Place Names?

[Liquid]

I grew up in a town called Connah's Quay and still call it my home. I thought it an unusual name for a town because it had a possessive apostrophe in it, and it got me thinking about odd or unusual place names.

Are there any unusual place names near you? I know daan has done a list of not very phonetic place names in Scotland, but I can't find it at the moment.

Growing up in Wales, I'm familiar with and used to a mixture of English language place names and Welsh language ones. Some of them are just a bit random, and others aren't very phonetic and confuse strangers.

English language places

Mancot
Mold
Hope (Somewhat of a misnomer...)
Hawarden (Pron. Harden)
Ewloe (Pron. Yoo-low)
Holyhead (Pron. Holly-head)
Holywell (Pron. Holly-well.)

The Welsh ones are just unusual to non-speakers, particularly because the Welsh letter Ll is a sound which doesn't exist in English. Here's a few whose meanings I am able to translate.

Abergele (Mouth of the River Gele)
Bangor (Bang-her. Ha!)
Caernarfon (Fortress on the river)
Llandudno (Church of St. Tudno)
Llanfynydd (Place of the mountain church)
Penyffordd (Top of the road)
Penymynydd (Top of the mountain)
Penmaenmawr (Mountain, which is big)
Penmaenbach (Mountain, which is small)

And, famously, in North West Wales there's Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwll-llantysiliogogogoch. The longest place name in the UK, and I think the third longest in the world.

 

[Nicksfix]

Intercourse Pennsylvania.

 

[Solo]

Willy is just south of where I live on the Leicestershire/Warwickshire boarder.

 

[Mikeybc]

Intercourse Pennsylvania.

There's a Virginville in Pennsylvania too, which one would assume to be very far away from Intercourse PA.

 

[ITCC_Andrew]

Well, in my area, there's a "mountain" called Mt. Trashmore. It served a purpose. Now children go tobogganing; it's massive.

And, Rollercoaster Rd., a road that makes the Nürburgring look flat, and wide.

And, of course, my favourite place name in the local area; London, Ontario; a place that has the Thames River, Wharncliffe Rd., Westminster, and Trafalgar.

 

[Lizard]

I once lived in a place called Ash. Luckily it doesn't have a huge rate of house fires.

Then a bit down the road there is Ash Vale.

I always thought Aldershot was a strange one. Sounds a little like order shot but that one makes sense as it is home to a massive and I do mean massive army base.
So big one of the main roads has to go through it so there is a stretch of road where you go through and you are constantly watched by men with guns.

Also side streets go through it but there the buildings are separated from the road by a fence and some ground.

 

[Pagey279]

There are some doozies here in Somerset, here's a few:

Beercrocombe, near Taunton, Somerset.
Chewton Mendip, near Wells, Somerset.
Clapton-in-Gordano, near Portishead, Somerset.
Cowslip Green, near Congresbury, Somerset.
Farrington Gurney, near Radstock, Somerset. (This is my personal favourite and best said in a Somerset accent)
Westonzoyland, near Bridgewater, Somerset.
Withiel Florey, West Somerset.

Also my home town Frome confuses a lot of people.

 

[Wiegert]

Ruyton-XI-Towns (Rai-ton Eleven Towns) is one of the stranger names in Shropshire. The village was the centre of eleven townships in the local area in Medieval times, so the roman numeral was added and is still part of the name.

 

[xXKingJoshXx]

Flippin, Kentucky. I go through there every time I go to Tennessee to stay with my dad.

There's absolutely nothing in that town. Just an old abandoned building, a church, and a small 4 way intersection with one stop sign.

Also, in Indiana, you can find towns like Mexico, Peru, Dick Johnson, FairPlay, French Lick, Friendship, Gas City, Gnaw Bone, Licking, Oil, Possum Trot, Pumpkin Center, Russiaville, Santa Claus (home of Holdiay World, a really good theme park), Scotland, Sulphur Springs, Toadhop, and Warsaw (which is in Switzerland county...)

 

[MarinaDiamandis]

The U.K has some pretty good ones.

These are local to me:

Rude word for poop-erton
Minge
Scratchy Bottom
Shaggs
Old Sodom
Old Sodbury
Lickey End
Honey Knob Hill

A few favourites from around the U.K:

Cockintake
Fudgepack
Cockplay
Fannyfield

EDIT: Westonzoyland is a beauty when said in a Somerset accent - Westerrrnzoyylarrnd.

 

[Azure Flare]

 

[Liquid]

Oh I forgot, there's a place called Sodom near my town, too.

 

[McLaren]

And, famously, in North West Wales there's Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwll-llantysiliogogogoch. The longest place name in the UK, and I think the third longest in the world.

I'm assuming someone originally came up with the new Llanafair as the name & then got knocked in the head right afterwards.

 

[Liquid]

It was all a publicity stunt. When the town of Llanfairpwll got its railway station in the 19th century, they tried to think of imaginative ways to attract tourism to the town. Stroke of genius, they came up with the longest place name they could think of, incorporating a few landmarks into the new name. People flocked to the town to see the massively long platform sign and buy overwidened souvenir train tickets, and still do to this day.

The name translates as St Mary's church in the hollow of the white hazel near to the rapid whirlpool and the church of St Tysilio of the red cave

A very rough but wholly butchered pronunciation guide for English speakers is "Clan-vire-poolth-guin-gilth-go-ger-u-queern-drob-oolth-clandus-ilio-gogo-goch"

Nobody local ever refers to it by its 'full' name. It is always referred to, including on road signs and maps, by the shorter Llanfair, or Llanfairpwll, to distinguish it from other Llanfairs in Wales, which is a common place name.

 

[Blitz24]

There's a Bird In Hand in PA. Also there's:
Boring, MD
Why, AZ

 

[Anathema]

Hell, Norway. It freezes over in the winter.

 

[Blitz24]

There are two that won't even be allowed to type on here.

D word that ends in an o (5 letters), Newfoundland
F word ending in ing (7 letters), Austria

 

[photonrider]

What? What about Crotch Lake, and Bummer's Roost, both in Ontario?
Think they would pass?

Well, they did.

Here's another:
Ochiichagwebabigoining, Ontario – correctly written as Ochiichagwe'Babigo'Ining, this historic First Nations town is located within the Lake of the Woods area. It is near the Kenora District in Ontario and is part of the Ojibway Nation.

Most long names are actually a sentence that is easy for the peoples of that language to understand.
The name could be: Blahblahblahyayayadayada but actually means 'Valley of the mountain that makes noises in the night.'

Here's another:

Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu (85 letters)

Which means:
"The summit where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, the climber of mountains, the land-swallower who travelled about, played his nose flute to his loved one"

 

[ITCC_Andrew]

Newfoundland's mainly of Scottish ancestry, so, just tossing it out there; the five letter word seems legit.

 

[daan]

I know daan has done a list of not very phonetic place names in Scotland, but I can't find it at the moment.

This one?

There are loads of places round about here that aren't pronounced the way they're written.

Written - Prounounced
Strathaven - Stray-ven
Kilncadzow - Kill-caig-eh
And my all time favourite
Woolfords - Wig-gets

Although the only person I've heard saying the last one is my mother-in-law so I'm unsure as to whether thats the correct pronounciation or if it's just her...

And that's just local ones. There are loads of Scottish placenames that aren't said the way you'd think.

We also have this thread.

 

[garlik_bread]

Westward_Ho! is pretty cool because it's one of the only places with an exclamation mark as part of the name.

 

[PeterJB]

Lacock (or La Cock as I like to call it)
Thingley
Gastard
Beanacre
Forest
Purlpit
Slaughterford
Goatacre
Oh, and Pennsylvania!

 

[Dean]

The city "Middelfart" (meaning "central passage", in old Danish) is close to me.
There's also "Tarm" (meaning intestine, in Danish), and possibly many more, but those two are the only ones I remember.

 

[Carlos]

The city "Middelfart" (meaning "central passage", in old Danish) is close to me.
There's also "Tarm" (meaning intestine, in Danish), and possibly many more, but those two are the only ones I remember.

I once was somewhere, where they had 'fart control'.

 

[Dean]

As unlikely as it should be, was it in Tarm ?

(Speed in Danish is "fart", by the way.It's said in the same way as on English.)

 

[MagpieRacer]

I guess to those who are not from the UK Reading could be an odd one, foreigners won't know on first look that it's pronounced Redding.

Few from back home on the coast:
Upper Dicker
Lower Dicker
Uckfield

And from around places I've been:
Eye (village in Norfolk)
Looe (Cornwall)
Westward Ho!

Some which I consider unusual:
Rottingdean
Waterlooville
Weston super mare
Polperro
Drift
Senna

 

[daan]

I guess to those who are not from the UK Reading could be an odd one,

I like Reading University. Surely you should be able to read before you get to any uni?

So, anyway, who is Connah and why does he have a quay?

 

[Ross]

A few miles South of me there is Middle Wallop. I don't know where top and bottom wallop went because Bottom Wallop would be hilarious.
That's in North Hampshire, UK by the way.

 

[ChromeLEDS]

Someplace in Austria called Wankham.

 

[Danny]

Penistone is pretty near to me.

Heard some interesting pronunciations of that.