Wierd Local Names

[Neo Arcad]

Well, to the south of where I live is the town of Bowie.
Try to pronounce it, Brits.

"Byoo-ee"? Just a guess?

It's close. You pronounce it "BOO-eeh", like the word buoy.

[Hypparchia]

In my country, Bulgaria that is, there's an endless list of places with weird names, such as:

* Torbaluzhi - "Bag of lies"
* Divdyadovo - "Wild grandfather" with a -ovo to signify a village;
* Voynishka - A feminine adjective word meaning "Soldier's". I don't really know a soldier's what we're talking about.
* Dlugnya - a distorted toponym based around an antiquated word for something abnormally long;
* Purzhigrakh - literally "frypeas"
* Chervena Lokva - literally "Red puddle"
* Kondofrey - named after some French count who died nearby during the Crusades;
* Kladorub - I can only give a wild guess what exactly that means. It contains an antiquated form of the word "well" or "waterhole".
* Pleshivets - "Bald guy"
* Pudartsi - "Pudar" means somebody who's banishing wild animals and protecting the flocks. The guys from this village were probably rural mercenaries of a sort.

[Astralsideria]

"Byoo-ee"? Just a guess?

It's close. You pronounce it "BOO-eeh", like the word buoy.

I'm gonna guess you mean like Americans pronounce buoy Brits pronounce it like "boy". Nevertheless, that's a pronunciation worthy of the Home Counties.

[Forsakia]

Well, to the south of where I live is the town of Bowie.
Try to pronounce it, Brits.

Well I'd naturally think of B-ow-ee (ow rhyming with loud) but memory suggests it's pronounced Bow-ee (rhyming with low).

There's a place in cornwall called Praa sands (pronounced pray-a)

[Jalanat]

Also, here's some other towns that are pretty weird.

Amerika (dutch spelling of America) in Limburg.

Portugaal, they just HAD to take a country's name and add a random extra a to it. So you don't say por-tuu-gahl, no, you say por-tuu-gaal (try to pronounce the aa like an Australian guy pronouncing car)). Maybe they thought that if you'd add an extra a to it, people wouldn't notice that they stole a nation's name and used it as a name for a town...yeah? ...they were wrong.

[Juneauland]

In the Netherlands:

Boerenhol (farmershole).
Waterlandkerkje (Waterlandchurch)
Nummer één (number one)
Doodstil (deadsilence)

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

Toad Suck (Toad Suck Union), AR

Unincorporated community in Perry Co., AR.

What does "Toad Suck" mean anyway? Well, the answer is quite simple... Long ago, steamboats traveled the Arkansas River when the water was at the right depth. When it wasn't, the captains and their crew tied up to wait where the Toad Suck Lock and Dam now spans the river. While they waited, they refreshed themselves at the local tavern there, to the dismay of the folks living nearby, who said: "They suck on the bottle 'til they swell up like toads." Hence, the name Toad Suck. The tavern is long gone, but the legend and fun live on at Toad Suck Daze.

We also have Flippin, Gassville, Cotton Plant, Gepp and Stuttgart.

[Tasma]

Chicken, Alaska
Deadhorse, Alaska
Bumble Bee, Arizona
Surf, Arkansas
Wimp, Arkansas
You Bet, Arkansas
No Name, Colorado


Sources: [1]

[Tehraan]

Broekinwaterland (pants in water land)

[The Blaatschapen]

Amerika (dutch spelling of America) in Limburg.

Already said.

Hongerige Wolf (hungry wolf)
Schapenbout (leg of mutton)

[Muslim Christians]

Lousiville and New Orleans
everyone pronounces both of these different then everyone else

lived in VA all my life,
there are a few pronounciations that have changed over time? oddly

Norfolk its was and should be pronounced the way its spelled (NoR and pronounce the word Folk)
now the younger locals are trying to tell everyone its pronounced Nahfak as the official pronounciation. stupid tourists and people moving to the area are believing them.

theres also a place called Dahlgren (Doll Gr_en)
now they are trying to say its pronounced DAL gr_en (they didn't used to say this WTF)

Rio Road in Charlottesville... Im told its pronounced RIE O i don' know if this is true or not but i have my doubts

Fauquier county
Pronounced Fok Ear
say it fast.... theres no reason to try and screw up the pronunciation to claim to be a local... its screwed up enough.

[Jalanat]

Oh, here's another one.
Drogeham...
Okay, that is dutch for...dry ham? ...Really, Friesland, what the fuck. Why would you call a town dry ham?

[Sibirsky]

We have a place called America in the Netherlands.

I met a dude from that town.

[Miasto Lodz]

From Poland:
Niemyje Stare - the old unwashed
Złe Mięso - evil meat
Stolec - stool
Moszna - scrotum
Leśne Odpadki - garbage in the woods
Stare Rumunki - old Romanian women
Oszczywilk - wolf pissed here

...and of course Łódź - the boat

[Muslim Christians]

Truth and Consqequences (new mexico i think)
they changed their name for a gameshow called Truth and Consequences

Boys and Girls Town (Kentucky i think))
it was Boystown... they changed it for political COrrectness

Spotsylvania... named after general Spotswood (the german populace translated the last part of his name for the county name)

matta
po
and ni rivers
are named after the mattaponi tribe....why not name one mattaponi and come up with something interesting for the others

[The Blaatschapen]

We have a place called America in the Netherlands.

I met a dude from that town.

Wow. It's a very small village. So chances are very slim, even I don't know anyone from there and I have lived only 40km from it

[Tehraan]

We have a place called America in the Netherlands.

I met a dude from that town.

[Muslim Christians]

i haven't seen this one yet the real name for Bangkok, Thailand

Krungthepmahanakonbowornratanakosinmahintarayudyayamahadiloponoparatanaraj
thaniburiromudomrajniwesmahasatarnamornpimarnavatarsa
titsakattiyavisanukamphrasit
no spaces

translation

The land of angels, the great city of immortality, various of devine gems,

the great angelic land unconquerable,land of nine noble gems, the royal city, the pleasant capital,

place of the grand royal palace,forever land of angels and reincarnated spirits,

predestined and created by the highest devas.

[Ahtreil]

Well, here in Sweden, in Luleå, we have a bus stop that is named ''Midgård'' Which is the swedish name of Middle Earth from Lord of the Rings.

Sorry, could not come up with anything better

[Mid Lothian]

(Bex now wonders if there's a place called Foreplay nearby.)

[Miklesia]

Humansville, Missouri.

[Alien Space Bats]

More Michigan place-names:

• Climax: You can reach Climax easily by driving along I-94.
  
  
  
  See, told you so. As a matter of fact, I've been along that stretch of highway (and seen that sign) several times; it made for some interesting entendres while I was courting my present wife, who lived in Chicago ("You know, on the way here, while I was thinking of you, I came awfully close to Climax").
  
  The original name of the town was Climax Prairie, which was shortened to Climax in 1874; apparently this was done to facilitate mail delivery (is there some reason why Climax Prairie was unacceptable? Postman jokes loom large here...). In relation to my earlier post, Climax isn't far from Kalamazoo, which perhaps explains why Glenn Miller had a girl there.
  
  Yahoo rates Climax as having the 9th Funniest Name in the World, just ahead of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (which, they assure us, means "St. Marys Church in the Hollow of the White Hazel Near to the Rapid Whirlpool of Llantysilio of the Red Cave"[!]).
  
  
• Sault Ste. Marie: I don't think we can blame the Chippewa for this one.
  
  Anglophones pronounce this one as "SOO Saint Mah-ree", while a Francophone would call it "SOH Sant Mah-ree". There's a twin Canadian town across the river with the same exact name (hence, the Francophone pronunciation); the town was a single community until 1817, when it was divided after the end of the War of 1812 (as part of the border finalization work that came out of that conflict).
  
  The name means "Rapids of Saint Mary" in French; technically, it should be "Sault Sainte-Marie", but the hyphen was dropped a long time ago; at the same time, the beatific title got abbreviated (not unusual, as it's "St. Louis", not "Saint Louis").
  
  Sometimes people confuse the origin on the name through association with the Anglophone pronunciation, and misspell the town's name as "Souix Ste. Marie"; I guess that only goes to show you how people can sometimes be too erudite for their own good.
  
  Interestingly enough, both the U.S. and Canada refer to the locks here as the "Soo Locks", rather than the "Sault Locks". Consistency, be damned!
  
  The river that connects Lake Superior to Lake Huron (while dividing the U.S. from Canada), BTW, is formally known as the "St. Marys River" (and not the "Ste. Marie River", or some other such thing). All this, and with only two languages involved!

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EDIT: BTW, that sign is a classic, not the least because of the arrow, which... well, suggests what arrows suggest. I've always thought that people should be careful with arrows. My recent favorite example of what happens when you're not careful with arrows is this (in)famous political sign:



9 out of 10 people I talked to had the same thought when looking at this sign as I did. Politics aside, why don't graphic artists catch this sort of thing before they've gone viral?!?

[Coccygia]

The upstate New York town of Mauch Chunk has always been a favorite; sadly, they changed the name to Jim Thorpe. (Which is a story in itself.)

[Buffett and Colbert]

I don't think they're weird, but...

[Mid Lothian]

Just remembered another one:



Surely that would be a name. :confused: