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Traditionally, the way locations are named are very purposeful—they have very logical, historical explanations to them. However, when you start reading through the list, this just begs the question of “what were the settlers thinking?”
Bored Panda got in touch with Irmante Sungailaite, professional traveler and tour leader for G Adventures and National Geographic Journeys, to talk about all things funny city names and why they’re a thing in the first place.
“I want to imagine that when places were getting named, people were inspired by unique geographical, social or historical aspects of the location and its demographics. That's for the names that come from hundreds of years ago and that are a product of communities getting together and naming things,” elaborated Irmante.
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She continued: “Then you have places like Boring in Oregon, USA and it is just someone's last name. So, it's worth digging through the background of the lucky (or unlucky) individual that inspired the naming of the spot, because I bet that there would be a hilarious (or boring) story behind it.”
“As for indigenous places bearing names that some might find amusing or different—well they are probably very basic (or hopefully as accurate as possible) transcripts of the pronunciation of the original language, such as Tuktoyaktuk, Canada. It's essentially just an anglicized name of the original place (which in this case means something like 'resembling a caribou' and comes from a local legend of a woman seeing a caribou that gets turned into a stone)."
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OK, so, you’d think that most of these places would have changed their names by now, right? After all, it’s gonna attract ridicule at the very least. But many don’t, and Irmante explains why:
“Look, some of the town names for a person that doesn't speak the local language might not mean anything. So, an innocent name like Bugyi, Hungary might not sound hysterical to you, but it would leave your Hungarian speaking friends in stitches, and only when they would stop laughing they would tell you that the town's name means 'women's underwear'. But if you truly want to make someone laugh (and make your mum proud) then a postcard from Dildo, Canada would do the trick.”
“Some places make the most out of the ridiculous names and actually cash in the potential by embracing the bizarre, so there is no need to change it. Yet just recently I noticed that F@#$%^g, Austria probably had enough of people flocking to their peaceful town and mocking its name that has a different meaning in English language, which in native local German means nothing.”
“So, the local people will no longer have tourists getting on their nerves taking pictures, and the local officials will be free of frequent headache replacing the stolen road signs—because there is less chance that someone will want a sign that says Fugging. That makes me wonder if the neighboring Unterf#$%^%g and Oberf#$%^%g will appear on the lists of those passionate about hilarious town names.”
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If you’re like me… OK, if you’re as old as me, and have watched the television show Jackass back in the day, you’ll remember the guys doing a skit on Mianus, Connecticut. That might sound very juvenile as they asked questions like “what’s the economy like in Mianus?” but you can bet it did wonders to the (technically) neighborhood of the town of Greenwich. Wouldn’t you want to go there and take a picture next to the sign that proclaims the location of the hole where the sun don’t shine?
Well, Irmante had ample opportunities to visit similar hilariously-named places, as she recalls:
“The first place that comes into my mind regarding chucklesome local area names is definitely Titiwangsa, that's in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Also, when I was living in Cayman Islands, I would get stopped by tourists trying to find the best way to get to Hell—and, of course, I would seize the moment and proudly advise them to take the highway. And if you're down in Grand Cayman enjoying the beauty of the island of course it's worth going to check out Hell and its odd rock formations that definitely explain the origin of the name.”