Devil’s Lake, OR is a lake named based on an native legend. This gave rise to the the town that sprung up along it.
The locals were uncomfortable about about having a town named “Devils Lake”. It got informally called “D Lake” and later officially changed to “Delake”.
There is a famously short river from the lake to the ocean and it was later called “D River”. (Short name, short river. Get it?)
But Delake got absorbed into Lincoln City and is no more. Lot of place names got morphed due to prudishness.
The town of Forty Fort, near Wilkes-Barre, was named for the 40 defenders of the fort during the Pennemite-Yankee War in the Wyoming Valley of what is now Pennsylvania. The war was fought by local Pennsylvanians (the “Pennemites”) and settlers from Connecticut (the “Yankees”, duh). A total of three people were killed.
I pretty much grew up in a small town that had originally been named after the brothers who first lived there in 1883. The local short line railroad opened a depot in the town around 1900; the depot was named after a lawyer for the railroad and his name also got applied to the town.
Hey Czarcasm, my home town’s name isn’t unusual and/or unlikely, but until this thread, it never occurred to me to look into it! Turns out the Village I grew up in (Palos Park) was named by our postmaster who had a relative that sailed with Christopher Columbus. Who knew?
Thanks for the thread - it’s really, really interesting - especially as I look up the history of other family member’s hometowns!
The town and county I work in were named after a guy who only set foot in the area twice and, by all accounts, didn’t like it. They were apparently trying to impress him for some odd reason.
I grew up in Wheeling, WV. There’s some argument over where the name Wheeling came from, but one of the more likely suspects is that it comes from the Lenape Indian phrase “wih link”, which means “place of the head”. The story associated with it is that the Lenape Indians killed a white settler who had invaded their land, then scalped him and put what was left of his head on a stake to warn other settlers to stay out of their land.
It didn’t work. The white folks settled there anyway.
Panama is variously supposed to mean “an abundance of fish,” or “an abundance of butterflies.” There is also a common tree called “panama.” So maybe it was just a word for “common.” Another story is that it derives from another Indian word meaning “far away.”
The city of Panama also has the distinction of being evidently the only place where the name of the city, province, and country are all the same.
I’m originally from The Bronx, one of only a few English places names to include the article. That’s probably because it originally referred to the lands of the first settler Jonas Bronck, and is derived from the possessive “the Bronck’s.”
Nintety Six, South Carolina. Apparently nobody can agree on where the name came from.
Gallipolis, Ohio took its name from the original inhabitants, French aristocrats fleeing the French Revolution. They were defrauded by a land speculation company that sold them land which the speculators never owned.
“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…
I’ve always thought Cincinnati has the most interesting origin of any major American city. It comes from the Roman statesman Cincinnatus, via the revolutionary Society of the Cincinnati, which is his name pluralized.
There’s Mexico City. The borders of the city extend out past the federal district into the adjoining state of Mexico, which is of course part of the country of Mexico.
Mexico City, however, is officially Ciudad de Mexico, not Mexico, and the parts that extend into the state of Mexico are officially different municipalities. The official name of the city of Panama is simply Panama, rather than Ciudad de Panama.
Oronogo, MO has an improbable legend connect5ed with its naming:
Actually, the version I heard was even less believable (and more scurrilous). The sc rip the miners were paid with was so worthless that the local prostitutes wouldn’t accept it in payment. They worked on the barter system – “It’s Ore or no go,” they’d tell their potential clients.
I don’t recall where I heard or read that.
