Sunday, September 6, 2009

Funny Place Names (Revisited)

I can't resist lists of funny place names, or funny/peculiar/strange surnames for that matter. Bill West started this with his post "WHEN YOU SAY CHARGOGGAGOGGMANCHAUGGAGOGGCHAUBUNAGUNGAMAUGG, YOU'VE SAID IT ALL." Right. Then he went and provided a link to Wikipedia which had more links, and by the time I had read several of them, I was late to church.

Here are some, um, "interesting" lists of absolutely unique place names (links from Wikipedia's "Place names considered unusual"):

* Funny, Rude and Weird Place Names Around the World. I've actually been to Hell in the Cayman Islands. Now I see that if I want to visit more Hell's I have to go to Norway, Michigan and Texas too!

* Funny Town Names from Around the World. Ever heard of Maggie's Nipples in Wyoming?

* Unusual City Names - by State. Is Ai the shortest town name?

* Odd Name Places. An article by Frank Gallant about odd place names - he's written a book of them.

* Odd and Unusual Place Names. A list of English places, including Nether Wallop near Andover.

You did read all of the lists didn't you? Did you laugh? I did. Thanks, Bill, for a fun, but pretty much wasted, morning!

My dad always told us that there was this lake in Massachusetts whose Indian name meant "You fish on your side, I'll fish on my side, and nobody fish in them middle." We were in California, and I looked for this lake but never found it on a map. Now I know that this was Lake CHARGOGGAGOGGMANCHAUGGAGOGGCHAUBUNAGUNGAMAUGG, but the translation was apparently wrong! Or a joke. Another thing my father got wrong ... or was just funning us about.

Got any favorites not on these lists?

Note: Since I am on vacation in real life, I'm posting earlier articles from my "Best of Genea-Musings" CDROM (wait, I don't have a CDROM yet, do I?). This article was originally posted on 18 May 2008.

2 comments:

Abba-Dad said...

Ai is an old city in the bible, so not only is it the shortest but probably also the oldest.

My favorite has to be Zzyzx Road in CA.

Cliff said...

Here's another blog on funny names for you:

http://reallyweirdplacenames.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!