Cool or boring names of cities or regions

[Valka D'Ur]

Well, I dunno how boring people think "Red Deer" is, but our city did win the title of having the World's Most Boring Postcard, once.

 

[Phrossack]

Which reminds me: Some other interesting place names are Medicine Hat, Moose Jaw, and the Great Slave Lake.

 

[madviking]

uranium city

i mean is canada really trying anymore

 

[Antilogic]

Were they ever?

 

[Kyriakos]

There was a city actually named Metropolis (not that the term came as an effect of the city; it obviously was just named after the existing term for mother-city), in Aetolia. Iirc it was of regional importance, still in the Peloponnesian war, but surely still a pretty smallish city, not to be compared to the main ones at the time..

A similar case with Megalopolis, in Arcadia, which was founded by the Thebans so as to antagonise (and check) Sparta. Spartans burned it down. But later on it became even larger. It still is the capital of the region of Arcadia

 

[illram]

Nimrod, Oregon is pretty awesome.

Weed, California is like, totally cool bro.

Did anyone mention Plainsville, Pennsylvania yet?

 

[Chukchi Husky]

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantisiliogogogoch, Wales. Along with most other Welsh place names.

One Welsh town I've been to many times is called in Welsh "Dinbych-y-pysgod". I think it means something like "little town of the fishes". It's name in English is "Tenby".

 

[Thorgalaeg]

There are a number of towns in Spain called "Villaviciosa" which translates to "Depraved Town", the original meaning in old castillian was "Fruitful Town" or something like that through.

 

[Perfection]

Local group? Lame!

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

There's a town high in the Blue Ridge Mountains called Accident, Maryland.

 

[Phrossack]

Lake Disappointment, Australia. Most of the time it doesn't exist, and when it does, it's too salty to drink, hence the name.

Cape Fear, North Carolina, Cape Wrath, Cornwall, and Cape Kidnappers, Australia, are pretty interesting, too.

 

[madviking]

Lake Disappointment, Australia. Most of the time it doesn't exist, and when it does, it's too salty to drink, hence the name.

replace "world" with "lake"


Link to video.

 

[Kyriakos]

^That series was bad

Speaking of Herakles, there were many Herakleas founded, all around the Greek world. Not particularly cool of a name by now, i suppose, but fairly common.

 

[Perfection]

Paul Bunyan could kick Herakleas ass.

 

[Takhisis]

Two Hills.

That's the name of my hometown. Seriously, that sounds like something that would come out of a Discworld novel.

And that is Bad because…?

There's a town high in the Blue Ridge Mountains called Accident, Maryland.

There should be a moratorium on 'Mericans being allowed to name cities.

Speaking of Herakles, there were many Herakleas founded, all around the Greek world. Not particularly cool of a name by now, i suppose, but fairly common.

Don't you have a club called HPAKLHS in that city of yours?

 

[SuperBeaverInc.]

Which reminds me: Some other interesting place names are Medicine Hat, Moose Jaw, and the Great Slave Lake.

Canada has a ton of weird or silly sounding place names

Kamloops
Osoyoos
Salmon Arm
100 Mile House
Carstairs
Red Deer
Medicine Hat
Slave Lake
Okotoks
Vulcan (which has a replica of the USS Enterprise and hosts a Spock Days festival every year)
Wood Buffalo
Flin Flon
Moose Jaw
Regina (which at one point was called Pile Of Bones)
Saskatoon
Qu'Appelle
Uranium City
Portage la Prairie
Norway House
Oliver Paipoonge
Spanish
Thunder Bay
Wawa
Saint-Louis-du-Ha!-Ha!
Cape Breton Island (its a cape and an island!)
Ecum Secum
Economy
Meat Cove
Shubenacadie

And then you get to Newfoundland, where things get bizarre

Come By Chance
Conception Bay South
Cupids
Dildo
Gambo
Gander
Garnish
Happy Adventure
Happy Valley-Goose Bay
Heart's Content
Heart's Delight-Islington
Heart's Desire
Joe Batt's Arm-Barr'd Islands-Shoal Bay
Leading Tickles
River of Ponds
Seldom-Little Seldom

 

[W|M]

Mozambique. When I was a kid I thought it was pronounced "Mo-ZAM-bih-q."

It's pronounced Moss-um-bi-ki in Portuguese.

Brazilian state capitals tend to have boring or weird names, but the states themselves have interesting names:

Portuguese names
Tupí and Guaraní names
Other

Rio Branco (White River), Acre (Crocodile River)
Maceió (What covers the marsh), Alagoas (Lagoons)
Macapá (Where the local fruits grow), Amapá (End of land)
Manaus (A local tribe), Amazonas (Amazon)
Salvador (Saviour), Bahia (Bay)
Fortaleza (Fortress), Ceará (Light Mother)
Goiânia (Named after the state), Goiás (Named after a local tribe)
Vitória (Victory), Espirito Santo (Holy Spirit)
São Luís (St. Louis), Maranhão (Unknown origin)
Cuiabá (Origin of name unknown, but thought to mean local fishing spot or a local river), Mato Grosso (Thick Forest)
Campo Grande (Great Field), Mato Grosso do Sul (Southern Thick Forest)
Belo Horizonte (Beautiful Horizon), Minas Gerais (General Mines)
Belém (Bethlehem), Pará (River-Sea)
João Pessoa (named after a state governor), Paraíba (Rough River)
Curitiba (Pine Nut Land), Paraná (Similar to the Sea)
Recife (Reef), Pernambuco (Disputed origin, either Sea, Long Sea, or the name of a local tribe)
Teresina (Named after the wife of Emperor Pedro II, Empress Teresa), Piauí (Piau (a local species of fish) River)
Natal (Christmas), Rio Grande do Norte (Great Northern River)
Porto Alegre (Happy Port), Rio Grande do Sul (Great Southern River)
Rio de Janeiro (January River), Rio de Janeiro (January River)
Porto Velho (Old Port), Rondônia (Named after Marshal Cândido Rondôn, who explored the region in the early 20th century)
Boa Vista (Good View), Roraima (Green Mountain)
Florianópolis (Flower City), Santa Catarina (St. Catherine)
São Paulo (St. Paul), São Paulo (St. Paul)
Aracaju (Parrot Tree), Sergipe (Crab Stream)
Palmas (Palms), Tocantins (Toucan beak, which refers to the way the Araguaia and Tocantins rivers join)

 

[gay_Aleks]

And that is Bad because…?

It's bad because this way, a very high level of naturally occurring boredom is the norm here.

It could be Easily Argued that nothing major happens around here; the only natural disaster that hit us recently was an earthquake approximately 45 years ago.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump in Alberta, Canada is a UNESCO World Heritage Site under criterion vi.

Vladivostok is a seat of power in Russia's far east.

 

[W|M]

The Russian Far East tends to have cool-sounding names for other cities, too: Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Yakutsk, Khabarovsk, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Blagoveshchensk, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Nakhodka, Ussuriysk...