Top Ten Confusing Place Names
Tuesday, 10th March 2009 by Ian Brown
Following the example of Alex's Rudest Place Names post, I hereby present my top ten confusing place names.
For each of these sights, I picture a confused driver arriving in town, rolling down the car window and asking a passer-by "Can you tell me where I am?"
10. Smile, KY
Driver: Can you tell me where I am?
Passer-by: Smile!
Driver: <grinning widely> I said, can you tell me where I am?
9. Okay, OK
Driver: Can you tell me where I am?
Passer-by: Okay.
<pause>
Driver: I said, can you tell me where I am?
Passer-by: Okay.
<pause>
... repeat ad nauseam.
8. Uncertain, TX
Driver: Can you tell me where I am?
Passer-by: Uncertain.
Driver: Oh, you're lost as well?
7. Goodnight, TX
Driver: Can you tell me where I am?
Passer-by: Goodnight.
Driver: Huh? It's 11 o' clock in the morning.
6. Stop, GA
Driver: Can you tell me where I am?
Passer-by: Stop.
Driver: But I am stopped ...
5. Nameless, TN
Driver: Can you tell me where I am?
Passer-by: Nameless.
Driver: No wonder I can't find where I am on this map.
4. Panic, PA
Driver: Can you tell me where I am?
Passer-by: Panic.
Driver: Aaaagh. Won't you just tell me where I am, I'm totally lost and I can't take it any more...
3. Halfway, Yorkshire and Halfway, OR1
Driver: Can you tell me where I am?
Passer-by: Halfway.
Driver: Halfway to where?
Passer-by: No, you're all the way to Halfway.
Driver: I'm confused....
2. Yell, TN
Driver: Can you tell me where I am?
Passer-by: Yell.
Driver: CAN YOU TELL ME WHERE I AM?
1. Why, AZ
Driver: Can you tell me where I am?
Passer-by: Why.
Driver: Well, I'm lost. Where am I?
Passer-by: Why.
... repeat ad nauseam.
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Bonus trivia: Halfway, OR changed it's name to Half.com in 1999 when it took an internet company's sponsorship in a bid to improve the town's financial situation. ↩︎
About the author
Ian Brown lives in Ottawa, Canada, and spends his spare time perusing maps to find new routes to ride on his orange bicycle.
This may not totally qualify due to spelling, but having lived there, I can tell you, Weare, NH (pronounced like “where”) is chock full of Abbot and Costello-esque jokes. “Where do you go to school?” “Yes.” …and the list goes on. In this instance it would be, “Driver: Can you tell me where I am?” “Passerby: Yes.” “Driver: … so, uhm, are you going to tell me where I am?” “Passerby: Yes.” Wash, rinse, repeat.
We also have that in Massachusetts except it’s spelled “Ware”
I thought Hell, Michigan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell,_Michigan) would have been on one of these lists. I’ve always wanted to travel there and see if the roads into town were paved with good intentions.
It’s so funny that you mention Hell, Michigan. When I was a teenager my family drove through there on the way up to a Ford retreat. We kidded about it for years afterwards, ‘going through hell on the way home.’
But recently I have not been able to locate it on the map and thought maybe it changed its name!
I am glad to know someone else knows that Hell does exist! LOL
Hell is SW of Pinckney. 🙂
Thanks, Annette!
A friend of mine lives in Hell, MI. On a forum we’re both on, she has her location as simply “Hell”.
haha, I lol’d at that.
I should say, I lol’d at what Claude put.
I’ve been to Why and my name is Zee… it was fun. I have a picture of myself standing at the end of the sign to the WXY bar/cafe. =)
There’s also a “halfway” in the Neterlands. Search for “Halfweg Haarlemmerliede”
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Things of interest in Why
Why used to have a HUGE fake bull with cheap looking glowing eyes from red light bulbs.
A VERY hard to reach mailbox https://www.googlesightseeing.com/maps?p=&c=&t=m&hl=en&ll=32.267249,-112.739639&z=15&layer=c&cbll=32.263351,-112.740578&cbp=12,265.0615901455767,,0,8.42665173572231
Oldly a few pictures were taken from the street view car on a different time of the day in Why… BUT WHY? maybe because the clouds look amazing. Also if you look on sat or street view here this has to win the award for the most patched road. https://www.googlesightseeing.com/maps?p=&c=&t=m&hl=en&ll=32.267249,-112.739639&z=15&layer=c&cbll=32.26754,-112.739089&cbp=12,292.47480403135506,,0,-15.660694288913772
and lastly not a link but a hunt. When we drove south through the pipes national monument there were tarantulas every once in a while on the road… not small ones but the kind you can spot and know what they are driving sixty. sounds like a hunt for anybody bored.
Theres actually a bunch of Halfways all throughout the country.
Halfway, MD
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Halfway House, PA
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Halfway, NY
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Halfway Mountain, AK
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Halfway, AR
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Halfway, OR
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Halfway, KY
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Halfway Mountain, ME
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Halfway, MO
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Halfway, NM
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Halfway, TN
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Halfway Hills, UT
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Halfway, VA
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And Halfway, WY
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Interesting thing to note, Halfway, MD is actually halfway along I81 through MD. Five miles in, and five miles out.
No shit… you don’t think perhaps that’s why it was named “Halfway”?
There are lots of pubs in the UK called things like “Halfway Inn” and it’s not coincidence that they lie halfway between two big towns or cities.
Might I add “Surprise, Nebraska”. It really comes out of nowhere.
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Thanks for the continuing laughs, folks!
One that didn’t make the cut for the top ten, but is worth mentioning now … somebody must be tired of confused drivers in a particular area of rural Texas, with side roads named ‘Go Away Road’ and ‘U R Lost Road’!
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A little further south of of ‘Go Away Road’ & ‘U R Lost Road’ is ‘Dos C Doe Road’ & ‘Lots of Birds Road’
https://www.googlesightseeing.com/maps?p=&c=&t=h&hl=en&ll=30.01021,-98.370659&z=16
and further south west there is a “Smoking Rifle’
https://www.googlesightseeing.com/maps?p=&c=&t=h&hl=en&ll=29.947005,-98.403457&z=17
In Aberdeenshire, there’s a place called Lost: it’s so big that it doesn’t even appear on Google Maps. (But the signs saying “Lost” still get pinched.)
I live off of Temporary Rd in Reston, VA, one of three Temorary Rds in the US according to Google Maps.
There is an Ad Hoc Rd in Great Falls, VA. I’m told that Ad Hoc Rd was named for the Ad Hoc committee that never reached a decision on a name for the road when they named the roads in Fairfax County in the 1960s.
Back in my student days in Massachusetts we often joked about Athol, MA.
That is HILARIOUS!!
wouldn’t it be funny if the movie ‘On Golden Pond’ was set there?? Then Kate Hepburn’s character could introduce herself as “Ethel Thayer from Athol, Massachussetts”
One of my personal favorites has always been West, Texas. (Whenever my friends and I head that direction, we call it “west-comma-texas” to avoid confusion. 😀 )
It’s between Austin and Dallas, and it makes for a good kolache stop when driving between those cities!
Not to forget NorthEast, MD
No one mentions Between, GA? I used to drive through it pretty regularly.
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There is a town in Ga. called Between, It is on hwy 78 between Loganville and Monroe east of Atlanta
Ian, Why Arizona is correct, I hate that place, try spending 4 years in blistering heat and nothing to do.
In France there is a town called CONDOM. I won’t do the jokes. I have driven through a lot of France but never actually went there. although it was on signposts.
Perhaps it goes hand in hand with a well known town in Austria.
In West Virginia we have a town called Mabie pronounced maybe, obviously and It’d definitely work for this.
Driver: Can you tell me where I am?
Passer-by: Mabie.
Driver: Ummm…okay, I sorta need to know, can you tell me?
Passer-by: Mabie
and yeah, you get the idea. =]
No mention of Hot Coffee, Mississippi?
I have always wondered – Halfway to WHAT??????????
How about Welcome, Minnesota?
Driver: Can you tell me where I am?
Passer-by: Welcome.
Driver: Um…thanks
How about Bugscuffle, TN, and Bucksnort, TN?
And of course there is good old King of Prussia, PA
Don’t forget “Truth or Consequences” in New Mexico http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_or_Consequences,_New_Mexico
My favorite i ever seen is right off of the I-95 in Connecticut, very close to New York. the city is spelled Mianus and is literally pronounced My Anus.
Driver: Can you tell me where I am? Local: Mianus. Driver: flips the bird and speeds off
in austria theres a place called fucking:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fucking,_Austria
plus, in my language my home town is called forward. where are u going? forward.
people allways joke about they live in backwards. not funny after the 56 time.
Accident, MD (aint no accident)
There’s a town in Germany called “Fucking”.
i live in a town called ware in hertfordshire england
i think that beats all of these lol
Don’t forget Normal, Illinois! Can’t count the number of times I’ve heard “So there is a NORMAL police department?(high school, post office, etc) The mayor actually carries 20 dollars in his pocket to give out if someone manages to crack an original joke about the city! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal,_Illinois
Don’t forget That rd in Bloomington Indiana,
What about Weare, NH
There’s a village in Yorkshire called Crackpot.
Driver: Excuse me, where am I? Local gentleman: Crackpot. Driver: What did you call me?! [serious beating ensue]
There’s a town in Georgia called Hopeulikit – pronounced ‘Hope you like it’.
Just 100 mi inland from Vancouver BC is the town of Hope. The main highway to the interior runs through it spawning endless “beyond Hope” jokes
Shocking that no one mentioned Intercourse, PA n or Bird in the Hand,PA!
You missed Climax, MI
I see nobody has mentioned
Nowhere, OK Intercourse, PA
Why do people need to explain and even give examples of why there is humour in these? Simultaneously it makes the list instantly unfunny and insulting to the intelligence.
There is No Name in Colorado http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Name,_Colorado