Didge- Here in the US, the state of Pennsylvania is loaded with oddly named towns. Among them are Intercourse and Blue Ball, and I suspect my crude theories may not do justice to the true origins of these names.
Yesterday I saw a reference to Cre tin Avenue, St. Paul, MN, and wondered if it was named for a politician -- perhaps a current presidential candidate. Do you know any odd place names and have any theories about how they originated?
There's a town here in WV named Looneyville....I always wondered where THAT name came from!
Here in Alberta, Canada we have VULCAN . In 1910 a CPR surveyor, who had a fondness for Roman Mythology, named the town after the Roman god of fire. Originally all the streets in Vulcan were named after the gods and goddesses of the classical world such as Juno, Mars and Jupiter.
California has Red Dog and You Bet. The wife and I were married in the little wedding chapel in Rough and Ready.
Hi Didge,
The name I love most in all North America is Baboquivari (Bob-oh-KIV-ree) Mountain, in Arizona. Sacred to the Tohono O'odham people there, acknowledged by them as the navel of the world; and, the Creator lives there as well.
Well, the Babo part is supposed to be the same as the Hindu Babu, a title of respect, grandfather. And then Kheeveri was the name of a Phoenician philosopher king who 5,000 years ago lived in the mountains of Pakistan-Afghanistan, which came to be named after him as KHYBER.
Then, when the ancient ancestors came from India to Arizona, they thought the sacred mountain looked like Mt. Kailas, where King Kheeveri dwelt according to legend. So they named the Arizona peak Grandfather Kheeveri, or Baboquivari.
Here are the two mountains, you be the judge! Mt. Kailas in the Khyber first, then Baboquivari of Arizona:
