Talk:Places with unusual names

Developing this article

Imagine if we could have this one as FTT someday :D But in that case the article sure needs more to it than just a list of places. I'm wondering what more we should add to the article, I already created an Understand and a Respect section. Perhaps a Buy section with notable souvenirs from places with unusual names? ϒpsilon (talk) 16:57, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

I know that "I love Intercourse" hats are popular among visitors to Lancaster County, and apparently you can get bumper stickers in Llanfair PG and "Hell freezes over" postcards in Hell (Norway). I'm also reminded of the "I ❤️ BJ" shirts you can buy in Beijing, although that doesn't quite fit this article. I think at least postcards and these kinds of playful joke-y souvenirs would be worth mentioning. —Granger (talk · contribs) 11:17, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

The article is already usable! Perhaps markers and a dynamic map are the next thing to be added. ϒpsilon (talk) 05:30, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Bland, Australia

I know that Dull and Boring have an established town twinning and also hold "Dull & Boring days" but has Bland joined in on the fun? Hobbitschuster (talk) 17:11, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

I looked in the internet and found this:

http://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-scotland-40751601/dull-pairs-with-boring-and-welcomes-bland Griffindd (talk) 13:45, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Should we add names that are funny in the local language?

I know some of those are based on being funny in English (and not necessarily anything out of the ordinary for locals) but what about place names that are funny in the local language or unusual for locals? Weidmannsgesees (Waidmann = old word for hunter Gesäß = "polite" term for the lower backside) anybody? Hobbitschuster (talk) 15:10, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Hunter's Buttocks? We usually prefer direct language to euphemism, to ensure the meaning is clear. K7L (talk) 15:26, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

I added Grand Teton a while ago. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:06, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Respectful listings?

I get why some destinations have names that might sound humorous to some when compared to a similar sounding English word.

I have to question though why names such as Ouagadougou are listed. Surely that is just making fun of the local language? Andrewssi2 (talk) 21:23, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

I agree with your point in the example you give. I also find the Malaysian/Indonesian names with "Air" in them stupid. "Air" in Malay/Indonesian is pronounced like the English word "I" and means "water". Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:00, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

I still do think the "Air" destinations sound funny. :( --ϒpsilon (talk) 05:39, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Why is Solo such a funny-sounding name? I mean, maybe if it were "Chamber Group", but Solo? Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:05, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Also, if you all really think every multi-syllabic name with repetition or assonance sounds strange, that's kind of chauvinist in the original sense, or at least prejudiced against foreign languages (consider the Australian examples as being from Aboriginal languages), but they're very common in Malayo-Polynesian languages and beyond. You'll never find all of them, but you can start with Pago Pago, Bora Bora, Molepelole, Kankakee, Ho-Ho-Kus...Are these all so unusual? What is a reasonable scope for this article, even though it's lighthearted? Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:41, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

"Solo" is also a word meaning "alone", as in "going solo". I think if it were the actual name of the place it would definitely be worth including; since it's just the nickname, I'm not sure. —Granger (talk · contribs) 10:47, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

As for "Kakamega" at least in German the first two syllables are used to mean the end-product of the digestive tract and "mega" can mean great or grand, so to a German at least it might seem mildly humorous (which is of course the maximum extent which German humor ever reaches) Hobbitschuster (talk) 14:03, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, folks, I didn't realise there was a discussion here before I removed Ouagadougou and Kakamega; if someone wants to restore them until the discussion is complete, go ahead. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 14:33, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

(unindent) Frankly, I've been wrestling with myself for a while on the question of whether this article should exist. Beyond mere cultural or linguistic insensitivity, isn't "unusualness" an inherently subjective factor? God help us if this article should ever come to the level of attention that English language varieties has, or else it would just be a miasma of endless, pointless debates over whether such-and-such a name is really all that unusual. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 14:37, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Yes, unusualness is subjective, but I expect there are lots of things, places, customs that are described as "unusual" on Wikivoyage. That's just a product of the cultural biases each writer has. If we want to tackle that, there should be something more broad-brush than just deleting a single article.

However, wanting to avoid the level of interest English language varieties gets is a very bad reason for deleting this. The "miasma" (is that all our opinions are worth?) from lots of editors got it to the stage where it was worthy of being an FTT. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 14:48, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

It's not that hard to deconstruct every single entry on the list, one by one, if you want to. But if this is the way people look at the article and the topic (and per this discussion it apparently is), the question is why we should keep it in the first place?

Of course, if this article is deleted, the poor IP editors would need to find other articles to water down. --ϒpsilon (talk) 16:59, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yes, every Wikivoyager has their cultural biases, but on the other hand this is the only article I can think of where the topic itself - the criteria for inclusion of any given content - is entirely based on the whims of those biases. The question remains: who's to say what's "unusual"? There have never been any American bison living in Western New York since the dawn of recorded history yet there's a city there named after them; does that mean Buffalo should be listed in this article? What about Salt Lake City, which is located a good twenty miles away from the shore of its namesake lake? And hey, don't Mississippi, Tallahassee, and Winnemucca kind of sound funny? These are all pretty flimsy arguments, sure, but every place name probably sounds unusual to somebody, and unless we're going to throw open the floodgates for every place under the sun to get mentioned here, we have to (and, if you scroll up on this talk page, you'll see that we're already beginning to) descend into the inevitable debates about whether this place name or that place name truly qualifies as unusual. By the very nature of the topic, it's something for which there will never be an objective litmus test, and so it's a recipe for, yes, a miasma.

And I say "miasma" not to devalue others' opinions, but to signify my next point, which is that even if we were to somehow all come to an agreement on what constitutes an unusual place name, the very act of engaging in the debate and coming to the agreement still has no practical purpose vis-à-vis the end user. At least when all is said and done, English language varieties contains information that's of practical use to travellers. Contrast that with the question of in what possible way would the experience of a visitor to, say, Ouagadougou be affected by the fact that some people find its name funny? Assuming I do find the name funny, what enjoyment would I get out of actually visiting the place that I wouldn't have gotten by simply spotting it on a map and snickering to myself? Perhaps Fucking, Austria, whose "Welcome To..." road sign on the outskirts of town is a popular place for gratuitous gag selfies, but that's honestly the only example I can think of. Frankly, I would argue that this article is, at best, trivial and of dubious usefulness to travellers, smacks of cultural insensitivity at worst, and if it were ever nominated for FTT, I would vote "oppose" for those reasons.

-- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 17:32, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo... until about 1795 or so.

There were buffalo not far from Buffalo, according to Wikipedia's map of their demise; as this was near the edge of their range, they were depleted relatively early. As for "Kakamega", the metric prefix "mega-" (one million) and the term "caca" (as an infantile word for excrement) most certainly do exist in at least English, French and Spanish. K7L (talk) 18:42, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

But that doesn't address any of the salient questions I posed. First of all, who's to say that infantile terms for excrement are inherently funny? That, too, is subjective. Secondly, if you do find the word "Kakamega" funny, what further amusement do you get from actually visiting the place that you can't get from reading the name somewhere and laughing? I mean, sure it's a beautiful African rainforest rich with native plants and wildlife, but what does that have to do with poop? -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 18:51, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

I think that second point is important. It seems like if this article is going to follow ttcf, it should probably be limited to places whose unusual names could in some way make them more interesting or entertaining to visit (even if only for a photo opportunity with a highway sign, a clever jokey Facebook status, or an unusual postcard). So places like Pool, Weed, and Llanfair PG should stay for sure. Places like Å and Truth or Consequences probably should too. But maybe not Hospitalet de Llobregat or Joensuu, for instance. There are a few places on the list (such as Mustvee and Hohhot), where I don't even understand what's supposed to be interesting or funny about the name to an English speaker. —Granger (talk · contribs) 19:46, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

[unindent] I would suggest not deleting this article but moving it to "Jokes and other deleted nonsense" and moving on. This is not a serious article, nor do I think it's a valuable one, but if you want to have fun, I'd suggest doing it outside of articlespace. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:59, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

I wanted to say that I really didn't want to judge anyones' sense of humor, nor argue against the existence of this article. It was really just saying some of the items came off as disrespectful. Hope we don't really have to to over-analyse this. Andrewssi2 (talk) 21:12, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) To build on Granger's points above, in the case of places like Weed, Llanfair PG, and Truth or Consequences I think it's fine to mention the unusual name, and any opportunities deriving therefrom to take pictures next to road signs or whatnot, in the respective destination articles themselves. But the act of listing these places as a travel topic seems to posit the existence of people who might plan an entire multi-destination trip around cities with funny names, which IMO is a stretch, to say the least. (I think Ikan's suggestion above is fine, btw.)

Also, to briefly address Andrewssi2's comment which was posted ahead of mine while I was still typing out the above: as I said, the doubts that I'm expressing here about this article pre-date your remarks above by a long time. I simply thought this was an opportune time to share them, in the spirit of similar though not identical doubts that many other editors have shared in this discussion.

-- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 21:17, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

I agree that it's unlikely someone would plan a whole multi-destination trip around places with unusual names. But I can imagine a situation where someone was (for example) planning a road trip across the US anyway, decided it would be fun to take some pictures with unusual highway signs, took a look at this article, and decided to swing by Weed, Liberal, Mars, and Intercourse on the way. Or I can imagine someone in, say, Barcelona who might decide to look and see if there happen to be any places with unusual names nearby, and take a day trip to Roses where they can combine a day at the beach with some clever Facebook pun. This kind of thing wouldn't be of interest to most travellers, but it must be of interest to some, because places like Fucking and Llanfair PG get more visitors than they otherwise would. So I don't think this article is totally useless to travellers. —Granger (talk · contribs) 21:36, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Sorry I'm late to this discussion, but I must affirm that yes, some people do plan trips around places with unusual names, and have produced highly-acclaimed bodies of work from such trips. I think there is some value to the article, even though it's English-centric. –StellarD (talk) 22:11, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

It is a well known and indisputable fact that puns, combining eloquence, humor and intelligence, are the height of human achievement. Furthermore, I don't believe that place names which become puns in English reasonably could be taken as offensive. The joke is not on any other language or culture, but rather at the double meaning of these names when read/spoken in English. I therefore believe that we can keep any places whose names are funny/unusual in virtue of being homophone or homographic of some English word (or commonly used name, such as Batman) with good conscience. Others, such as Ouagadougou, could be removed. MartinJacobson (talk) 00:35, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Like a few others, I have concerns with the ultimate purpose of this page. If this page had some sort of objective criteria, such as destinations with very long names, e.g. at least 20 letters long (something along the lines of wikipedia:List of long place names) or names that are clear puns in the English language, it would be fine. But as it stands, it is a mishmash of everything including the subjective "What I think is funny" which is also inadvertently offensive. Gizza ^(roam) 02:01, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Maybe we could change the criteria to 'interesting names' rather than 'names that sound like poop'? The only issue is that there are currently very few things listed that are 'interesting'. Andrewssi2 (talk) 05:20, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

For that matter, is there some reason why Mustvee, Estonia would sound like "must pee" or is this a bit of a stretch? Are we laughing at Sofia, Bulgaria for no better reason than that it bears a woman's name? If so, why? A joke of this calibre about "BATH ME" would be reverted in a New York minute because it's a US destination, but we titter about place names from the rest of the world for even less or even for no apparent reason at all. I could make a joke about Washington, D.C. and "washing", saying it's where that country hangs out its dirty laundry, but if that's not funny enough to be a reason to give that place a visit, make a detour or make a special trip (the criteria from le bonhomme Michelin's ratings) I wouldn't bother listing it here. K7L (talk) 13:50, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Is there a reason why anything at all needs to be listed in the article!? Jesus Christ, this discussion has probably surpassed the length of it. Already about 24h ago it became clear that a sizeable portion of the community mildly put disapproves of the concept of the article so why hasn't it been vfd'd by now? Also, the question is why they haven't said anything earlier, the article has existed for half a year and been extensively edited for more than a month now — in that way the rest of us wouldn't have wasted time working on it.

Was seeing this article (and learning that it was not written by a single vandal but by several long-time users) such a shock that people need a peer support group like this thread where everyone is nominating places they want to have removed from the list? And after a week of this, I suppose the article will be left as an outline with one or two destinations as some kind of warning example to future editors who might otherwise feel tempted to start articles about questionable topics? I mean, let's just freaking delete the article and call it a day.

And yeah, of course nobody travels to the other end the world to visit a place only because it has a funny (does it say anywhere that a place cannot be listed unless it's "funny"?) or unusual name. But if that today has become a requirement for justification of travel topics, then probably half of all our travel topics could be flushed down the toilet when we're at it. ϒpsilon (talk) 15:53, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Just pointing out that wikipedia has an article on the subject. Hobbitschuster (talk) 23:39, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article is somewhat better because it has criteria and categorizes why a name is unusual, such as sounding like a swear word in another language. It's not clear at all why Hohhot, Taxila, Biobio, Sofia, Joensuu, Lake, Titicaca, Hue, Holland (in Michigan), Kakamega (since removed) or Wooloomooloo are "unusual". Surprised that nobody has added Bangkok, Cockburn Town, Wales, Virginia, The Bottom, Isle of Man, and Uruguay. Gizza ^(roam) 01:07, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Bangkok and Phuket are good destinations for sex change tourism. K7L (talk) 16:03, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Just how buzzkilly do we want to be?

I fear that sometimes what are clearly humorous asides are excised because they may or may not be slightly misleading to someone whose humor has been surgically removed at an early age (as of course is tradition among ze Germans). I know that some are opposed to the mere existence of this article (though that was interestingly never expressed during the stint of this article on "Requested Articles" and has only arisen shortly in the past) but if we have it and cannot make even the smallest even remotely risible aside, why have it at all? Hobbitschuster (talk) 23:36, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

I think we should avoid including false statements in this article, partly because of the risk that someone won't realize they're false, and partly because some of these places do have strange-but-true stories behind their names, and if we include a bunch of strange-and-false stories too, readers may not realize that the true stories are actually true. Humorous asides are fine (though they shouldn't be the main focus of the article), but let's not mislead our readers. —Granger (talk · contribs) 23:59, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

I never wanted to impose my sense of humor on the enthusiastic contributors to this page. If however it is a choice between being seen as a 'buzzkill' and showing some minimum respect to people then I'll be happily counted as a buzzkill.

Do you think a resident of Kakamega would want to contribute to Wikivoyage if we publicly joke that their town's name sounds like faeces? Andrewssi2 (talk) 04:44, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

For that matter, is it appropriate to mention that a name means something negative or silly in the local language? The bad bay, for instance. K7L (talk) 16:03, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

K7L - Probably not, because the connection wouldn't be apparent to English-speakers (at least those who don't also speak French). -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 17:27, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

I don't think places that have some unusual meaning in other languages but not in English should be added, when even ones in English seem to require a paragraph of explanations. ϒpsilon (talk) 17:53, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

There are plenty of intended humorous English names in Australia. Eggs and Bacon Bay in Tasmania, but also Nowhere Else, Milkshake Hills, Bob’s Knobs and Precipitous Bluff. There are also plenty of Aboriginal names, but they are not supposed to be humorous. Andrewssi2 (talk) 07:30, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Similar-sounding names

One place that was added to the list recently:

• Shenzhou, whose name is similar to that of Shenzhen

There are lots of places around the world with similar-sounding names. Do we want to expand this list to include them? I would say 'no', but will respect the consensus. @User:廣九直通車: Ground Zero (talk) 18:45, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

I would also say no. Do pings work if you include the "User:"? I'll re-ping just in case: @廣九直通車: —Granger (talk · contribs) 19:33, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

I would also say no. And these names also don't fit into the set of "places with unusual names". Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:46, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for all of your comments, I have removed the item in the article, regards.廣九直通車 (talk) 01:28, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Beaulieu

What's unusual about that place name? "Pretty Place" in French. IMO, nothing. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:56, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

I agree. —Granger (talk · contribs) 19:22, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

It's an edge case. Its pronunciation is unusual, as is the fact that it's a French toponym (which are not nearly as common as you might expect in England). But as a word in and of itself, it's not unusual.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 19:24, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

There are loads and loads of places that are pronounced differently in different countries or even different states or provinces. Bogota, New Jersey has the second syllable accented; Cairo, Illinois is pronounced "KAY-roh"; Berlin, New Hampshire has its first syllable accented; the first word of Sault Ste. Marie is pronounced "Soo"; Des Moines is pronounced nothing like it would be in France; Los Angeles and every other Spanish-named place in California is pronounced differently in English than in Spanish. Etc., etc., etc. If we start including names with different pronunciations in different places, there'll be no end to it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:03, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Fair enough. So you don't think the Frenchness of it is sufficiently unusual? If Beaulieu gets the chop, I can't really see what's so unusual about Potters Bar or Poole. Maybe user:82.3.185.12 would like to comment?--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 10:52, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

@ThunderingTyphoons!: I added Poole to the list because Pool in Congo was on there. 82.3.185.12 11:06, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

OK. FWIW, I would also remove the Congolese one.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:13, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

The Frenchness of the name is a "so what?" to me. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:26, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Removed. And yes, let's remove Pool/Poole. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:27, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Australia needing its own article?

The Australia section is getting too long. While it's categorised in states, it's still too long. I haven't finished the NSW, SA, southern queensland and east victorian section yet so it's going to do the opposite effect, and the really unusual ones like eggs and bacon bay or the other side of the moon will be missed. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 07:51, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

You could do that. Long lists aren't a favourite at Wikivoyage – at least NSW needs pruning or breaking up – and perhaps some background on the Australian names could be useful in such an article. I suppose a wide area with short history – I gather the Europeans seldom used the native names – makes for silly names. When the history is longer and population denser, names get exchanged or modified so a silly meaning isn't recognised any more. –LPfi (talk) 09:08, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

I'll start probably when I finish SA and Tas. But I'll wait til' we build a consensus. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 09:19, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Doing a read through it, the US one takes 1.5 mins, and the Australian one takes 4. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 09:24, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

@LPfi: - the tasmanian section is also now much longer. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 12:15, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

I've seen this article come up a few times on Recent Changes and I always wonder how it fits in with our "prime directive" of Wikivoyage:The traveller comes first. Many of the list items don't even have wikilinks (blue or red), indicating no intention of ever creating destination articles. Many of the entries seem intended to elicit a mild chuckle or guffaw from an audience younger than what I imagine the typical Wikivoyage reader to be. I wasn't going to say anything, but since feedback was sought, here I am... Nelson Ricardo (talk) 00:54, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

I've always agreed that this is a dubious article at best. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:20, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

I have a map full of funny place names. Omitted indigenous names that sound funny like Dunedoo in the English Language but kept some that are hard to pronounce to a foreigner. It's hard to choose which ones to keep here and which are to go in the new article. For example, Casino and Berry are big cities but are less funny than the small village of The other side of the moon" and the place called "the edge of the world". SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 06:25, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Fun fact, there's more funny place names in Australia than anywhere else in the world, but this wasn't properly added until recently. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 06:30, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

@SHB2000 I have some remarks. With your edits the 234 original entries in the list went up by 250 to 484 entries. Remarks/questions:

• Almost all original entries have a kind of explanation why they are in the list. Now most of the 250 new ones do not have such an explanation.
• Before your edits all entries were in alphabetical order per country. Now the Australian entries are not in alphabetical order anymore, what caused duplicate entries in some cases.
• You removed the Aloha entry as "not funny", but introduced Helloo Creek; why is Helloo funny and Aloha not?
• You mentioned some time ago that you tend to use Australian slang in your texts. Could that be the case in many of your Australian additions, and are they only understandable by people familiar with that slang?

--FredTC (talk) 09:35, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Helloo is funny as it's just Hello but with 2 L's. Dunno what's with Aloha. And no, for the slangs, I dunno how few bottoms in Tasmania or any of those have to do with slang. I only tend to use it in discussions and not when writing - unless it's meant to be humourous or I just forget not to. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 10:58, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't see the funniness of a misspelling, but I think it is funny that a town is named "hello" (given that the funniness is unintended) – and I suppose most English speakers know the Hawaiian word. –LPfi (talk) 11:18, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

The humour is not how it's spelt, but how it's pronounced. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 11:32, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Ikan Kekek that thus is a dubious article, but it is somewhat travel-related, and it does no harm. Let's not spend a lot of time debating this. This easiest thing to do is to split out Australia, and go back to building travel articles. If readers aren't interested, they won't read the article. Ground Zero (talk) 11:39, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

So which ones are we going to leave here? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 11:40, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

@LPfi, Nricardo, Ikan Kekek, FredTC, Ground Zero: Done 12:08, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

The Aus section is still really long, and repetitive (e.g., the 10 places named "Knob"). What about limiting the list here to only places with articles, and leaving the others in the Aus article? Ground Zero (talk) 12:25, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Can I also include some really hilarious names like "nowhere else" or "the other side of the moon" which are legit towns but are too small for an article. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 12:28, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

I was thinking of places that have a Wikidata entry, and then pack the entry in a {{listing ...}}, in which case you also have a link to the map location. --FredTC (talk) 12:30, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Or would it be a good idea to include just the listings that were there before? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 12:32, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

When I think about adding a place to this article, I ask myself: is the name interesting enough (and real enough) that a traveller might make a detour, buy a souvenir, or at least snap a photo with a sign? By that standard, places like Boring, Beer, and Batman surely qualify. I'm not so sure about Bumara and Biobio. Alternatively (or in addition), limiting the list to places with articles or Wikidata entries sounds reasonable to me too. —Granger (talk · contribs) 16:18, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

I support Granger's proposal to limit it to places with "articles or Wikidata entries", which would be easy to administer. Everyone is going to have different opinions about what is interesting or funny. Ground Zero (talk) 11:19, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Opinion requested in Talk:Places with unusual names#Australia needing it's own article?

Swept in from the pub

Hi there, Please take a moment to check the proposal, as the Australia section in Places with unusual names is getting too long, and it's only 50% complete. Thanks, and enjoy mothers day, for those celebrating it. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 07:54, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Angus

So, that's where the beef comes from. Are we also going to say Parma is unusual because that's where prosciutto di Parma comes from and Parmigiano (Parmesan) cheese originally came from, Smithfield is unusual because that's where the ham comes from, Darjeeling is unusual because that's where Darjeeling tea comes from, etc.? And how about adding wines, so that Chianti, Burgundy, Bordeaux and Chablis are unusual names?

None of these are particularly unusual names. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:10, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Okay, so maybe I find them unusual, since Angus in Australia means the beef, but I'm not sure elsewhere. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 06:18, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

There are also Hereford cows, Kobe beef, and I gave you a bunch of related examples above. As you know, I think this is a problematic article topic per se, but if we're going to have it, it can't be the names of places that are also names of breeds of animals or types of food. Think of cats and dogs - are we going to call Siam, Persia, Abyssinia, Maine (Maine coon cats), Scotland (Scottish terriers, etc.), Dalmatia, Russia (Russian blue cats) and Peking (Pekingese dogs) unusual? Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:44, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

You've done a good job convincing me to remove it. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 07:49, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Good. We should probably wait a day to see if anyone else wants to make an argument. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:45, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Angus is a cow from Scotland.--JTZegers (talk) 20:07, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Right. And? Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:34, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

And nothing. Delete it.--JTZegers (talk) 19:53, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Done --ThunderingTyphoons! (Moo) 13:23, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

It's fairly common for products, especially food and drink, to be named after geographic places. The actual connection to these places varies from legally distinctive (such as a w:geographical indication of "champagne" being sparkling wine from the region of the same name in France) to just plain spurious (a cheesemaker branding their product as "Philadelphia Cream Cheese" just because the name sounded good, even if the product always was made elsewhere). So yes, anything from Angus cows to Texas toast is attempting to invoke a geographic place name and it might be a valid topic to list and explain where (and what) all these places are - along with how exactly Baked Alaska ended up as a name of a dessert or how the Thousand Islands ended up on salad.

That said, this is likely not the right article. w:Appellation of products after geographic places is a topic in its own right, with a couple of WP articles. Would it be worth creating Appellation as a separate topic? 204.237.88.122 23:01, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm skeptical, but maybe. I think it would depend on how long a list it is and how strict we are about there being a strong connection. But I immediately foresee a couple of problems: Dishes named for where they were originally made belong in cuisine articles or "Eat" sections. And then there are wine regions, which are all over the freakin wine-growing world and highlights can be and hopefully are covered in the Wine article, so do we really want to exhaustively link regions throughout Europe, South Africa, the Pacific coastal states and provinces from California to British Columbia, etc., etc.? Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:21, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Hicksville

I don’t get the Hicksville joke (none of that newfangled indoor plumbing like they have in Flushing). Therefore, I find Hicksville to be problematic in this article. Care to explain?-JTZegers (talk) 17:01, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Because of what "hick" means. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:35, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

But I get that the implication that the countryside totally lacks modern plumbing could be insulting. Go ahead and edit if you like. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:39, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

I hear that Watertown (New York) has indoor water closets?

Tjuntjuntjara

If Wooloomooloo qualifies to be on this list, what about Tjuntjuntjara? It's taken me about 12 attempts to say this right, and that's to say, Wooloomooloo is quite straightforward. This isn't quite the same. So, I'm asking your opinions. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 05:13, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Seems sufficiently unusual to me, though I do think the Australia list is too long. Perhaps it should only include blue links or red links that have a hope of turning blue in the future, i.e. that meet WIAA or can be listed in an article? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 08:54, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Tjuntjuntjara is a real town, meets the criteria for WIAA, but there's not much info available on the web since it's quite isolated (1400km from Perth) and there's not much in the town. I will try and further cut down the Australia list though. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 09:01, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

I've cut it down so it's got a similar number to the US. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 09:08, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Remote

w:Remote, Oregon Pashley (talk) 05:58, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Good enough. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 05:59, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

The fact you're linking to Wikipedia suggests it would redlink here. There's no shortage of U.S. places on this list that the traveller can visit using Wikivoyage.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 07:46, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Bad-as

A barangay of w:Placer,_Surigao_del_Norte. One of w:Robert Anton Wilson's novels has Bad Ass, Texas. Pashley (talk) 00:51, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Well, we've got Bullshit Hill and that's just a hill with no WP article so I don't see why not? (but the name is so unusual, something like Australia's Fucking or Shitterton) SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 00:53, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Hat head?

Would Hat Head and Hat Head National Park be eligible? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 06:55, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Peculiar

w:Peculiar, Missouri Pashley (talk) 12:14, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Obvious case for addition. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:16, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Map

Weirdest name in each US state Pashley (talk) 12:21, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

National Park, Tasmania

There's a town in Tasmania called National Park, which we cover under Mount Field National Park. Should it be added? --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 03:58, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

No stranger than State College, Pennsylvania. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:56, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Do we really need to be this immature?

"Don't worry, Sue, we won't bang you."

I don't think we're all titillated adolescent boys here. Can we please remove the sentence? Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:52, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

I do like the humor though, so I'm undecided on this one. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 03:24, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

We're supposed to make this website (and the Wiki Family in general) more hospitable to women, remember? This isn't a place for making women's names explicitly the butt of dirty jokes. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:09, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm ambivalent about this one. Let's see what others say. The dog2 (talk) 17:25, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm with IK on this. It isn't funny enough to weight up for people taking offence (not funny at all, if you ask me, as I get into the wrong mood before having time to enjoy any humour). –LPfi (talk) 17:56, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I've removed the sentence – it reads as misogynistic to me too, and no one has argued for keeping it. —Granger (talk · contribs) 08:29, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

You're right, no-one said they were foursquare behind it. Thank you. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:37, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for removing it, though I find the entire article problematic as I've said earlier. It's full of cringeworthy, immature puns at best (sometimes drawing a very long bow) and borderline racist, sexist and homophobic statements at worst. Negros is so named because the Spanish explorers saw dark-skinned inhabitants on the island. It's like putting Blacktown, a suburb of Sydney, on the list because an institution to educate Aboriginal children was set up there in the 1800s. Gizza ^(roam) 13:02, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

On that note, should we remove every single entry that has racist statements? Whilst unusual, for the most part, these are not humorous and as you mention, these were deliberately named as such. I'm sure that nobody in the Wikimedia movement (if they're aware of this article) will ever support adding a place like Suicide Bay, Tasmania which may be unusual, but the reason for not including it is very explanatory. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 13:12, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

I've never liked this article and would be happy to delete it, but yeah, removing racist, sexist and homophobic content should be obvious, right? Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:39, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

The other alternative I suggested above was moving this article to "Jokes and other deleted nonsense", and I think that's probably the best thing to do. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:41, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

The question is whether people are planning their travel to visit some of these places. If they are, this article should be in mainspace. Then, of course, we should focus on places where people actually go, or contemplate going, because of their name. The places should at least be worth a detour for some people to be listed. Fun facts about a place that don't make people visit can be noted in the article without being listed elsewhere. –LPfi (talk) 07:56, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

I think LPfi's suggestion is the best criterion I've seen so far for the scope of this article: if people go somewhere because of its name, even if that means a short detour from the highway or just stopping by to take a picture of the welcome sign and moving on, then list it here, if not, then don't. Vidimian (talk) 17:31, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

What's so unusual or humorous about Owo, Ondo State, Nigeria?

Please explain why the city of 222,262 in Ondo State has an unusual name. I get it if the city was called OwO, but it's not. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:40, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Removed per the lack of further comment. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 01:09, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Video for your entertainment

You all know I don't think this is a serious article and doubt it should exist, but still, if you want 12 minutes and 23 seconds of light entertainment, check this out: The world's STRANGEST place names. I find RobWords, the YouTuber who put up that video, amusing and informative, generally, usually on matters of language. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:52, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Horneytown

w:Horneytown, North Carolina. There's a pic on Facebook of a sign pointing to it with a smaller sign warning that the big one has GPS tracking. Pashley (talk) 21:29, 14 September 2024 (UTC)