Place names considered unusual

Place names considered unusual can include those which are also offensive words, inadvertently humorous (especially if mispronounced) or highly charged words, as well as place names of unorthodox spelling and pronunciation, including especially short or long names. These names often have an unintended effect or double-meaning when read by someone who speaks another language.

Profane, humorous and highly charged words

Some place names can be offensive or humorous in other languages, like Rottenegg or Fucking (renamed to Fugging in 2021) in Austria, or Fjuckby in Sweden, where the name can be associated with the word "fuck". Although as a place name Fucking is benign in German, in English the word is usually vulgar. Its earliest recorded use in England is within a 14th-century Bristol field name, Fucking Grove, although it is unclear whether the word was considered obscene at that time. Similarly, when they hear of the French town of Condom, English speakers will likely associate it with condoms.

Conversely, a number of place names can, by folk etymology or otherwise, be considered humorous or offensive by their inhabitants, such as the Italian towns of Bastardo ("Bastard") and Troia ("Slut", literally a female pig; the same name is used in Italian for the ancient city of Troy), the German towns Affendorf ("Monkey Village"), Bösgesäß ("Bad-Ass" or "Evil-Buttock"), Faulebutter ("Rancid Butter"), Fickmühlen ("Fuck Mills"), Himmelreich ("Kingdom of Heaven"), which appropriately lies at the edge of the Höllental ("Hell's Valley"), Katzenhirn ("Cat Brain", nearest to Mindelheim), Lederhose (Lederhosen, leather trousers), Neger ("Negro"), Plöd (blöd means "stupid", renamed in 2009), Regenmantel ("Raincoat"), and Warzen ("Warts"). Petting is a village in Bavaria homonymous to petting both in German and English. The Austrian municipality Unterstinkenbrunn and the cadastral community Oberstinkenbrunn ("Lower Stinking Well" and "Upper Stinking Well", respectively) can also be considered offensive by residents. In Sweden, there are the villages of Porrarp (in which "porr" translates to "porn"), Mensträsk ("menstruation"), Fittja ("Fitta" translates to "cunt"), and Rövhålet ("Asshole"). In the Czech Republic, there are villages called Šukačka ("Fucking") and Onen Svět ("The Other World"), which are located 2 kilometres (1¼ miles) from each other. In Canada, there is a lake named Big Ass Lake in Nova Scotia, and the town of Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! in Quebec. In Hong Kong, place names containing the words "si2" (屎, shit) and "niu6" (尿, piss) are common, and there are a number of place names actually containing profanities, such as Gau Tau (㞗頭, lit. 'penis head'; since renamed to Shek Ngau Chau (石牛洲), Ham Lun Kok (含撚角, lit. 'blowjob corner'), first renamed by swapping out the profane character 'penis' (撚) to the homophonic 'discussion' (倫), then further changed entirely to Yau Lung Kok (游龍角, lit. 'snaking dragon corner') respectively. Other examples include Kau Shi Wai (狗屎圍, lit. 'dog shit grounds'), now Fung Mei Wai (鳳美圍, lit. 'phoenix beauty grounds'). In the United States, there are at least three towns named Cumming, a slang term for ejaculation (Cummington, Massachusetts, Cumming, Iowa, and Cumming, Georgia), and the name of the town of Effingham, Illinois, contains a minced oath for "fuck". Long Dick Creek in Iowa is named after a settler, not male genitalia, and Horneytown, North Carolina is named for the Horney family of early settlers. There is also Two Egg, Florida, the name of which evokes testicles, and Athol, Massachusetts, whose pronunciation evokes "asshole". In South Carolina, there is a town named Fingerville, after a settler, Joseph Finger. In Michigan, there is a town named Hell, and various explanations for its name exist. In the United Kingdom, there are a number of places with names that would be considered derogatory in other settings – such as the Northamptonshire community Titty Ho; a pair of Twatts, one in Orkney and the other in Shetland; and the Dorset community, Shitterton. When people hear of the Turkish city of Batman, English speakers will likely associate it with the superhero of the same name.

Name changes

For negative reasons Some place names are deemed to be offensive or unacceptable, often through historic semantic changes in what is tolerated.

An example of this would be the once common English street name Gropecunt Lane, whose etymology is a historical use of the street by prostitutes to ply their trade. During the Middle Ages, the word cunt may often have been considered merely vulgar, having been in common use in its anatomical sense since at least the 13th century. Its steady disappearance from the English vernacular may have been the result of a gradual cleaning-up of the name; Gropecunt Lane in 13th-century Wells became Grope Lane, and then in the 19th century, Grove Lane. In the city of York, Grapcunt Lane (grāp being the Old English word for "grope") was renamed Grope Lane and is now called Grape Lane. In Bristol, Gropecount Lane was sometimes being contracted to Grope Lane by the late 15th century. This was later euphemised to Grape Lane, or in the 18th century Hallier's Lane. However, the old name was only finally obliterated by the City Council's decision to rename the street Nelson Street, following the death of Admiral Lord Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar. The Swedish village of Kräkånger, whose name could be interpreted as "vomit regret", changed its name to Lövsele in 1951. A similar case was in the town of Sasmuan, Pampanga, in the Philippines, formerly known as "Sexmoan" based on attempts by Spanish friars to transcribe Sasmuan; it was unanimously changed into Sasmuan in 1991, because of negative sexual connotations associated with the place name.

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