Wagga Wagga!

[Rick_Kitchen]

Wagga Wagga and Walla Walla are sister cities. No, really,

I like Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump

[kambuckta]

You don’t call Wagga Wagga Wagga

I worked recently with a 65yr old woman, born and bred in Australia, who had no clue that Wagga Wagga was pronounced Wogga Wogga. Now I know that some small, perhaps unfamiliar towns can be a puzzle, especially if you live out of that state, but for god’s sakes, EVERYBODY knows how to pronounce Wagga!

Everybody except her.

[Morgenstern]

Intercourse, Pennsylvania

[dtilque]

@Rick_Kitchen

Wagga Wagga and Walla Walla are sister cities. No, really,

So are Dull, Scotland and Boring, Oregon

[galen_ubal]

@Hopeful_Crow

The way I heard it, “Walla” means “Water” in local tribal vernacular and “Walla Walla” means “Many Waters.” I see that Wikipedia has it as “Place of Many Waters.”

Other places in Washington with double names are Mats Mats Bay, Hamma Hamma River (Falls and Inlet, too.) and Loup Loup Pass. I’m sure I’m forgetting one or two that may be actual towns. Let me think on it…

Pretty much this. Many of the Aboriginal languages indicate intensity/plurals by doubling up the name. Wagga is thought to mean “crow”, so Wagga Wagga would mean “Many Crows”.*

My in-laws live up in Wagga; I rarely hear it referred to as anything other than just Wagga. Nice town.

*Thus making Wagga Wagga the murder capital of Australia…

[Battle_Pope]

Through work I’ve a list of around 20,000 locality names across Australia. A quick scan through that brings up these rippers:

Boomahnoomoonah, Bang Bang, Budgee Budgee, Googa Googa, Goonoo Goonoo, Mungerdegunyidie and the rather pleasant sounding Mud Island.

[Flywheel]

@Battle_Pope

Through work I’ve a list of around 20,000 locality names across Australia. A quick scan through that brings up these rippers:

Boomahnoomoonah, Bang Bang, Budgee Budgee, Googa Googa, Goonoo Goonoo, Mungerdegunyidie and the rather pleasant sounding Mud Island.

Reminds me of a song.

[Wallaby]

@Battle_Pope

Through work I’ve a list of around 20,000 locality names across Australia. A quick scan through that brings up these rippers:

Boomahnoomoonah, Bang Bang, Budgee Budgee, Googa Googa, Goonoo Goonoo, Mungerdegunyidie and the rather pleasant sounding Mud Island.

Mud Island is horrible. It is a series of sandbanks just above the high-tide line in Port Phillip Bay, about 50 miles from Melbourne. Melbourne has seagulls. Huge numbers of Melbourne’s seagulls breed on Mud Island. Even though there are many other seabirds who nest there (and it is a great spot to visit if you are a bird-watcher) the stench is phenomenal.

I mean, '‘Holy Crap, that stench is terrible’ - level.

(Actually, it is a nice day trip to see terns, oyster catchers, pelicans - oh, and seagulls. Just forget lunch that day).

My favourite place name in Australia is Bringalbert South. Who was Albert? Why do we have to take him South? What if we take him west?

[Princhester]

@Wallaby

Mud Island is horrible. It is a series of sandbanks just above the high-tide line in Port Phillip Bay, about 50 miles from Melbourne.

Or there’s another one in Moreton Bay, Queensland. I suspect there are quite a few.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Hopeful_Crow

The way I heard it, “Walla” means “Water” in local tribal vernacular and “Walla Walla” means “Many Waters.” I see that Wikipedia has it as “Place of Many Waters.”

Dangit, somebody lied to me!

[eschereal]

I think the review of Australian table wines mentions a “nuit san wogga wogga”.

[movingfinger]

In a book called The Miernik Dossier they mention a person named Lazslo Lazslo who was born in Baden Baden in 1919.

I’m thinking he migrated to Walla Walla and began a career in crime and wound up in the penitentiary in Sing Sing, New York.

[mhendo]

I love some of the Aussie place-names.

Back when i lived in Australia, i had a long-term relationship with a woman who lived in Tumbarumba, and my best mate from my high-school days is from Quandialla. I spent a year, as a kid, living just outside Mullumbimby (apparently now best-known as the place where Iggy Azalea grew up).

[Hampshire]

They need to open a Wagamama in Wagga Wagga.

[Elendil_s_Heir]

@Sunspace

Then there’s Wooloomolloo…

Noted, of course, for the philosophy department of its world-famous University: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f_p0CgPeyA

Anyone up for a trip to Austria?: Fugging - Wikipedia

[YogSothoth]

Almost as funny as Walla Walla. Keokuk. Cucamonga. Seattle

[funky_little_lee]

Semi-OT, but with the Pennsylvania situation you have to know the rest of the towns.

Blue Ball
Bird-in-Hand
Intercourse
Paradise

Unfortunately they are not all on the same road, but they are within several miles of each other. Always good for a chuckle, that.

[eschereal]

@movingfinger

In a book called The Miernik Dossier they mention a person named Lazslo Lazslo who was born in Baden Baden in 1919.

I’m thinking he migrated to Walla Walla and began a career in crime and wound up in the penitentiary in Sing Sing, New York.

Not sure why he would not end up in the penitentiary in Walla Walla. It is the state’s hard-time-hotel. Odd coincidence, that.

[MacLir]

@SeldomSeen

That wiki entry is a wealth of chuckle-inducing names;
To which I would add Hell, Norway and Dickshooter, Idaho.

Idaho also has Beaver Dick Park and Squawtit mountain (Some maps have it as Squawtip :rolleyes:)

[Melbourne]

@Battle_Pope

Through work I’ve a list of around 20,000 locality names across Australia. A quick scan through that brings up these rippers:

Boomahnoomoonah, Bang Bang, Budgee Budgee, Googa Googa, Goonoo Goonoo, Mungerdegunyidie and the rather pleasant sounding Mud Island.

Some of those date to WWI: particularly in SA, when they were renaming all the places that had evil German names, they used traditional, imperial, or aboriginal names. (Posted here from the banks of the Yarra Yarra, now known as the Yarra River)