# Unusual and/or unlikely town name origins **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 9, 2014, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-and-or-unlikely-town-name-origins/688051 "2014-05-09T14:23:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2014, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-and-or-unlikely-town-name-origins/688051/41 "2014-05-10T04:52:41Z")
I’m sure it was a joke, but a friend told me that Rancho Cucamonga got it’s name because it used to be a stagecoach stop…when the stage arrived, the proprietor would meet it and ask travelers, “Is there a _cook among ya_?” ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2014, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-and-or-unlikely-town-name-origins/688051/42 "2014-05-10T11:25:26Z")
Not too far from where I briefly lived in West Virginia, they made a [Mountain](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain,_West_Virginia) out of a Mole Hill in 1949. The event was dreamed up as an advertising gimmick for Borden milk. ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2014, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-and-or-unlikely-town-name-origins/688051/43 "2014-05-10T12:15:12Z")
> [@ctnguy](#): > > [Hotazel, South Africa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotazel) was named because the weather there is ‘hot as hell’. I’d seen the name on the map, and imagined it to have some subtle Dutch or African-language significance. So, it’s just a bit of English wordplay – I’m disappointed ! ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2014, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-and-or-unlikely-town-name-origins/688051/44 "2014-05-10T12:22:36Z")
Nowthen Minnesota. Got it’s name because the towns first postmaster had a habit of saying “Now, then” in conversation. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2014, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-and-or-unlikely-town-name-origins/688051/45 "2014-05-10T12:24:23Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Czarcasm, I hate to tell you, but Spirit Lake, Idaho obviously stole its origin from [Creve Coeur, Missouri.](http://www.villageprofile.com/missouri/crevecoeur/07/topic.html) But it’s the supposed “Indian” names in my story that put it over the top, I think. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2014, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-and-or-unlikely-town-name-origins/688051/46 "2014-05-10T12:34:02Z")
It might still be Dutch or Africaans wordplay: Those languages are both very similar to English. There’s a town in Montana that’s named for the poker game where the land was won, but unfortunately I can’t remember the exact name, and it’s a small enough town that it’s basically ungoogleable without an exact match. And Cleveland, OH was named after the first (white) settler, Moses Cleaveland. The spelling morphed into its current form when Grover Cleveland was president. ---
**Author:** ![BobArrgh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobarrgh/32/2881_2.png) [@BobArrgh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobArrgh)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2014, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-and-or-unlikely-town-name-origins/688051/47 "2014-05-10T12:51:58Z")
Coalinga, California, started out as a coaling station for a rail line. It is possible that it was “Coaling Station A”, with a sign that just read, “Coaling A”, eventually morphing into “Coalinga”. El Segundo, California, is named thus because it was the site of the second Standard Oil refinery on the West Coast. “El Segundo” means “the Second” in Spanish. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2014, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-and-or-unlikely-town-name-origins/688051/48 "2014-05-10T13:31:49Z")
Bastrop, Louisiana was named after a con man who was run out of town for scamming the local investors. He fled and then went and did the same thing in Texas, in a city now known as (wait for it) Bastrop, Texas. ========== Idaho is the westernmost of the lower 48 states that does not have a namesake in Missouri, which has towns named Washington, Oregon, California and Nevada. ---
**Author:** ![Bumbershoot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bumbershoot/32/3428_2.png) [@Bumbershoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bumbershoot)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2014, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-and-or-unlikely-town-name-origins/688051/49 "2014-05-10T14:25:01Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > There’s a town in Montana that’s named for the poker game where the land was won, but unfortunately I can’t remember the exact name, and it’s a small enough town that it’s basically ungoogleable without an exact match. [Show Low, Arizona](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Show_Low,_Arizona) was named (according to legend): > [@](#): > > …after a marathon poker game between C.E. Cooley and Marion Clark. The two men decided there was not enough room for both of them in their settlement. The two men agreed to let a game of cards decide who was to move. According to the tale, Clark said, “If you can show low, you win.” Cooley turned up the deuce of clubs (the lowest possible card) and replied, “Show low it is.” The stakes were a 100,000 acre ranch. Drive east from Show Low on Hwy. 60 for a couple of hours and you arrive in Pie Town, New Mexico whose name comes from a bakery built in the 1920s that specialized in pies. You can still get very good pies there, but I think the original bakery is gone. ---
**Author:** ![JWT\_Kottekoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3ec8ea/32.png) [@JWT\_Kottekoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JWT_Kottekoe)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2014, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-and-or-unlikely-town-name-origins/688051/50 "2014-05-10T15:16:02Z")
Baton Rouge (French for red stick) was named after a pole that marked the boundary between the hunting grounds of two native american tribes. [Baton Rouge](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baton_Rouge,_Louisiana) ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2014, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-and-or-unlikely-town-name-origins/688051/51 "2014-05-10T15:20:54Z")
The town I grew up in (well, until 1976 when Houston annexed it) was originally named “Dairy” Texas, but the US Postal Service renamed it after the first name of the town’s postmistress - some woman named “Alief Ozelda Magee”, because they were getting the mail for Dairy confused with another Texas town named Daisy. So the dinky little town of Alief, TX had its name basically come about because zip codes weren’t in place yet. Now Alief is fully part of Houston, and on top of it, has changed over the last 30 years from a rather nice upper-middle class suburb to a horrible crime ridden ghetto populated by refuse from New Orleans post-Katrina. The only parts worth going to are the predominantly Vietnamese parts along Bellaire boulevard. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2014, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-and-or-unlikely-town-name-origins/688051/52 "2014-05-10T16:13:51Z")
> [@bump](#): > > The town I grew up in (well, until 1976 when Houston annexed it) was originally named “Dairy” Texas, but the US Postal Service renamed it after the first name of the town’s postmistress - some woman named “Alief Ozelda Magee”, because they were getting the mail for Dairy confused with another Texas town named Daisy. > > So the dinky little town of Alief, TX had its name basically come about because zip codes weren’t in place yet. > > Now Alief is fully part of Houston, and on top of it, has changed over the last 30 years from a rather nice upper-middle class suburb to a horrible crime ridden ghetto populated by refuse from New Orleans post-Katrina. The only parts worth going to are the predominantly Vietnamese parts along Bellaire boulevard. Similar reasoning lay behind the renaming of my home town in New Jersey. It was at one time called “Washington”, but in the post-independence zeal there were apparently _three_ towns with that name in the state. Changing to “Little Washington” didn’t alleviate confusion (and probably gave everyone in town inferiority complexes), so they named the town after the river on its border. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2014, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-and-or-unlikely-town-name-origins/688051/53 "2014-05-10T22:25:08Z")
My home town of [Molesey](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molesey)lies at the point where the river [Mole](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Mole)joins the Thames. If you ask the residents, many would assume the origin is simply Mole’s eye. But I’ve read a history of the town, and the assumption is wrong. In fact, it is Mul’s eg, in which Mul is the name of a man, and eg is an island, a dry area surrounded by marshes. The name Mul would be \*mule \*in modern English, i.e. a half breed, and refers to a man of mixed Norman/ Saxon parentage. The river Mole’s name is of uncertain origin. There are three suggested etymologies. It may be because it sometimes [flows underground](http://www.visitdorking.com/sh_the_river_mole.asp)at certain points on its length. It may be named for the mills that once lined its banks. Or it may be named after Molesey. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2014, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-and-or-unlikely-town-name-origins/688051/54 "2014-05-10T22:50:18Z")
[Pocataligo, GA](http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/madison/history/hist1938.txt) > [@](#): > > ``` > Where two public roads cross, is an Indian name and > so named by them as a Large tribe lived near there. > The legend goes that a terrapin was found in the X > road by a passing white man. The terrapin was drawn > into his shell and could not be made to crawl. An > Indian appeared and told the white man to poke his > tail he go. Hence; Pocataligo. > > ``` ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2014, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-and-or-unlikely-town-name-origins/688051/55 "2014-05-11T03:49:22Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > “Devil” this and that, all over the middle and western US, are white-eyes deprecations of Native American sacred spots. It’s hilarious that later Good White Christians are uncomfortable living next to these places… The high school in Christiansburg, Virginia named its sport teams the Christiansburg Blue Demons. The good white Christians were outraged. But the name remains. ---
**Author:** ![Vaevictis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f04885/32.png) [@Vaevictis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vaevictis)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2014, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-and-or-unlikely-town-name-origins/688051/56 "2014-05-11T14:27:14Z")
Gnaw Bone, IN might be a corruption of the French name Narbonne. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2014, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-and-or-unlikely-town-name-origins/688051/57 "2014-05-11T17:09:17Z")
Albuquerque, NM is named after a Spanish duke. Not really that odd, considering the area was a Spanish colony at the time, and the town was established shortly after the duke’s tenure as viceroy of New Spain. > [@](#): > > from [Albuquerque, New Mexico - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albuquerque,_New_Mexico) > > It is generally believed that the growing village that was to become Albuquerque was named by the provincial governor Don Francisco Cuervo y Valdes in honor of Don Francisco Fernández de la Cueva y Enríquez de Cabrera, viceroy of New Spain from 1653 to 1660. One of de la Cueva’s aristocratic titles was Duke of Alburquerque, referring to the Spanish town of Alburquerque. > > The Alburquerque family name dates from pre-12th century Iberia (Spain and Portugal, being the old name of the Portuguese family Albuquerque) and is habitational in nature (de Alburquerque = from Alburquerque). The Spanish village of Alburquerque is within the Badajoz province of Extremadura region, and located just fifteen miles (24 km) from the Portuguese border. Cork trees dominate the landscape and Alburquerque is a center of the Spanish cork industry.[9] Over the years, this region has been alternately under both Spanish and Portuguese rule. The name of the New Mexico city of Albuquerque is identical to the Portuguese spelling with only one ‘r’ of the family name in Portugal, probably due to Spanish or native local pronunciations.[verification needed] The name is Latin (Roman) in origin and from alba quercus or “white oak” (the wood of the cork oak is white after the bark has been removed). The seal of the Spanish village of Alburquerque is a white oak tree, framed by a shield, topped by a crown.[10] > > Western folklore offers a different explanation, tracing the name Alburquerque to the Arabic ‘Al-Barquq’, meaning “the plum”, and the derivative Galician (Galicia, northwest Spanish region) word ‘albaricoque’, the “apricot”. The apricot was brought to New Mexico by Spanish settlers, possibly as early as 1743. As the story goes, the settlement of La Ciudad de Albaricoque was established near an apricot tree. As frontiersmen were unable to correctly pronounce the Spanish (Galician) word, they pronounced it as “Albuquerque.”[11] Las Cruces, NM means “the crosses”. Nobody really knows why. According to the most popular folktale, there were three crosses on a hillside, marking three graves. Depending on who is telling the story, the graves were either: three bandits three conquistadors three missionaries killed by Indians the first three Indians to convert to Christianity. The town was not founded until long after the colonial era, so this is almost certainly not true. Another theory holds that it refers to the crossroads of two big highways. However, “cruz” in the sense of “crossroad” is masculine, not feminine, so that would be “Los Cruces”, not “Las Cruces”. There are enough Spanish-speakers in the region that we tend to be finicky about that sort of thing. ---
**Author:** ![fighting\_ignorant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ac8455/32.png) [@fighting\_ignorant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fighting_ignorant)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2014, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-and-or-unlikely-town-name-origins/688051/58 "2014-05-11T18:01:29Z")
[Castrillo Matajudíos — roughly, Little Hill Fort of Jew Killers](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/11/world/europe/a-hard-sell-to-tame-a-name-in-spain.html?ref=world&_r=0) ---
**Author:** ![2nd\_Law](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/f475e1/32.png) [@2nd\_Law](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2nd_Law)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2014, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-and-or-unlikely-town-name-origins/688051/59 "2014-05-11T18:14:37Z")
No one has mentioned[Felch](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felch_Township,_Michigan#Communities), Michigan, named after Michigan’s fifth governor? ---
**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2014, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-and-or-unlikely-town-name-origins/688051/60 "2014-05-11T18:45:30Z")
On Long Island, NY; most towns are either Native Algonquin (Indians) or Dutch. The legendary origin of Smithtown is that Richard Smith rescued a Chief’s daughter and the Chief, in gratitude, promised Smith all the land he could encircle in a day. On a _bull_. He took up the offer, and supposedly did it on June 21 - the longest day. 🙂 Also, the tip of the North Fork is called Orient. “far east” and such. (The south forks end is Montauk - again named for the natives.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-and-or-unlikely-town-name-origins/688051.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-and-or-unlikely-town-name-origins/688051.md?page=4)