I have a friend from who was from Oblong IL. Apparently, as the story goes, there was once a society page headline as follows - “Oblong Man Marries Normal Woman.” It’s an Illinois thing.
My son was born in the hospital in Bloomington, Illinois which is very close to the city line with Normal. So, he has always been told he was literally born a half mile east of Normal.
I once spent a summer on my great-uncles farm in Burnt Corn, Alabama. It had one stop light that turned into a blinker after sunset. The post office, general store, and funeral home were all in the same building.
And if you travelled north a way just past Montgomery, Alabama @Taylor Libby in Elmore County you would have come to Slapout (also called Holtville). It always makes me chuckle when I think of the name. And there’s another smaller hamlet by that name in Oklahoma. In both cases the name is said to be associated with storekeepers in these locations that when asked if they had a particular item, and didn’t, they would say they were ‘slap out’ of it. When I first heard it I imagined a place where they held a slapping contest. Just visualising that in my head makes me laugh.
@@alexrafe2590 I once long ago lived just north of Slapout, Oklahoma in a place called Beaver which has/had a special day, because it is the "cow chip" capital of the world. You may ask yourself what is a "cow chip", especially if you are from across any pond. This colorful moniker is bestowed on field dried cow patties. Manure. These are gathered up from the local pastures by the pickup truck load, and boy is it aromatic on a sunny day. Then, when the omens are right, there is the cow chip parade, complete with Cow Chip Queen. (Cowboys love her because by that point, even the most fragrant of them smell like roses to her.) And lastly, at the fairgrounds, which can scarce hold so many rednecks, is held the main contest, for which men, women and children strain mightily. To see who can fling poo the furthest. The winner is presented with a display worthy bronze trophy of a beaver sitting on its butt, holding a round cow chip. (they naturally "plop out" already molded that way.) With its beady eyes and protruding teeth, it appears for all the world like a not too bright pet preparing to bite a honeybun. Just American wierdness.😁
@@tinkerstrade3553 believe me I know what cow chips are. Cattle and farms are not unknown in the area I was born, that’s to say Montgomery, where my father worked at Maxwell AFB for five years, although my family is from the rural Appalachian corner of Alabama where it meets Georgia and Tennessee. I did return to live in Montgomery for a few years after I left university, so while it’s not from my family’s part of the state I know it well. Some years after that I studied in Brussels, and then settled in the UK. Still I’ve never seen beavers in either country, although I did watch a fascinating documentary about efforts in Britain to reintroduce them to rivers around the country to rejuvenate the wild environment and increase their numbers. Anyway it appears that the people of Oklahoma know how to get maximum entertainment value out of the resources they have at hand😁
@@alexrafe2590 Hi welcome to Britain and hope you have an ok time here! My all time favourite place name, is somewhere in Yorkshire. It's called... Wetwang 😂😂
Chicken, Alaska, got its name because the residents couldn’t agree on the spelling of Ptarmigan, so they just said “the heck with it, we’ll just call it Chicken.”
You miss an important detail, the next town down the road is Eagle. Too bad they knew how to spell that, otherwise we'd have a town named "white-headed buzzard."
This was one puntastic episode! The people in Concrete should be happy you solidified their place in history. Hopefully they appreciate it and don’t rebar you from town.
Laurence, surely you now know what you must do. Jump on I-88 and head West for a couple hours and get past Aurora, maybe even past DeKalb, and buy up a bunch of farmland and get incorporated as Lost In The Pond, Illinois.
Epond. Modern, to be sure. Let us spare a glance for Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania. Met a guy from there once in a bar. He taught me how to pronounce it when he overheard me mention I wanted to go there just to see what kind of community would rejoice in such a name. Say it pretty evenly, like it's two words. I never did visit Ohiopyle. Which my autocorrect insists _must_ be two words. Both capitalized.
Lol when my youngest daughter was in high school, she took graphic art classes. In one, she had to come up with a street name and design and create a metal street sign. She came up with the name... Goa way. Lol It still cracks me up. Mainly because at the time, she was very much an introvert. So it made perfect sense.
She wanted something she would hang on the wall for years to come! It was what she wanted to say to everyone, but she's an introvert, so she didn't. Her sign did it for her.
I just learned (as a result of this video) that "oblong" has different connotation in British English vs. American English. In Britain, it means a long rectangle. But in America, it means any elongated shape, and is often used to describe an oval.
I was actually thinking about Whynot, NC when you were talking about Uncertain, TX but when my Dad, who grew up near Whynot, tells the story it was that there were so many people at the meeting to come up with the new town's name that after the umpteenth round of suggestions of "why not this" and "why not that", THAT was when someone got fed up and cheekily asked "well why not 'why not" just pick something so we could go home." :) I am so happy it made the list. Now to just see Yadkinville and Conetoe make the NC pronunciation list one day and I can die happy.
@@oneauthenticman Oh, that's a good one. I had to learn Pfafftown fast when we moved to Lewisville. Now we just have to remember these for when Laurence gets to NC... 😄
In Michigan, we can't really tell people we don't like to "go to h***" without opening ourselves up to a bunch of overused puns because here, it's an actual city. Fun fact: not only does Hell, MI freeze over every winter, it's also roughly 340 miles south of Paradise, MI. On another note, I love your videos. I can tell you put a lot of thought and research into them.
The story about Uncertain reminds me of Ink, AR. When voting on the name of the settlement, the vote-counter was a person with poor eyesight. So on the ballots was put the request "Please write in ink". And that was what the residents wrote in as the new name. Ink.
As a proud Texan I could go on about the plethora of names here (We also have a Concrete). But I have to give it to the Arkies with Toad Suck. It makes Bugscuffle, Tx seem a little less cool.
Then there's Yamhill, Oregon, which, contrary to what you may think, has nothing to do with a mound of sweet potatoes. And, a little closer to your neck of the woods, let's not forget Hell, Michigan. (Yes, Hell _does_ freeze over.)
@@AndrewAMartin You beat me to this comment, but the best line I've ever heard about the two was the story my cousin told me about a preacher who rode a Demon (the car) through Hell on his way to Paradise.
You know, in our travels , I saw another sign that said Hell with an arrow pointing to the left with a to turn on. But I cannot find it on a map . And we never got past Illinois. I cant ,for the life of me ,remember what state we were in.
@@emilybach I went through there once when I was a kid, over 40 years ago. It wasn't much more than a gas station, a store, and a few horse farms. IIRC, one of the Detroit TV News guys kept horses there...
Westwego, Louisiana -- Westwego was so named because it was a major crossing point on the Mississippi River during the great westward movement of the late 19th century. When travelers were asked their destination, they would often reply "west we go".
Some may say that the aggregate of puns about Concrete was pour form, but I thought your delivery was rock solid! 😂 I love your videos, and this one was especially fun! Tell your "producers" that I think this would be a great series!
And then there's Slide, Texas. From Wikipedia... Originally known as Block Twenty, the community got its unusual name in 1903 when surveyor W.D. Sandefer discovered that most of Block Twenty's structures had been built about 2 miles east of their proper locations. To rectify the error, all of the community's buildings were placed on skids and 'slid' 2 miles to the west, and Block Twenty was henceforth referred to as Slide to commemorate the event.
And then you discover that Australia has a town named after an American president that most Americans have forgotten… (Garfield). And a town named after an explosives plant in Scotland (that also had a explosives plant run by the exact same company (Ardeer)).
@@allangibson8494 My grade school in our small Illinois ( US ) town was named Garfield after the president - also alma mater of the great late " saloon singer " Bobby Short .
@@cynthiajohnston424 “Garfield” was a distinct improvement over the previous name “Cannibal Creek”. (Which would probably have made a list for a different reason).
You could do a whole list of places in Florida: Christmas, Couch, Yeehaw Junction, Spuds, Picnic, Howey-in-the-Hills, Okahumpka, Lorida, Mayo, Niceville, Two Egg, Roach Branch, Lone Cabbage.... I'm sure there are more.
Just imagine being driven down interstate 91 as a teenager (like I was once) and passing a sign for Hazardville Connecticut and wondering what calamity occured there to name it such
I remember a comedian once said that most western towns were settled because that's where the wagon train broke down. Turns out....he was right! When traveling I'd laugh when I'd see a town sign with a broken wagon wheel proudly displayed.
Western Pennsylvania has OTHER common nouns as town names: Wall and Moon come to mind. Also, Western PA has Mars, PA. (Yep, Moon and Mars about 25 miles apart!) People from Mars, PA are legitimate Martians.
@@jayt9608 Hershey is not unique. It's named for the company. Other PA examples are Blawnox, PA (Blaw-Knox Corporation) and Ambridge, PA (American Bridge Company) are other examples. EDIT: OMG! Sorry, I JUST got the joke: "Mars" and "Hershey" are BOTH candy companies. 🤦♂️I feel stupid, LOL. It would have been cool if Mars (the company) was ALSO from PA, But sadly, No. They are from New Jersey. Mars, PA unfortunately has nothing to do with "Mars Bars" or "M&Ms".
@@jamesslick4790 Reading your comment, especially when you caught the joke made me laugh. While Mars, PA may not actually be associated with the candy company, my memory of history states that Mars, the company, was founded by a former employee of Hershey. I could however have that reversed. 😁
Expert use of puns in this video! I was thrilled to stumble upon Greater Wallop and Lesser Wallop while driving in the British countryside. I have family in Cut-and-Shoot, Texas (population 1,087).
Definitely! I was just about to suggest that. Supposedly a judge overseeing the process if naming the new town declared that could be named anything, but it must be "Peculiar". Hence, the name stuck.
@@redmach12003 yeah, I live about 40 miles away. They say the man who went to Jefferson city to register the name, found out a town was already named that. He said it was peculiar, & he would bet no other town had that name, so he registered that. That's what the residents say. That's also the story they told when the news was talking about strange names for towns. There a re a bunch, so definitely worth a series. He could be asked is it a real town name, or a made up one.
Santa Claus, Indiana. This town was not originally intended to be a major tourist trap, but got its name after the US Postal Service rejected its first town name (another Indiana town already had the name).
"(Baker...) named after the nearby river." Oh dear. The river is named after Mt. Baker, a nearby volcanic peak, 10, 781 feet in elevation. Named after Joseph Baker, third lieutenant in the RN, part of the crew of George Vancouver who explored puget sound in the 1790s (Puget Sound being named after Peter Puget, 2nd Lieutenant).
As an American I enjoy learning the history of America. People that live around me, and maybe the rest of the country, might only take one trip in their lives. Some people never leave their city. I assume it's because we have such diverse cultures here. Thank you Laurence for all your hard work researching and reporting. It's truly appreciated. ❤
I can't imagine not going on road trips and seeing other parts of the country in person. Famous attractions, landmarks, geography, etc. Think my state total is up to 42.
@@lo1bo2 ok, if you have been to all of the bbq states and aren’t already from one of them, which state do you think has the best bbq I would do this myself, but I’m already from one of them and would definitely be biased (not going to say which)
I've been to Dinosaur, and it's mostly just like your average Colorado small town other than the amazing street names. The National Monument is also really interesting because in some areas you can touch the fossils, and it's just great scenery in general. Some other towns with weird names that I've been to include Normal Illinois, Egg Harbor Wisconsin, and Santa Claus Indiana.
@@quycksylver4822 Dime Box - not to be confused with Old Dime Box. Both places were 'closed' in the middle of the night when looking for gas. That was an eerie area to drive through.
Michigan also has Grindstone City. It is a small town on the shore of Lake Huron, named after their previous industry. They produced grindstone out of the local rock. It was in great demand at one time. When the company went out of business they dumped what product they had left along the shoreline where it remains to this day.
When we moved to Portland, OR, I found out Boring is just a few miles to the east. It was named after William Harrison Boring. What is fun is its sister cities, Dull Scotland and Bland Australia. That's a giggle.
@@pinecone2455 Maryland has a boatload of weird town names. The very weird cartoon strip Zippy the Pinhead once listed 52 amusing Maryland town names. I can't remember them all. I have driven through Boring but never wanted to join the Boring Ladies' Auxiliary. There's Detour and Accident. I was raised in Finksburg. The punch line must be Flintstone.
Texas: you have missed a chance to mention Cut-and-Shoot Oatmeal (whose Oatmeal Festival started when oatmeal suddenly disappeared from the map and the locals decided that couldn't possibly be allowed to happen - it includes not only a beauty contest for women but a man's drag contest called Miss Bag of Oats... at least, it did when my college roommate from the nearby town of Liberty Hill first told me about it) Sweetwater & Agua Dulce, which are two town names that mean the same thing in different languages but are not the same town Texarkana, an entry in the longstanding American tradition of giving portmanteau names to towns that straddle the border of two or more states
@@Aj66602 I've stopped in Ajo but never stopped and thought of Why. It's been over a decade now, but I used to drive out to the National Monument every fall for a day trip.
My hometown is Ordnance, Oregon, now a ghost town. It was originally built as barracks-like housing for the US Army Ordnance Depot, which was across the highway in the middle of a large undeveloped arid area. The street names (maybe a dozen or so) were all ordnance related, and we lived on 'Bomb Street'. I played with the kids on Cannon and Detonator streets. My family left Ordnance behind when most everybody became more mobile in the mid-fifties. So did all the other families, and the town was sold, lock, stock, and barrel, to a local agribusinessman, who promptly removed all the doors, installed troughs, and surrounded the town with cyclone fencing. Thereafter, motorists on the highway (and later, the six lane interstate freeway) would reflexively roll up their windows against the stink of the pig farm. That continued for a good twenty years, until the pigs finally disappeared from the town, and the slab walls were leveled. Now, there's just a water tower and a single commercial building, with cottonwoods growing up through the concrete slabs.
Hi Laurence! Sorry to hear about the Queen. You might already know this but where I'm from originally, Massachusetts, gets most of its place names either from England or native American names. We have Plymouth (probably one of our most famous in history - you can actually go to Pilgrim Plimouth Plantation at Sandwich and see recreations of the villages where the first English settlers (after Jamestown) lived. ), Hull, Cambridge, Ipswich, Essex, Gloucester, Worcester just to name a few. I believe Boston, Lynn, Chelsea, Dorchester and Quincy are some of yours as well. There are plenty more of course. Braintree, Beverly, Haverhill (not 100% sure about these) maybe? So yeah, it's either English or American Indian names in Mass (which makes sense)
I think Braintree is the former name of Quincy. Actually the older Braintree’s land was incorporated into parts of Quincy. The older Braintree is different from the newer, separate town of Braintree.
@@DerekWitt yeah, I understand what you're saying. On the North Shore Danvers used to be Salem Village. It was a part of but distinct from Salem proper. That's where the witch trial stuff actually started and not the city of Salem itself. There is a memorial not too far from where I used to live in Danvers to the victims of the trials
@@jeffcook3747 I read The Crucible in high school. Very gruesome. Not sure how much of the history Arthur Miller used for his play. I saw that the victims themselves were pardoned by either the city of Salem or by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts a few months ago.
Yaaay!! Born and Raised in Oblong! We're the "Only Oblong" in the world, mostly because nobody else would be crazy enough to name their town that. Local legend is that the settlement was called "Henpeck" after a local shopkeeper named Henry Peck. But apparently the menfolk of the town didn't want outsiders to presume that they were browbeaten by their wives! So they named it for the prairie. Thanks for featuring our little town! Come on down Halloween weekend for the Fall Follie street festival and Illinois' largest nighttime parade!
My father wrote a book called, "Tales From Toadsuck, Texas". It was a town in Grayson County, which is just north of the Dallas area on the TX/OK border.
The city of Coalinga, CA (Koh-uh-ling-gah) began life as a coaling station on the Southern Pacific railroad. Specifically, it was Coaling Station A, but the signs often just said “Coaling A.”
l lived in Triangle, VA in high school (as did my parents for the rest of their lives). Not sure it was a good name because I never saw any noticeable triangles the whole time I was there... but I'm not taking sides. 😎
One of my favorite town names is Hungry Horse, Montana where my parents stopped when we were driving on vacations as kids. My siblings and I still stop there when we're in the area. Named after .... well you can guess. They have a nice restaurant and gift shop. Not to far from Deer Lodge. They're very broad minded there. They also have an Elk's Lodge in town.
How about Stamping Ground, Kentucky for your next video in this series? It used to have another name but the people changed the town's name in the 1800s because of the active bison "stamping the ground" as they did.
I grew up not too far away from Coal City, PA. Accidentally rode my bike uphill through a mountainous forest to the place one day, surprised myself by realizing where I was (the coal industry was long gone by then), and took myself back home on the roads down the mountain. Home was about seven miles away.
Great Bend, Kansas (central part of the state) got its name from the large bend of the Arkansas River. Manhattan, Kansas is another one. Very often I have to say “the other Manhattan .” Most out-of-staters think of New York when I talk about Manhattan, Kansas. In fact, it’s nickname is The Little Apple.
Try Surprise Arizona. Back in the 70’s it was nothing more than a wide spot on the road heading out of Phoenix and apparently thought of surprise because of the fact that it literally was out in the middle of nowhere and Surprise …..there is a town out here. Now it has been swallowed up by the growth of the Phoenix metro and is a city of approximately 150,000 today.
I always have to tell people that I live in a city called Surprise, because if I just say "Surprise" I get all the lame jokes that come with it. "Well, what a SUrPrise!" Ugh. Either that or expectant confusion on what the "surprise" is.
We have some towns here in South Carolina that have names that are directionally challenged. Central is in the Western part of the state and North is in the central part of the state. We also have 3 towns adjacent to each other called Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Definitely not in Scandinavia.
My Mama was born in North, SC and I remember one day telling someone (When I was much much younger) that she was born in North SC. We then began a conversation much like "Who's on First?" with her replying, "Yes, but where north? Greenville, Spartanburg?" It was quite frustrating to me at the time trying to explain it to her. On a side note, I'm still living in SC and the next city over is "Round O" as if Os were any other shape... lol
Central, SC was named that because it was supposed to be the center of textile manufacturing back in the day. I believe that distinction eventually went to Greenville. But now textile manufacturing has gone overseas, because why would you provide jobs for your own countrymen?
Great video. I was really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the towns of Embarrass, Ball Club, Black Hammer, Motley, Ottertail, Good Thunder, Sleepy Eye, Nowthen, and Nimrod - all in Minnesota.
We have a few odd names here in Georgia. A couple of them are "Social Circle, GA" and "Experiment, GA" I'm also quite fond of the town named "Lizard Lick, NC" and "Monkey's Eyebrow, KY." Oh, and I cannot forget "Hell, MI"
“Lick” usually refers to a salt lick-an exposed mineral deposit that animals lick as basically a natural nutritional supplement. Now, I can’t tell what “Toad Suck” means. For some reason I imagine that a species of toad lives there that can secrete a mind altering substance, and people would suck them to get high. But that’s probably not it.
My grandmother liked to say she had been born in Luck but had been out of Luck every since. Apparently, her parents moved from Wisconsin to Michigan shortly after her birth...
This needs a part 2 (or more) featuring places like nowhere, ok cut and shoot, tx and nameless, tn. There are plenty more, especially in Texas and Oklahoma but I’m sure in every state
I chortled at the Doctor Who geometry reference. Also, I'd like to thank you for scaring my 10 week old abandoned & rescued kitten with that guitar twang, because he was about to jump onto the dining table, and I'm trying to discourage that urge of his with negative stimuli, like scarry noises.
Missouri has the town of Nixa. Nobody can agree on how Nixa got its name, and it's the only Nixa. (It's the supposed birthplace of Jason Bourne/David Webb.) A bit further south is Possum Trot. (Just one old building, now.) Old log cabins in warm parts of the USA were built in two halves - one for the kitchen and one for sleeping in - with a covered breezeway between, sometimes called a dog trot or a possum trot. Laurence, thanks for another great vid. My, you are looking good.
Burns Flat, OK always seemed an odd choice to me. Apparently named for a guy named Burns, not that it actually burned down. It got a reference in the film Doom, probably something John Carmack was likely familiar with due to there being a spaceport (former Strategic Air Command base/airport) there, and he had taken some of the profits from the game Doom and had a pet project of a rocket company for a while.
I grew up in Dill City and went to school in Burns Flat. For years everyone was talking about the company that was gonna come in and do space flights but as far as I know nothing ever came of it.
There's some debate as to why Uncertain is called Uncertain. IIRC, another theory is that it was called that because riverboats knew they were in "uncertain parts" aka they had no idea where they were.
I don't know how you skipped over Chicken, Alaska. If you do another one of these, 10/10 would recommend adding in. In Chicken, even though the permanent population is about 8-12, they have Chicken Airport and the Chicken Historic District. It's well worth a look.
How did I know Truth or Consequences would make your list? Maybe by living in Albuquerque for nearly 30 years where most of us just call it T or C. Seriously. As usual, love your channel, love your content, and especially love your humor. Oh! Before I end this post, I’d like to share a new discovery with you… I discovered Marmite while living in Australia. Developing a taste for it, I was thrilled to find Marmite in one of the grocery stores in my little town, after returning to the U.S. But, I was soon saddened when that store put Marmite on clearance. My only local source would soon be gone. After so far purchasing a dozen jars of the remaining Marmite, I realized I would have to discover other ways of enjoying it than just as a topping for buttered toast. To use one of your words, I summoned some bravery when I got the quirky idea of having a Marmite and peanut butter sandwich. I ended up eating the same type of sandwich four days in a row. It’s actually pretty good! I don’t know if you’re an enjoyer of Marmite, Vegemite, or Promite, but I thought you might get a kick out of my story. Cheers!
@@freethebirds3578 I was in NM for way too many years, but I finally achieved my lifelong dream of moving to the colorful 😉 NE side of the four corners. Sooo glad I did. Come back for a visit sometime! 🙂
Just think, if they had used another satellite and planet from our solar system, and they built a highway connecting them, we could drive on the Titan-Uranus Highway.
There is a town in Texas, close to the corner of New Mexico, called Notrees. Washington State also has Black Diamond, and Puyallup, while Oregon has La Grande, or The Big as I usually call it. It's immediately adjacent to Island City, which is neither an island or a city.
I grew up in southern Virginia but in the Raleigh NC media market. I heard Whynot mentioned sooooo many times and never thought it odd. Guess my brain just thought, "Why not?"
Such great weird names! Hurrah! I love the name of Umpire, Arkansas. It was named after the umpire of a celebratory baseball game. Normally we only notice umpires when we are booing them because we don’t like a call they made. It’s so cool that one got a whole town named for him! That was in the 1880s. No one has been that nice to an umpire since then, I bet.
There's Bunkie, Louisiana. It was named after the young daughter of a prominent family. Her nickname was Bunkie. She got the nickname because, as a young child, she was given a pet monkey and she mispronounced it. A bit of bullying, if you think about it...
Another little tidbit about Truth or Consequences... When Mick Foley wrestled under his Cactus Jack persona, he was billed from T or C. One of my favourites is Why, Arizona. We have some weird places in Canada too.. Flin Flon, Manitoba, Punkeydoodles Corner, Ontario, Come By Chance, Newfoundland..
Yup, there are some weird ones. One of my favs isn't here in the States, but just up north on Prince Edward Island, on the east cost of Canada. It's called "Ten Mile House." Yes, that's the name of the town/settlement. It's no longer it's own entity, but we live in an area called Wanamaker, I have no idea how that got it's name. I lived in a town called Hooksett, named after how the Merrimack River, which pretty much flows north to south in New Hampshire, curves through the town like a "hook" that is "set" into the river when you look down at the river from the high point (called literally "The Pinnacle Point") in the town. There's also Santa Clause, Indiana which is where the theme park Holiday World is, as well as North Pole, Alaska, a town in Alaska (it's not actually the North Pole, though), where they have lots and lots of Christmas themed things going on in the winter. You can mail your letters to Santa to North Pole and they do have a team dedicated to answering them. It is located way up in Alaska and it is NOT a made up town, either. They do get a decent amount of snow. I love place names and I find all the old ones in the UK pretty awesome. I love how they match alot of the ones here in the States, too.
Your neighbor Newfoundland and Labrador has weird names too. Dildo, Goobies, Random Island, Dog Island, Tunungayualok, Natuashish, Akami-Uapishk-Kakkasuak-Mealy Mountains
I'm fairly sure that a wanamaker makes wanas, i.e. tubs. I've also seen a Messersmith Road, where a messer is a knife. (A messer is also someone who measures, but a smith of that kind of messer doesn't make much sense.)
Port Deposit, Maryland. Before railroads, when waterways were the main shipping venue, this town was the northern most point you could go up the Susquehanna River from the Chesapeake Bay due to rapids. Shipments were deposited in the town's port, loaded onto ferries to go through the canal around the rapids and into Pennsylvania. The original name was Creswell, IIRC, but it became known as the Port of Deposit, with the "of" eventually getting dropped.
I live in Washington, and we also have the towns of Humptulips, Nooksack, Vader, Sedro woolley (formerly Bug) where I live, Tokeland, and many others. Also, Deception Pass, etc.
There is a Cement, Oklahoma. We also have towns named Pink, Amber, Jet, Old Green, Blue, Olive and Carmen (if you like colors). I think my favorite has to be Okay, Oklahoma simply because "Okay, OK"
If you're familiar with Intercourse, PA, you're not too far from Blue Ball and Bird in Hand. However, it's a bit of a drive to Virginville, but there's a little pub there you might enjoy.
Washington has a few hard-to-pronounce Native American city and county names LOL. There's Enumclaw, Spokane, Puyallup, Okanogan, and Sequim. Others are easier to pronounce though, but they look kinda funky, like Skykomish (only been there once...it's a small place with not much to do), Snoqualmie (there's a very popular waterfall there!), Snohomish, and Sammamish.
@@AndrewAMartin LOL. PA is just full of fun! If you see my other comments, you can tell I'm a lifelong resident of this Confusing Commonwealth! And as a personal reference, Let's NOT forget Slickville, PA 👍😂👍
Lancaster County, PA (also know as Amish Country" has several, um.. interesting town names, including Blue Ball, Pleasureville, Intercourse, Mount Joy, Lititz, Bareville, Bird-in-Hand, Fertility and Paradise. Those Amish have quite a sense of humor...
I grew up in Kansas City, Missouri and my grandparents lived in the Ozarks. In a city named Climax Springs (which I found unfortunate once I reached a certain age). When we would visit we passed through a tiny town called Tightwad. I kid you not.
I'm kind of laughing at you using a spinning pin for Washington state because damn, nobody wants to trace that. I wonder if Sophia, NC was named after Sophia of Hanover? Timing might be right.
I’ve heard about towns with two-word names combining them into one word because of some USPS policy that existed for a while. Maybe that’s what happened to Whynot.
One of the more famous newspaper headlines came out of Minnesota in the 1980's. There are two oddly named towns about 25 miles apart in Polk County. One of the residents from one town happened to be accidentally killed in the other. The headline in the Polk County Tribune read "Fertile Woman Dies in Climax."
Moving to the US was the best job decision Lawrence could have made. He's making puns like nobody's business. There needs to be a town/city named Nobody's Business. LOL I think there is a town/city in the US named Heck.
I have lived in the US (New England to be exact) all my life, but for some reason I've always been drawn to British humor. (must be the colonial in me, lol) I loved this video more than I can explain. Thank you for this lol
Slapout, OK, a small town in the Oklahoma Panhandle. The town got its name from the proprietor of the general store, who whenever someone asked for an out of stock item, would say they were “slap out” of it. They must’ve been slap out of a lot of things.
I have a friend from who was from Oblong IL. Apparently, as the story goes, there was once a society page headline as follows -
“Oblong Man Marries Normal Woman.”
It’s an Illinois thing.
Yes ! Thanks for mentioning Normal , Illinois !
My son was born in the hospital in Bloomington, Illinois which is very close to the city line with Normal. So, he has always been told he was literally born a half mile east of Normal.
I was going to bring up Oblong as I have relatives who live there (and was there myself last weekend).
But nobody would put Normal on a list of weird place names, or would they?
Only squares live in Oblong, Illinois.
I once spent a summer on my great-uncles farm in Burnt Corn, Alabama. It had one stop light that turned into a blinker after sunset. The post office, general store, and funeral home were all in the same building.
And if you travelled north a way just past Montgomery, Alabama @Taylor Libby in Elmore County you would have come to Slapout (also called Holtville). It always makes me chuckle when I think of the name. And there’s another smaller hamlet by that name in Oklahoma. In both cases the name is said to be associated with storekeepers in these locations that when asked if they had a particular item, and didn’t, they would say they were ‘slap out’ of it. When I first heard it I imagined a place where they held a slapping contest. Just visualising that in my head makes me laugh.
@@alexrafe2590 I once long ago lived just north of Slapout, Oklahoma in a place called Beaver which has/had a special day, because it is the "cow chip" capital of the world. You may ask yourself what is a "cow chip", especially if you are from across any pond.
This colorful moniker is bestowed on field dried cow patties. Manure. These are gathered up from the local pastures by the pickup truck load, and boy is it aromatic on a sunny day. Then, when the omens are right, there is the cow chip parade, complete with Cow Chip Queen. (Cowboys love her because by that point, even the most fragrant of them smell like roses to her.)
And lastly, at the fairgrounds, which can scarce hold so many rednecks, is held the main contest, for which men, women and children strain mightily. To see who can fling poo the furthest.
The winner is presented with a display worthy bronze trophy of a beaver sitting on its butt, holding a round cow chip. (they naturally "plop out" already molded that way.) With its beady eyes and protruding teeth, it appears for all the world like a not too bright pet preparing to bite a honeybun.
Just American wierdness.😁
@@tinkerstrade3553 believe me I know what cow chips are. Cattle and farms are not unknown in the area I was born, that’s to say Montgomery, where my father worked at Maxwell AFB for five years, although my family is from the rural Appalachian corner of Alabama where it meets Georgia and Tennessee. I did return to live in Montgomery for a few years after I left university, so while it’s not from my family’s part of the state I know it well. Some years after that I studied in Brussels, and then settled in the UK.
Still I’ve never seen beavers in either country, although I did watch a fascinating documentary about efforts in Britain to reintroduce them to rivers around the country to rejuvenate the wild environment and increase their numbers.
Anyway it appears that the people of Oklahoma know how to get maximum entertainment value out of the resources they have at hand😁
I'm imagining going in trying to buy something at the general store and they get on your case for interrupting a funeral or something.
@@alexrafe2590 Hi welcome to Britain and hope you have an ok time here! My all time favourite place name, is somewhere in Yorkshire. It's called...
Wetwang 😂😂
Chicken, Alaska, got its name because the residents couldn’t agree on the spelling of Ptarmigan, so they just said “the heck with it, we’ll just call it Chicken.”
*imagine getting a festive post card from the beloved town of Chicken*
Don't forget about North Pole,Alaska.
You miss an important detail, the next town down the road is Eagle.
Too bad they knew how to spell that, otherwise we'd have a town named "white-headed buzzard."
They have a great music festival every year. Chickenstock.
That is amazing.
This was one puntastic episode! The people in Concrete should be happy you solidified their place in history. Hopefully they appreciate it and don’t rebar you from town.
Har, har. 😄
Definitely PUNTASTIC!
Still love those "dad jokes" humor (humour)!
The moment he mentioned Washington, being a resident of Washington, I just knew he was going to mention Concrete. Either that or Battle Ground.
Oh, Lord the Puns, the puns!
Laurence, surely you now know what you must do. Jump on I-88 and head West for a couple hours and get past Aurora, maybe even past DeKalb, and buy up a bunch of farmland and get incorporated as Lost In The Pond, Illinois.
hahahahaha, and you talk about EXACTLY where I lived, went to college!!!!
I would move to "lost in the pond, IL"!
He’s probably spell Pond with an E.
Epond. Modern, to be sure.
Let us spare a glance for Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania. Met a guy from there once in a bar. He taught me how to pronounce it when he overheard me mention I wanted to go there just to see what kind of community would rejoice in such a name. Say it pretty evenly, like it's two words.
I never did visit Ohiopyle. Which my autocorrect insists _must_ be two words. Both capitalized.
Lol when my youngest daughter was in high school, she took graphic art classes. In one, she had to come up with a street name and design and create a metal street sign.
She came up with the name... Goa way. Lol
It still cracks me up. Mainly because at the time, she was very much an introvert. So it made perfect sense.
Very clever ! 😂 Tell your daughter that there is a Goa , India . I have a friend from there . 🙂
*love it*
In Cary, North Carolina there is a street named "Yubinaranda Circle".
Here in Bakersfield, we have King Arthur Court.
She wanted something she would hang on the wall for years to come! It was what she wanted to say to everyone, but she's an introvert, so she didn't. Her sign did it for her.
I just learned (as a result of this video) that "oblong" has different connotation in British English vs. American English. In Britain, it means a long rectangle. But in America, it means any elongated shape, and is often used to describe an oval.
I thought Oblong = a rectangle with rounded corners
I was actually thinking about Whynot, NC when you were talking about Uncertain, TX but when my Dad, who grew up near Whynot, tells the story it was that there were so many people at the meeting to come up with the new town's name that after the umpteenth round of suggestions of "why not this" and "why not that", THAT was when someone got fed up and cheekily asked "well why not 'why not" just pick something so we could go home." :) I am so happy it made the list. Now to just see Yadkinville and Conetoe make the NC pronunciation list one day and I can die happy.
There is a Wynot, NE.
South of my hometown in NC, is the town of Erect. We pronounce it E- Rect.
Try pronouncing Mebane, NC (meb-enn) or mcleansville, NC. (McClainsville)
Pfafftown, NC anyone want to take a stab?
@@oneauthenticman Oh, that's a good one. I had to learn Pfafftown fast when we moved to Lewisville. Now we just have to remember these for when Laurence gets to NC... 😄
I got lost in Oklahoma once and ended up in Who Cares.
In Michigan, we can't really tell people we don't like to "go to h***" without opening ourselves up to a bunch of overused puns because here, it's an actual city.
Fun fact: not only does Hell, MI freeze over every winter, it's also roughly 340 miles south of Paradise, MI.
On another note, I love your videos. I can tell you put a lot of thought and research into them.
I just posted about this! 🤣
Glad to see it was on someone else’s mind as well.
I can honestly say my mother-in-law drove me to Hell and back.
We live in northeast Indiana.
The story about Uncertain reminds me of Ink, AR. When voting on the name of the settlement, the vote-counter was a person with poor eyesight. So on the ballots was put the request "Please write in ink". And that was what the residents wrote in as the new name. Ink.
As an Arkansan....It's true!!!
Peculiar, MO got it's name in similar fashion.
@@garychambers6848 Arkansas also has the town of "56", just down the road from "Big Flat", used to have relatives from that area.
As a proud Texan I could go on about the plethora of names here (We also have a Concrete). But I have to give it to the Arkies with Toad Suck. It makes Bugscuffle, Tx seem a little less cool.
Then there's Yamhill, Oregon, which, contrary to what you may think, has nothing to do with a mound of sweet potatoes.
And, a little closer to your neck of the woods, let's not forget Hell, Michigan. (Yes, Hell _does_ freeze over.)
And naturally, while Hell is in the southern part of the Lower Peninsula, Paradise MI is in the Upper Peninsula...
@@AndrewAMartin You beat me to this comment, but the best line I've ever heard about the two was the story my cousin told me about a preacher who rode a Demon (the car) through Hell on his way to Paradise.
You know, in our travels , I saw another sign that said Hell with an arrow pointing to the left with a to turn on. But I cannot find it on a map . And we never got past Illinois. I cant ,for the life of me ,remember what state we were in.
I've been to Hell, Michigan. Not much to see but that was expected, considering.
@@emilybach I went through there once when I was a kid, over 40 years ago. It wasn't much more than a gas station, a store, and a few horse farms. IIRC, one of the Detroit TV News guys kept horses there...
we need a city named Lostinthepond. In honor of our host. It's so much fun here! Thank you 😊
Not so much.., no..
Westwego, Louisiana -- Westwego was so named because it was a major crossing point on the Mississippi River during the great westward movement of the late 19th century. When travelers were asked their destination, they would often reply "west we go".
I live in MS and am in that area from time to time. I never knew this. Is this true? That's kind of charming!
Some may say that the aggregate of puns about Concrete was pour form, but I thought your delivery was rock solid! 😂
I love your videos, and this one was especially fun! Tell your "producers" that I think this would be a great series!
And then there's Slide, Texas. From Wikipedia...
Originally known as Block Twenty, the community got its unusual name in 1903 when surveyor W.D. Sandefer discovered that most of Block Twenty's structures had been built about 2 miles east of their proper locations. To rectify the error, all of the community's buildings were placed on skids and 'slid' 2 miles to the west, and Block Twenty was henceforth referred to as Slide to commemorate the event.
😂 I'd bet one guy probably said, I built it here, & it's gonna stay here dang it!
@@zeusathena26 He probably did.
And then you discover that Australia has a town named after an American president that most Americans have forgotten… (Garfield).
And a town named after an explosives plant in Scotland (that also had a explosives plant run by the exact same company (Ardeer)).
@@allangibson8494 My grade school in our small Illinois ( US ) town was named Garfield after the president - also alma mater of the great late " saloon singer " Bobby Short .
@@cynthiajohnston424 “Garfield” was a distinct improvement over the previous name “Cannibal Creek”. (Which would probably have made a list for a different reason).
You could do a whole list of places in Florida: Christmas, Couch, Yeehaw Junction, Spuds, Picnic, Howey-in-the-Hills, Okahumpka, Lorida, Mayo, Niceville, Two Egg, Roach Branch, Lone Cabbage.... I'm sure there are more.
You’ve also got Jupiter and Boca Raton (aka Rat Mouth)
@@AnErProduction You also have Lakeland, which actually needs a new name. Woe to the city council if they ever ask me for an alternative name,ha ha.
I can't decide if I like Spuds or Lone Cabbage the best. Lorida, Florida does have a certain poetry too.
Education and laughter...Laurence's channel in a nutshell! Love it!
Just imagine being driven down interstate 91 as a teenager (like I was once) and passing a sign for Hazardville Connecticut and wondering what calamity occured there to name it such
We have a daingerfield in texas
A quick google search will give you the answer. It's from a guy with the last name of Hazard who manufactured gunpowder.
I remember a comedian once said that most western towns were settled because that's where the wagon train broke down. Turns out....he was right! When traveling I'd laugh when I'd see a town sign with a broken wagon wheel proudly displayed.
You'd think one town would be called wagon wheel !
Fairbanks, Alaska was where a promoter's barge ran aground. Too bad, because there are truly beautiful settings in the area.
@@sanniepstein4835 That's funny! I wonder how many islands were settled simply because that's where they ran aground?
There's a Wagontire in Oregon
Western Pennsylvania has OTHER common nouns as town names: Wall and Moon come to mind. Also, Western PA has Mars, PA. (Yep, Moon and Mars about 25 miles apart!) People from Mars, PA are legitimate Martians.
If you mention Mars, someone must mention Hershey!! 😁
@@jayt9608 Hershey is not unique. It's named for the company. Other PA examples are Blawnox, PA (Blaw-Knox Corporation) and Ambridge, PA (American Bridge Company) are other examples. EDIT: OMG! Sorry, I JUST got the joke: "Mars" and "Hershey" are BOTH candy companies. 🤦♂️I feel stupid, LOL. It would have been cool if Mars (the company) was ALSO from PA, But sadly, No. They are from New Jersey. Mars, PA unfortunately has nothing to do with "Mars Bars" or "M&Ms".
Where I live in Pa we have Turkeyfoot and Indian Head.
@@aydencook3965 A list of odd town names JUST from Pennsylvania could be its own episode! 😂
@@jamesslick4790
Reading your comment, especially when you caught the joke made me laugh. While Mars, PA may not actually be associated with the candy company, my memory of history states that Mars, the company, was founded by a former employee of Hershey. I could however have that reversed. 😁
Expert use of puns in this video!
I was thrilled to stumble upon Greater Wallop and Lesser Wallop while driving in the British countryside.
I have family in Cut-and-Shoot, Texas (population 1,087).
As the story goes, Cut And Shoot got its name because in the early days it was a rough town. If one went there they either had to cut or shoot.
Part 2 needs to have Peculiar Missouri on it!
Definitely! I was just about to suggest that. Supposedly a judge overseeing the process if naming the new town declared that could be named anything, but it must be "Peculiar". Hence, the name stuck.
@@redmach12003 yeah, I live about 40 miles away. They say the man who went to Jefferson city to register the name, found out a town was already named that. He said it was peculiar, & he would bet no other town had that name, so he registered that. That's what the residents say. That's also the story they told when the news was talking about strange names for towns. There a re a bunch, so definitely worth a series. He could be asked is it a real town name, or a made up one.
It needs to include Humansville MO too.
Santa Claus, Indiana. This town was not originally intended to be a major tourist trap, but got its name after the US Postal Service rejected its first town name (another Indiana town already had the name).
Texas also has “Bug Tussle” “Jot-‘em-down” and “Ding Dong”
And Dime Box, Levelland, Sundown, and so many more!
I was surprised he didn't mention Cut and Shoot, TX.
@@cathleenc6943I was gonna mention the same town.
"(Baker...) named after the nearby river."
Oh dear. The river is named after Mt. Baker, a nearby volcanic peak, 10, 781 feet in elevation. Named after Joseph Baker, third lieutenant in the RN, part of the crew of George Vancouver who explored puget sound in the 1790s (Puget Sound being named after Peter Puget, 2nd Lieutenant).
Right!!! Baker is my home ski area
Yeah, you can tell he's never lived in WA lol
My favorite is Disappointment. But I have also driven through Stud Horse Gulch. 🐎 of course, Bird In Hand and Intercourse PA are interesting.
As an American I enjoy learning the history of America. People that live around me, and maybe the rest of the country, might only take one trip in their lives. Some people never leave their city. I assume it's because we have such diverse cultures here. Thank you Laurence for all your hard work researching and reporting. It's truly appreciated. ❤
I enjoy seeing our culture through the eyes of a "foreigner" who has chosen to embrace it.
I can't imagine not going on road trips and seeing other parts of the country in person. Famous attractions, landmarks, geography, etc. Think my state total is up to 42.
@@lo1bo2 ok, if you have been to all of the bbq states and aren’t already from one of them, which state do you think has the best bbq
I would do this myself, but I’m already from one of them and would definitely be biased (not going to say which)
I've been to Dinosaur, and it's mostly just like your average Colorado small town other than the amazing street names. The National Monument is also really interesting because in some areas you can touch the fossils, and it's just great scenery in general. Some other towns with weird names that I've been to include Normal Illinois, Egg Harbor Wisconsin, and Santa Claus Indiana.
Uncertain is far from the weirdest town name in Texas. We have scads of them. My particular favorite favorite is Oatmeal.
There's a Christmas, Michigan
@@quycksylver4822 Dime Box - not to be confused with Old Dime Box. Both places were 'closed' in the middle of the night when looking for gas. That was an eerie area to drive through.
@@rtyria There's also Hell, Michigan.
@@rick420buzz And Paradise, MI
There is also a "Why" Arizona. Named originally after its "Y" intersection, I learned of it from an old Nintendo Power strategy guide.
That's such an odd place to learn something like that from. I used to love Nintendo Power. Good ol days.
@@johngavin1175 Okay, Oklahoma
I always laugh out loud when I watch your videos!! Thank you! ❤
Michigan also has Grindstone City. It is a small town on the shore of Lake Huron, named after their previous industry. They produced grindstone out of the local rock. It was in great demand at one time. When the company went out of business they dumped what product they had left along the shoreline where it remains to this day.
Enjoyed this. If you create an additional one, don't forget "Hoop and Holler" Texas or its nearby suburb "Cut and Shoot"
When we moved to Portland, OR, I found out Boring is just a few miles to the east. It was named after William Harrison Boring. What is fun is its sister cities, Dull Scotland and Bland Australia. That's a giggle.
Boring, Maryland is.
@@pinecone2455 Maryland has a boatload of weird town names. The very weird cartoon strip Zippy the Pinhead once listed 52 amusing Maryland town names. I can't remember them all. I have driven through Boring but never wanted to join the Boring Ladies' Auxiliary. There's Detour and Accident. I was raised in Finksburg. The punch line must be Flintstone.
@@freethebirds3578 check out the town names on coastal Delaware. I think a serial killer made them up.
Texas: you have missed a chance to mention
Cut-and-Shoot
Oatmeal (whose Oatmeal Festival started when oatmeal suddenly disappeared from the map and the locals decided that couldn't possibly be allowed to happen - it includes not only a beauty contest for women but a man's drag contest called Miss Bag of Oats... at least, it did when my college roommate from the nearby town of Liberty Hill first told me about it)
Sweetwater & Agua Dulce, which are two town names that mean the same thing in different languages but are not the same town
Texarkana, an entry in the longstanding American tradition of giving portmanteau names to towns that straddle the border of two or more states
Add notrees tx because there are no trees
I went to Texas A&M and I had a friend from Cut-n-Shoot. 😂
You missed the Arizona city called Why, literally that’s it’s name- would’ve flowed perfectly into whynot.
Btw it’s mostly two gas stations, but it’s a popular stop for people traveling from Phoenix to Mexico
@@Aj66602 I've stopped in Ajo but never stopped and thought of Why.
It's been over a decade now, but I used to drive out to the National Monument every fall for a day trip.
This would be a great series. Near me we have Peculiar MO and Tightwad MO and I'm sure there is more in just my state!
My hometown is Ordnance, Oregon, now a ghost town. It was originally built as barracks-like housing for the US Army Ordnance Depot, which was across the highway in the middle of a large undeveloped arid area. The street names (maybe a dozen or so) were all ordnance related, and we lived on 'Bomb Street'. I played with the kids on Cannon and Detonator streets. My family left Ordnance behind when most everybody became more mobile in the mid-fifties. So did all the other families, and the town was sold, lock, stock, and barrel, to a local agribusinessman, who promptly removed all the doors, installed troughs, and surrounded the town with cyclone fencing. Thereafter, motorists on the highway (and later, the six lane interstate freeway) would reflexively roll up their windows against the stink of the pig farm. That continued for a good twenty years, until the pigs finally disappeared from the town, and the slab walls were leveled. Now, there's just a water tower and a single commercial building, with cottonwoods growing up through the concrete slabs.
Hi Laurence! Sorry to hear about the Queen. You might already know this but where I'm from originally, Massachusetts, gets most of its place names either from England or native American names. We have Plymouth (probably one of our most famous in history - you can actually go to Pilgrim Plimouth Plantation at Sandwich and see recreations of the villages where the first English settlers (after Jamestown) lived. ), Hull, Cambridge, Ipswich, Essex, Gloucester, Worcester just to name a few. I believe Boston, Lynn, Chelsea, Dorchester and Quincy are some of yours as well. There are plenty more of course. Braintree, Beverly, Haverhill (not 100% sure about these) maybe? So yeah, it's either English or American Indian names in Mass (which makes sense)
I think Braintree is the former name of Quincy. Actually the older Braintree’s land was incorporated into parts of Quincy.
The older Braintree is different from the newer, separate town of Braintree.
@@DerekWitt yeah, I understand what you're saying. On the North Shore Danvers used to be Salem Village. It was a part of but distinct from Salem proper. That's where the witch trial stuff actually started and not the city of Salem itself. There is a memorial not too far from where I used to live in Danvers to the victims of the trials
@@jeffcook3747 I read The Crucible in high school.
Very gruesome. Not sure how much of the history Arthur Miller used for his play.
I saw that the victims themselves were pardoned by either the city of Salem or by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts a few months ago.
Definitely make this into a series!
Yaaay!! Born and Raised in Oblong! We're the "Only Oblong" in the world, mostly because nobody else would be crazy enough to name their town that. Local legend is that the settlement was called "Henpeck" after a local shopkeeper named Henry Peck. But apparently the menfolk of the town didn't want outsiders to presume that they were browbeaten by their wives! So they named it for the prairie. Thanks for featuring our little town! Come on down Halloween weekend for the Fall Follie street festival and Illinois' largest nighttime parade!
Texas has lots of unusual place names, but my favorite is in the same county in which I live. Cut and Shoot, Texas
As a fellow Texan (hello from the Houston area), that is probably one of the most Texan place names ever
My father wrote a book called, "Tales From Toadsuck, Texas". It was a town in Grayson County, which is just north of the Dallas area on the TX/OK border.
The city of Coalinga, CA (Koh-uh-ling-gah) began life as a coaling station on the Southern Pacific railroad. Specifically, it was Coaling Station A, but the signs often just said “Coaling A.”
Ducor, CA started as Dutch Corner.
I've been to (well, mostly through) Coalinga many times and I did not know that. Thanks for the information.
I remember staying a few days near Coalinga by I-5 while our motorhome was being repaired in the 80s. I remember all the cattle along I-5.
l lived in Triangle, VA in high school (as did my parents for the rest of their lives). Not sure it was a good name because I never saw any noticeable triangles the whole time I was there... but I'm not taking sides. 😎
One of my favorite town names is Hungry Horse, Montana where my parents stopped when we were driving on vacations as kids. My siblings and I still stop there when we're in the area. Named after .... well you can guess. They have a nice restaurant and gift shop. Not to far from Deer Lodge. They're very broad minded there. They also have an Elk's Lodge in town.
How about Stamping Ground, Kentucky for your next video in this series? It used to have another name but the people changed the town's name in the 1800s because of the active bison "stamping the ground" as they did.
How could you possibly miss the "towns" of Bug Scuffle and Dime Box in Texas?😅
I'm curious to know how Dime Box got its name,reminds me of a certain famous guitarist
Hello!!! I love it when you tie Doctor Who into your videos!
Yep! The world is full of closet-Whovians!
I grew up not too far away from Coal City, PA. Accidentally rode my bike uphill through a mountainous forest to the place one day, surprised myself by realizing where I was (the coal industry was long gone by then), and took myself back home on the roads down the mountain. Home was about seven miles away.
I love learning about how cities and towns get their names.
Great Bend, Kansas (central part of the state) got its name from the large bend of the Arkansas River.
Manhattan, Kansas is another one. Very often I have to say “the other Manhattan .” Most out-of-staters think of New York when I talk about Manhattan, Kansas. In fact, it’s nickname is The Little Apple.
Try Surprise Arizona. Back in the 70’s it was nothing more than a wide spot on the road heading out of Phoenix and apparently thought of surprise because of the fact that it literally was out in the middle of nowhere and Surprise …..there is a town out here. Now it has been swallowed up by the growth of the Phoenix metro and is a city of approximately 150,000 today.
I was literally going to mention Surprise, but I figured it wasn't as 'weird' as some of the other names on this list lol
I always have to tell people that I live in a city called Surprise, because if I just say "Surprise" I get all the lame jokes that come with it. "Well, what a SUrPrise!" Ugh. Either that or expectant confusion on what the "surprise" is.
We have some towns here in South Carolina that have names that are directionally challenged. Central is in the Western part of the state and North is in the central part of the state. We also have 3 towns adjacent to each other called Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Definitely not in Scandinavia.
My favorite is North. South Carolina !
My Mama was born in North, SC and I remember one day telling someone (When I was much much younger) that she was born in North SC. We then began a conversation much like "Who's on First?" with her replying, "Yes, but where north? Greenville, Spartanburg?" It was quite frustrating to me at the time trying to explain it to her. On a side note, I'm still living in SC and the next city over is "Round O" as if Os were any other shape... lol
Central, SC was named that because it was supposed to be the center of textile manufacturing back in the day. I believe that distinction eventually went to Greenville. But now textile manufacturing has gone overseas, because why would you provide jobs for your own countrymen?
South Charleston, West Virginia is actually west of Charleston.
Great video. I was really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the towns of Embarrass, Ball Club, Black Hammer, Motley, Ottertail, Good Thunder, Sleepy Eye, Nowthen, and Nimrod - all in Minnesota.
Also include Motley, Staples. Bluffton.
Plus the towns with Native American names. Kewatin, Naytahwash, Oconomowoc.
I don't know why you don't have over a million subs. Great stuff. Thank you and keep it up.
We have a few odd names here in Georgia. A couple of them are "Social Circle, GA" and "Experiment, GA" I'm also quite fond of the town named "Lizard Lick, NC" and "Monkey's Eyebrow, KY."
Oh, and I cannot forget "Hell, MI"
“Lick” usually refers to a salt lick-an exposed mineral deposit that animals lick as basically a natural nutritional supplement.
Now, I can’t tell what “Toad Suck” means. For some reason I imagine that a species of toad lives there that can secrete a mind altering substance, and people would suck them to get high. But that’s probably not it.
And lets not forget the town of Cumming GA, and then there's Cairo GA, pronounced by the locals as "Kay-Roe".
Or Talking Rock and Roswell Georgia.
My grandmother liked to say she had been born in Luck but had been out of Luck every since. Apparently, her parents moved from Wisconsin to Michigan shortly after her birth...
There is also a Luck, NC
This needs a part 2 (or more) featuring places like nowhere, ok cut and shoot, tx and nameless, tn. There are plenty more, especially in Texas and Oklahoma but I’m sure in every state
I chortled at the Doctor Who geometry reference. Also, I'd like to thank you for scaring my 10 week old abandoned & rescued kitten with that guitar twang, because he was about to jump onto the dining table, and I'm trying to discourage that urge of his with negative stimuli, like scarry noises.
My favorite NC town name is Lizard Lick.
My neighbor could not decide on a name for her cat. Maybe this. Maybe that. So the cat is Maybe.
I’m hoping a future episode includes Odd, West Virginia, along with the towns of Hurricane, Tornado, and Cyclone.
My grandmother was born in Cyclone, Texas, near Temple.
They pronounce hurricane hurrikin. Drove me nuts. It's just west of Nitro. A total chemical town.
Missouri has the town of Nixa. Nobody can agree on how Nixa got its name, and it's the only Nixa. (It's the supposed birthplace of Jason Bourne/David Webb.)
A bit further south is Possum Trot. (Just one old building, now.) Old log cabins in warm parts of the USA were built in two halves - one for the kitchen and one for sleeping in - with a covered breezeway between, sometimes called a dog trot or a possum trot.
Laurence, thanks for another great vid. My, you are looking good.
Burns Flat, OK always seemed an odd choice to me. Apparently named for a guy named Burns, not that it actually burned down. It got a reference in the film Doom, probably something John Carmack was likely familiar with due to there being a spaceport (former Strategic Air Command base/airport) there, and he had taken some of the profits from the game Doom and had a pet project of a rocket company for a while.
I grew up in Dill City and went to school in Burns Flat. For years everyone was talking about the company that was gonna come in and do space flights but as far as I know nothing ever came of it.
It's quite obvious from the name that Burns is the namesake and that "flat" is a flatland.
Yay, Washington and Concrete made it into a Lost in the Pond Video and my home state got its own unique animation on the map. 👍
A cute little town
He didn’t mention Humptulips Wa
@@becmer or Sequim.
There are so many
There's some debate as to why Uncertain is called Uncertain. IIRC, another theory is that it was called that because riverboats knew they were in "uncertain parts" aka they had no idea where they were.
If there’s some debate, it’s uncertain!
I don't know how you skipped over Chicken, Alaska. If you do another one of these, 10/10 would recommend adding in. In Chicken, even though the permanent population is about 8-12, they have Chicken Airport and the Chicken Historic District. It's well worth a look.
I once looked at a house in Defeated Tennessee. It’s not a town though, just a rural area. And no, I did not buy the house.🐝🤗❤️
There is also an Difficult Tennessee and it is pronounced in 3 syllables Di Full cult.
@@brendaclark8344 I’ve been there! It’s in the middle of no where right?🐝❤️🤗
How did I know Truth or Consequences would make your list? Maybe by living in Albuquerque for nearly 30 years where most of us just call it T or C. Seriously.
As usual, love your channel, love your content, and especially love your humor.
Oh! Before I end this post, I’d like to share a new discovery with you…
I discovered Marmite while living in Australia. Developing a taste for it, I was thrilled to find Marmite in one of the grocery stores in my little town, after returning to the U.S. But, I was soon saddened when that store put Marmite on clearance. My only local source would soon be gone.
After so far purchasing a dozen jars of the remaining Marmite, I realized I would have to discover other ways of enjoying it than just as a topping for buttered toast. To use one of your words, I summoned some bravery when I got the quirky idea of having a Marmite and peanut butter sandwich. I ended up eating the same type of sandwich four days in a row. It’s actually pretty good!
I don’t know if you’re an enjoyer of Marmite, Vegemite, or Promite, but I thought you might get a kick out of my story.
Cheers!
I was going to say the same about T or C, as it is called on weather forecasts. I lived in the 4 corners for 7 years, and I miss it.
@@freethebirds3578 I was in NM for way too many years, but I finally achieved my lifelong dream of moving to the colorful 😉 NE side of the four corners. Sooo glad I did.
Come back for a visit sometime!
🙂
We also have a Moon Township and Mars here in western Pennsylvania.
Just think, if they had used another satellite and planet from our solar system, and they built a highway connecting them, we could drive on the Titan-Uranus Highway.
There is a town in Texas, close to the corner of New Mexico, called Notrees. Washington State also has Black Diamond, and Puyallup, while Oregon has La Grande, or The Big as I usually call it. It's immediately adjacent to Island City, which is neither an island or a city.
Here in Oklahoma we have places like “Pink”, “Corn”, “Seiling”, “Cement”, “Silo”, “Hydro”, “Cookietown”, and even “Dead Women Crossing”. All real!!
I wonder if Silo actually has a silo. 😂
Never heard of the last two. The others I have especially during severe weather coverage.
you forgot Okay, Oklahoma. and I did live in Hydro...nice lil place. most of my in-laws were from there. which is surprisingly close to Corn, OK.
I grew up in southern Virginia but in the Raleigh NC media market. I heard Whynot mentioned sooooo many times and never thought it odd. Guess my brain just thought, "Why not?"
And of course not far from Raleigh is the crossroads community of Lizard Lick.
Such great weird names! Hurrah!
I love the name of Umpire, Arkansas. It was named after the umpire of a celebratory baseball game. Normally we only notice umpires when we are booing them because we don’t like a call they made. It’s so cool that one got a whole town named for him! That was in the 1880s. No one has been that nice to an umpire since then, I bet.
Never was crazy about so-called British humor.... but yours is hilarious! Love how you rant on and then drop it like an afterthought!
There's Bunkie, Louisiana. It was named after the young daughter of a prominent family. Her nickname was Bunkie. She got the nickname because, as a young child, she was given a pet monkey and she mispronounced it. A bit of bullying, if you think about it...
Another little tidbit about Truth or Consequences... When Mick Foley wrestled under his Cactus Jack persona, he was billed from T or C.
One of my favourites is Why, Arizona.
We have some weird places in Canada too.. Flin Flon, Manitoba, Punkeydoodles Corner, Ontario, Come By Chance, Newfoundland..
Yup, there are some weird ones. One of my favs isn't here in the States, but just up north on Prince Edward Island, on the east cost of Canada. It's called "Ten Mile House." Yes, that's the name of the town/settlement. It's no longer it's own entity, but we live in an area called Wanamaker, I have no idea how that got it's name. I lived in a town called Hooksett, named after how the Merrimack River, which pretty much flows north to south in New Hampshire, curves through the town like a "hook" that is "set" into the river when you look down at the river from the high point (called literally "The Pinnacle Point") in the town. There's also Santa Clause, Indiana which is where the theme park Holiday World is, as well as North Pole, Alaska, a town in Alaska (it's not actually the North Pole, though), where they have lots and lots of Christmas themed things going on in the winter. You can mail your letters to Santa to North Pole and they do have a team dedicated to answering them. It is located way up in Alaska and it is NOT a made up town, either. They do get a decent amount of snow. I love place names and I find all the old ones in the UK pretty awesome. I love how they match alot of the ones here in the States, too.
Your neighbor Newfoundland and Labrador has weird names too. Dildo, Goobies, Random Island, Dog Island, Tunungayualok, Natuashish, Akami-Uapishk-Kakkasuak-Mealy Mountains
I'm fairly sure that a wanamaker makes wanas, i.e. tubs. I've also seen a Messersmith Road, where a messer is a knife. (A messer is also someone who measures, but a smith of that kind of messer doesn't make much sense.)
Port Deposit, Maryland. Before railroads, when waterways were the main shipping venue, this town was the northern most point you could go up the Susquehanna River from the Chesapeake Bay due to rapids. Shipments were deposited in the town's port, loaded onto ferries to go through the canal around the rapids and into Pennsylvania. The original name was Creswell, IIRC, but it became known as the Port of Deposit, with the "of" eventually getting dropped.
You say 'Oblong' and I immediately think of Midsommer Murders!
Wow! Best video that I've seen recently! Please, please, please make this video a regular thing
Enjoyed all the puns 😂
I live in Washington, and we also have the towns of Humptulips, Nooksack, Vader, Sedro woolley (formerly Bug) where I live, Tokeland, and many others. Also, Deception Pass, etc.
There is an amusing, possibly true story about how Nome, Alaska got its name. The town's Wikipedia page has a brief explanation.
Fantastic video! It would also be great to hear your thoughts and the history on weird British place names too!
Weirdest names in each state. That's 50 episodes for you.
He would be busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest. But I would watch if he did that. Florida has some weird place names.
There is a Cement, Oklahoma. We also have towns named Pink, Amber, Jet, Old Green, Blue, Olive and Carmen (if you like colors). I think my favorite has to be Okay, Oklahoma simply because "Okay, OK"
I’d love for you to do a video comparing British and US pet ownership ….
If you're familiar with Intercourse, PA, you're not too far from Blue Ball and Bird in Hand. However, it's a bit of a drive to Virginville, but there's a little pub there you might enjoy.
Ohio doesn't have too many weird place names...just hard to pronounce. Gnadenhutten being the best example I can think of.
Washington has a few hard-to-pronounce Native American city and county names LOL. There's Enumclaw, Spokane, Puyallup, Okanogan, and Sequim. Others are easier to pronounce though, but they look kinda funky, like Skykomish (only been there once...it's a small place with not much to do), Snoqualmie (there's a very popular waterfall there!), Snohomish, and Sammamish.
I love hearing about these places. I hope you do make it a series.
The town of Erect sounds like a great place for a stiff drink.
And the navy 😉
Or a prelude for a road trip to Intercourse, PA with one's Bird in Hand (also, PA!) LOL.
@@jamesslick4790 careful, you might pass through Ono and end up in Blue Ball...
@@AndrewAMartin IKR?
@@AndrewAMartin LOL. PA is just full of fun! If you see my other comments, you can tell I'm a lifelong resident of this Confusing Commonwealth! And as a personal reference, Let's NOT forget Slickville, PA 👍😂👍
Lancaster County, PA (also know as Amish Country" has several, um.. interesting town names, including Blue Ball, Pleasureville, Intercourse, Mount Joy, Lititz, Bareville, Bird-in-Hand, Fertility and Paradise. Those Amish have quite a sense of humor...
Don't forget French Lick Indiana, or Santa Clause Indiana.
I grew up in Kansas City, Missouri and my grandparents lived in the Ozarks. In a city named Climax Springs (which I found unfortunate once I reached a certain age). When we would visit we passed through a tiny town called Tightwad. I kid you not.
I'm kind of laughing at you using a spinning pin for Washington state because damn, nobody wants to trace that.
I wonder if Sophia, NC was named after Sophia of Hanover? Timing might be right.
There's a town called Bucksnort in Tennessee which is a little north of me in Memphis. I always thought it was a funny name anyway.
I’ve heard about towns with two-word names combining them into one word because of some USPS policy that existed for a while. Maybe that’s what happened to Whynot.
One of the more famous newspaper headlines came out of Minnesota in the 1980's. There are two oddly named towns about 25 miles apart in Polk County. One of the residents from one town happened to be accidentally killed in the other. The headline in the Polk County Tribune read "Fertile Woman Dies in Climax."
*People will be kicking themselves in few weeks if they miss the opportunity to buy and invest in crypto as it's retracing.......BE WISE*
I got sir Peter Delgado info how good is he?
Moving to the US was the best job decision Lawrence could have made. He's making puns like nobody's business. There needs to be a town/city named Nobody's Business. LOL I think there is a town/city in the US named Heck.
I have lived in the US (New England to be exact) all my life, but for some reason I've always been drawn to British humor. (must be the colonial in me, lol) I loved this video more than I can explain. Thank you for this lol
Slapout, OK, a small town in the Oklahoma Panhandle. The town got its name from the proprietor of the general store, who whenever someone asked for an out of stock item, would say they were “slap out” of it. They must’ve been slap out of a lot of things.