugly names for towns, I submit ours as a start.
James–
I think none of the pastors said Zap because so many of us had been threatened with that as a placement out of seminary. Sadly, the congregation in Zap has closed.
I drove through there back in my time in Beach. Nice little town.
Two Dot, Montana, named for a cattleman’s brand consisting of, needless to say, two dots.
Dan, #13, your dual parish idea sounds interesting (and hilarious), but it wouldn’t go over well with those churches who do not cater to felt needs.
Boring, Oregon.
Priceless.
My mother graduated from Beach high school, so I’ve been there. Also in western North Dakota is Mott. Mott used to have a sign that said “Mott the Spot,” which the locals all knew was short for “Mott the spot that God forgot.” Not theologically correct, but there may be something to it.
If you go south from Beach you will eventually end up in Ekalaka, Montana, where my dad was born. The county museum has a two-headed calf; don’t miss it!
I was thinking about Two Dot, but Booklover beat me to it.
There’s Bucksnort, TN and Toad Suck, AR.
Wyldeirishman (@30), very good! Somehow I’d forgotten about that one, though I went to a wedding in Boring.
Even more amusing to me is a sign on Highway 26 on the way to Mt. Hood. It announces an exit to two cities — the one you mentioned and the rather uncreative Oregon City. But if you don’t know that, it looks like it’s just an exit for “Boring Oregon City”.
Another one from wisconsin:
Instatute (unincorporated)
If you just like names that are fun to say try:
Nasewaupee, Wisconsin
In Illinois on Interstate 55 you can find a sign that will point you both to Romeoville and Joliet
Swastika, Ontario
Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!, Quebec
Peculiar, Missouri
Not necessarily funny except insofar as the pronunciation has been “Americanized” — I lived in Stuttgart, AR (main difference is the u is pronounced with an “uh” sound, as in rug). Which is located a few miles from Ulm, AR. Ulm has 2 syllables. It sounds almost like alum but with the same uh sound at the beginning and the emphasis on the first syllable.
There’s Worcester, Mass, which is pronounced Wooster.
There’s Wooster, NY, which is also pronounced Wooster.
I have a friend who just moved to Thief River Falls, MN. Curious about that one.
Humptulips in Washington state is a favorite. So is Punxsutawney where we see the groundhog every year.
#33)
tODD,
I think that’s also near the awe-inspiring town of Drain as well.
George, Washington
Let’s see, now. How about Battle Mountain, NV (marked on the nearby mountain by a gigantic “BM”? Or Neodesha (pronounced Ne-oh-de-SHAY), KS? I also thought Chowchilla, CA was an interesting name. Then there was Weeping Water, NE (which an old German grandma always called “Vipping Vater.”
Fertile and Climax, MN are 39 minutes apart.
Wisdom, Montana…that would be near the Wise River in the southwest part of the state.
Wisdom is in the Big Hole. I wonder what the significance of that is?
Weed, California: the connotation has evolved over time and so has the town to go with it. ;o)
Ripon, California (is pronounced “Rippen” by locals, but most outsiders pronounce it the more obvious, less flattering way…)
And I don’t know why Lancaster, California is called “Lancaster” while Lancaster, PA is called “Lankaster” (and said more quickly to boot!).
But the award for goofy names goes to Pennsylvania:
Bala Cynywd (just cause it sounds interesting)
King of Prussia
Paint
Pleasant Unity
Fizzleburg
Panic,
Colon
Helen Furnace
Wolfs Store
Loyalsockville
And if you actually get a Philadelphian to say their city’s full name, it will probably sound like “Filuffia”
The award for creative pronounciation goes to Utah:
Monticello (Montisello)
Hurricane (Hurricun)
And don’t get me started with the State of Washington! ;o)
Blue Ball, PA — you’ve got to really want or need to live there.
Bird-in-Hand, PA — as far as I know, there is no town called Two-in-the-Bush.
#13 Dan Kempin said:
“Or perhaps a dual parish should be formed at Intercourse-Wahoo.”
Dan, and don’t forget that Climax, MI is somewhere in-between those two places…
In Arizona, Show Low was named for a play in a card game on which somebody bet the ranch and lost. Tombstone, where I live, was named by a scout from the nearby army post where a contingent tried to hold the Apaches in check. The scout took a few days off for prospecting, and somebody told him, “The only ore you’re gonna find in them hills is your Tombstone.” When he found one of the richest silver strikes in the country, he named his claim Tombstone. But I like the little almost-ghost town of Salome-Where-She-Danced, named, I think, for a saloon hotty in its heyday.
Concrete WA is near here.
My previous congregation was in Eden Valley, MN — half way between St. Nicholas and Mananna — the only place I know that rhymes with Bananna.
Pysht, Wa
Also consider Cut and Shoot TX
and Keister MN
Bell Buckle, TN.
Places with unexpected pronunciations not yet mentioned include Beatrice (bee-AT-riss), NB and Genoa (gen-OH-uh), NV.
You can tell a native Oregonian from a tourist by how they pronounce the name of one of our principal rivers, the Willamette (wil-LAM-it) as well as the name of our fair state: OR-uh-gun.
Another local NW Oregon curiosity is a lake I recently visited, Wahtum Lake. “Wahtum” in the Chinook Indian dialect means “lake,” so I was at “Lake Lake.”
Wyldirishman, Drain is way down in the southwestern part of the state, nowhere near Boring which is east of Portland. Boring drains are therefore out of the question. However, Boring did (until recently) have a business called “The Boring Gutter Lady.” Boring also happens to be on the road to Damascus.
Climax, Michigan is a good one. It’s near Kazoo–I mean Kalamazoo. And you can get a great piece of cheddar at the Carr Valley cheese shop in Mauston, WI, north of Madison.
Overseas, a city in Bavaria carries the name of “Pforzheim,” which (to German ears) has a certain similarity to how Luther sometimes kept demons away.
It’s not a town, but Wiscinsin has the Bong Recreational Area.
(named for Richard Bong, a WWII Air Force Ace fighter pilot) The sign on the interstate has turned more than a few heads.
But my favorite name for a town is Kernersville NC.
It’s not a town, but Wisconsin has the Bong Recreational Area>
Named for Richard Bong, a WWII ace fighter pilot. The sign on the interstate has turned more than a few heads.
But my favorite name for a town is Kernersville, NC.
oops,sorry for the double post.
Australia does indeed have some lovely sounding place names. Wagga Wagga apparently means ‘crows’ (the repetition of the word is the way of expressing the plural or an emphasis). We tend to call it just ‘Wagga’ (the first ‘a’ is pronounced like the ‘o’ in ‘hog’). There’s Oodnadatta in South Australia and Coonabarabran in the Warrumbungle Shire in NSW. The nineteenth-century gold rush town of Gulgong (‘waterhole’) in Central West NSW has very happy childhood memories for me. Never occurred to me to think how odd these must all sound to other English speakers – they’re so familiar and normal to us! The Wikipedia article on Australian Aboriginal place names is worth a look: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_place_names
I was born in Whitefish, Montana. I grew up 20 miles away in Hungry Horse.
I went to high school in Columbia Falls, which was originally Columbia. The postmaster added Falls in the early 20th century because mail was getting mixed up with Columbus, MT. There were no falls until about 2001… when they were built.
One of the teams we regularly played in sports was Bigfork.
When I taught, I lived in Crete, IL, and have been an ex-Cretian (let the reader understand) ever since moving away.
I now am the pastor of Saint John’s Lutheran Church, Accident, MD.
Jane @ #60 how about the
Bungle Bungles-a mountain range.
Then the towns of
Walpeup
Katoomba
Mitta Mitta
Towoomba
Wangaratta
Katamatite
Moorabbin -the suburb i grew up in here in mELBOUNRE
Tallangatta
Natimuk
In the Black Forest, just east of Freiburg im Breisgau:
“Titisee” and “Aha”
Jersey Shore, PA, which is located in the Pocono mountains!
Julie Voss @ 40: I’m given to understand that Thief River Falls got its name because one life a year was stolen by the river.
Devil’s Lake, ND. The high school sports teams were the Satans until recently. Parents were refusing to send their kids there and they finally changed it to the Firebirds.
Glad to see someone mentioned Cut-n-shoot, Texas
Don’t forget Muleshoe, Tx and Dime Box, Texas (which is suprisingly not far from Old Dime Box, Texas)
I live in Tooele, Seminary found a town to match the uniqueness of my first name. It is pronounced two-willa. Legend has it that the name comes from its mining days and two soiled doves named Ella. (the bar three blocks from my house used to be a brothel, yes in Utah!). Either that or it was a Goshute indian name for bear or something. No one has ever tracked down the origin of it.
Christian Book Distributors has its headquarters in Peabody, MA. When I was in Massachusetts, I found out that this was pronounced PEE-bi-DEE.
The classic work on American place names is George R. Stewart’s entertaining Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States. Stewart notes that the aforementioned Intercourse, PA is just down the road from Fertility (8.6 miles, to be exact. I don’t know what to make of the Dutch Wonderland Amusement Park being in between.)
Other notable place names mentioned by Stewart, some of which have vanished with time:
Smackover
Skunk’s Misery, NY
Reform, AL (named by an itinerant revivalist preacher passing through)
God’s Buttocks (a hill in NH)
Itchepuckesassa
Jackass Gulch
Oxyboxy (from Oxopaugsaug)
Bee Pee
Muses Bottom
Swastika, AZ (renamed Brilliant in the war years)
Cape Tragbigzanda
Good-humoured Island
Hoss-goin’-over
Hico-ottomony Creek
Hell-out-for-noon City
Milk Punch
Nipple Butte
Naked Mountain
Stop-the-Jade
Mount Repose
Spreckelsville
Steamboat Slough
Kind Woman’s Care
Ladies Canyon
Laughing Gal
Lazy Lady
Tarrytown
Tater Knob
Tin Garage
Down Sockum
‘Scape-Whore
Neversink
Chucklehead Diggings
Bald-pated Prairie
All That’s Left
Trouble Enough
The Wart, The Pimple (mountains)
Cape Flattery
Cape Disappointment
Glooscap
Gospel Gulch
Gouge Eye
Grassy Gutter
Curry He Mountain
Curry She Mountain
Ticklenaked
Rockawalking
Longacoming
Cheesequake
Names on the Land is in print from the wonderful New York Review of Books Classics series.
I drive through Lizard Lick, North Carolina at least twice a month…
Eastern PA has Nescopeck, Shickshinny and Wapwallopen.
My home state of Texas has several:
Athens
Atlanta
Bacon
Best
Bigfoot
Blanket
Boston
Cactus
Canadian
China
Colorado City
Comfort
Cut n Shoot
Denver City
Detroit
Dime Box
Ding Dong
Earth
Egypt
Elmo
Energy
Farewell
Friendship
Frognot
Gun Barrel City
Happy
Hogeye
Hoop And Holler
Kermit
Kickapoo
London
Memphis
Miami
Muleshoe
Nemo
Nevada
New London
Noodle
Notrees
Oatmeal
Old Dime Box
Paradise
Paris
Pep
Rainbow
Reno
Rice
Roma
Salty
Santa Anna
Santa Fe
Smiley
Staples
Study Butte
Sugar Land
Sun City
Sundown
Sunny Side
Sunray
Sunrise
Sunset
Sweet Home
Sweetwater
Sylvester
Tarzan
Telegraph
Telephone
Tennessee Colony
Trout
Turkey
Twitty
Venus
Veribest
White Settlement
Whiteface
Whitehouse
Wink
Winnie
Winters
Balmorhea is a town along I-10 in west Texas. The locals get all defensive and insist that it’s pronounced “Balmoray,” but nobody else calls it that.
I’ve always liked Dish, Texas.
I can’t believe that Rancho Cucamonga, CA hasn’t made the list yet. Jack Benny put it on the map, but I always liked Bugs Bunny’s line better as he would pop up out of a hole and say, “Say, doc! This don’t look like Cucamonga! I musta made a wrong toin at Albu-quoi-quee!”
I lived there for a few years before heading to Ft. Wayne, IN. Not a very interesting name, but there’s a pretty good seminary there.
For Jay @#74 there is in the Australian State of Queensland a town called-TEXAS
Wayne @ #62 and #78
Being a Sydney-sider, I’d never heard there was a Texas in Queensland! You’re right there are so many amazing indigenous place names in Australia, and we borrow plenty too; there’s even a place called Toronto near Newcastle in New South Wales.
there is also in Utah a town named Beaver, not so bad by itself but the town next to it is Filmore, makes for an interesting highway sign. I think when the football teams play it is the Filmore Beaver Game.
There is also Toquervile right next to Hurricane, which is pronounce Herkin. I think because everyone is choking after the toke.
Well, it seems many Montana names have been mentioned. We lived near Capitol, down the road from Alzada and about 70 miles from Ekalaka. And we can’t forget Molt. Also over in South Dakota (right next to the Montana border) is a little town named Camp Crook.
“All aboard for Anaheim, Azusa and CUC-amonga!”
I am pleased to see so many Montanans. I thought we were more sparse than that.
One mustn’t forget to mention Belfry, whose mascot is, of course, a Bat. !