Exploring unusual toponyms

Enjoy a ha-ha moment with the 10 funniest town names around the world

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Do you see yourself visiting Accident or spending a few days skiing in Drama? How about a long weekend in Boring, or a nice vacation in Hell? Check out these 10 towns and cities with the most curious names in the world, including one impossible to pronounce and another, well, let's just say non-existent.

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Accident is a small town located in the plateau region of the Appalachian Mountains in Maryland. Two different accounts explain the curious name of this Garrett County town of less than 350 inhabitants. Both versions involve a man named Deakins and date back to the mid-18th century when the lands of the United States were open for settlement.

The more widespread story indicates that, after King George II of England granted Deakins 600 acres of his choice, he commissioned two groups of engineers to determine the best site. To his surprise, and "by accident", both selected the same plot of land. Accident was officially incorporated in 1916 and if you ever visit, you should know that any person from this town is called an "Accidental."

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It may sound funny, but it's no joke. Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!, a parish municipality of the Bas-Saint-Laurent region of Quebec, Canada, sits on a hill in the Appalachian Plateau, 400 meters above sea level. It was named in 1874 and in 2017 was granted the Guinness World Record for being the only city in the world with more than two exclamation points in its name.

The origin of the Ha! Ha! has been the subject of various interpretations. However, the Quebec Toponymy Commission solved the mystery. In reality, ha-ha is a French archaism that designates a dead end or an unexpected obstacle. In this case, the obstacle in question was Lake Témiscouata, which had to be crossed to reach the village. Time took care of distorting the word and granting us this peculiar toponym.

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Contrary to what you might think, this town in northwestern Osage County, Missouri was not named after the famous monster created by Mary Shelley. It is believed that the origin of the name of this unincorporated community located just 12 miles from Jefferson City is a tribute to a pioneer citizen named Gottfried Franken who donated land in 1890 for the construction of a church.

At the time, the donated area was popularly known as Franken Hill, although a post office called Frankenstein was established in 1893. So, how did it end up being called that? One possible explanation may be related to the fact that many of the early settlers of Frankenstein came from the Westphalen area of Germany. The full toponym probably derives from the German stein, which in English means "rock."

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No, it's not a computer error and you're not having a vision problem. Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is the full name of a village located on the island of Anglesey in Wales and is probably the weirdest name on this list. With 58 characters, this charming destination has the longest name in Europe and the second-longest one-word place name in the world.

It was given this name in 1869 for the sole purpose of attracting tourists. However, unless you are fluent in Welsh, it is unlikely that you’ll be able to pronounce it correctly; it is a real tongue twister! Translated to English, it means: "St Mary's Church in the Hollow of the White Hazel Near to the Rapid Whirlpool of Llantysilio of the Red Cave." But don't worry, you don't have to memorize it all, to make things easier the locals call it Llanfairpwll or Llanfair PG for short.

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There is no consensus regarding the origin of the unusual name of this unincorporated community in Jackson County, Tennessee. As is always the case in these situations, there are a few rumors going around. One theory suggests that when residents applied for a post office they forgot to fill in the name field. The U.S. Post Office Department didn't give it a second thought and in 1866 just returned the application with "Nameless" stamped on the form.

In his book Blue Highways: A Journey Into America, travel writer William Least Heat-Moon offers another version. He recounts that the locals finally decided to call their town Nameless because they couldn't agree on a name: some suggested patriotic themes, others preferred something related to nature. Apparently, a fellow who was fed up with the discussion said: "This here's a nameless place if I ever seen one, so leave it be." And that's just what they did.

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"Welcome to hell," writes someone in the caption of their Instagram post of a selfie next to a blue sign. Although the name of this Norwegian village probably finds its origin in the word hellir, which means "cave" in Old Norse, travelers from all over the world love to take pictures of themselves at the Hell train station and make jokes like "See you in Hell," or "I have been to Hell and back."

The town of Hell is located in the province of Trøndelag, in the central part of the country, very close to the Trondheim Fjord and the Norwegian Sea coast. However, instead of fire and sulfur, this quiet town is home to cold temperatures and ice-covered streets. Yes, there's a place on Earth where hell freezes over!

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Unlike the ancient Greek tragedies, in which Prometheus rebels against the gods and Oedipus kills his own father, the peaceful city of Drama surprisingly does not live up to its name. In fact, it was named after Hydrama —meaning "rich in water"—, a city with excellent water resources believed to have been in the same place in classical times.

Located in the Macedonian region of northeastern Greece, Drama is surrounded by green hills, breathtaking waterfalls, and miles of pristine nature to explore. The area is known for having the lowest temperatures in the country, which offers the unusual opportunity to ski on Mount Falakro, just an hour's drive away.

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With a name like Kissing, you might expect this town to be full of loving couples walking hand in hand in the sunset. Located just outside of Augsburg, one of Germany's oldest cities, Kissing is home to beautiful small churches and large green spaces, perfect for romance and courtship. However, while it is true that it has a lot of charm, you don't have to be a romantic to enjoy this bucolic Bavarian village.

In fact, the first certain mention of this municipality goes back to the year 935 when it was called Chissingun. This toponym probably derives from the Old High German male name Kiso/Cisso. Fun fact: the surname Kissinger —as in Henry Kissinger— means inhabitant of Kissing. Did you know?

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Boring is anything but boring. This town in the state of Oregon does its best to get rid of that negative connotation and invites visitors to take funny pictures at the entrance sign. Not only that, in 2012 it was paired with the village of Dull, Scotland. Along with Bland, Australia, the three towns are informally —and humorously— called the "Trinity of Tedium."

The town of Boring, located in the foothills of the Cascade mountain range, is named after a former Civil War soldier named William Boring who donated land for the first school. But, as you might imagine, few pay attention to this little detail. As with the Norwegian town of Hell, all sorts of witty phrases come up. "I had fun in Boring, OR" is one of our favorites.

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Nameless places, accidents, monsters, the longest name: this list has it all. That's why we couldn't say goodbye without adding a superhero to the mix. In southeastern Turkey, there is a large city called Batman, home to almost 500,000 people. Although there is no link between the fictional character and this urbanization, the history of its name is full of curiosities.

Turkey's third-largest city actually got its current name a few years after artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger created the Dark Knight. This place, formerly called Iluh, changed its name in 1957, in homage to an eponymous river called Batman since the 19th century. And why is the river called that? There is a simple explanation: In Turkey and Persia, a batman is an ancient unit of measure.

UPDATE YOUR READING LIST

Parseltongue, Nadsat, and More: 10 Books That Have A Unique Language

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Literature is powerful enough to create and immerse readers in new worlds, fantastic adventures, and magical experiences. Some worlds are more complex than others, and some authors go as far as inventing a new language specifically for the novel. Take A Clockwork Orange, for example.

Whether it is because they couldn’t hold their creativity in or because the language is not enough to express what the author intended, these novels were innovative and successful, and we’ve gathered ten examples of books with their own language.

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Anthony Burgess wrote a masterpiece of linguistic innovation. Through the use of Nadsat, a functional slang that blends Russian, English, and Cockney rhyming, it created a fully immersive world.

The novel portrays a dystopian society. The innovative lexicon serves the purpose of entering the reader into that world at the same time it alienates them. As the reader decodes the slang, it enters Alex’s violent escapades in complicity. In the case of this novel, the choice was not just stylistic; it was a device to explore the topics in depth.

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This novel, written by the Irish author James Joyce, is, like most of his works, a bit challenging. Considering it is from 1939, it is full of neologisms, lexical blends, and Irish mannerisms, which ultimately create a hybrid language that is border nonsense. It has an experimental style, and it is considered one of the most difficult pieces of literature.

If you are up for a reading challenge, you might find that this novel -which follows the lives of the Earwicker family in a cyclical and nonlinear way- is a good fit.

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This novel by Paul Kingsnorth has an interesting detail behind the reasons for creating a "new" language. Written in 2015 but set in the year 1066, the author states that his intention in creating a new language is to fully represent the time.

In this case, the innovation comes through an invented version of Old English, which combines archaic vocabulary and syntax to create more vivid images and a more historical atmosphere for post-Conquest England. This is no light reading, as the language forces the reader to slow down and engage. Would you be interested in that?

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Post-apocalyptic novels are a common thing today, but in 1980, when Russel Hoban published Riddley Walker, this was quite a surprise.

The novel is set two thousand years after a nuclear explosion that destroyed the world, and the life described is similar to what we can imagine it was hundreds of years ago.

The creation of a language was necessary to fully understand how shattered this new world is, and the means to do so is through a more phonetically spelled and fragmented English: "Nothing like it never happent befor but it wer like it all ways ben there happening." Isn’t literature marvelous?

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J.K. Rowling is responsible for creating one of the most popular book series in the world. The details in the creation of the magical world are astonishing and the reason why the Harry Potter world became so immensely famous, even decades after the first book was released.

If a whole new world is created, she couldn’t miss the opportunity to create a new language: Parseltongue. In this series, the language belongs to the snakes and only a few can speak it.

In this case, the language is spelled like hissing sounds, and there seems to be no logic behind it.

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Following Hoban’s steps, Sandra Newman published a post-apocalyptic novel with its own language in 2014.

What is curious about it is the world it presents: It is inhabited only by children and teenagers because a plague killed all the adults. And this is enough to understand why an invented way of communication was necessary. Haven’t we all got lost in the words of a teenager? They speak their own language in real life, too!

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Published in 1993 by the Scottish author Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting was a successful book later adapted into an equally successful movie.

In any case, this book combines the Scots dialect of his childhood with the darkest English vocabulary to imbue the plot and the characters with a humanity that makes them both sad, likable, and relatable at the same time.

With a tough plot with challenging language but an oh-so-ever engaging topic, this novel is a must-read!

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On a more cheerful note, this novel by Harry Mathews, published in 1972, compiles a series of letters between a husband and a wife who are after a treasure which has lost off the coast of Florida five centuries ago.

The wife, coming from the fictional country of Pan-Nam, speaks the language called Pan: "Pan persns knwo base bal. The giappan-like trade-for mishn play with it in our capatal any times."

Critics consider this comedy brilliant, witty, and engaging as it deals with the universally classic topic of marriage and its intricate corners.

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If you think Artificial intelligence is something of today, you’ll have to think again. Back in 1984, William Chamberlain and Thomas Etter instructed a computer program, Racter, to create some texts. These became a book, a collection of poetry and prose, and it is considered the first book written by AI.

The uniqueness of the language comes from that aspect; it is an artificially constructed conversation that follows its own semantic principles but which, in turn, can be read as any other book. Isn’t that interesting?

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Let’s finish this article with what is probably one of the weirdest books in the world. The title already is quite empty of meaning if you don’t know about the book, isn’t it?

Codex is a book by the Italian artist Luigi Serafini in 1981. More than a book, it is a creative masterpiece. It is an encyclopedia with illustrations of fictional fauna, flora, and a whole world described in an imaginary language.

The language created by the artist is so innovative (and imaginative) that it doesn’t really make any sense. The book is not for readers to make sense of it but to enjoy the visuals and the creativity behind it.