MAJOR-SMOLINSKI | TONGUE-TICKLING NAMES

Places with tongue-tickling names

xxx The name:

What it means:

Apalachicola Florida	Indian expression meaning "people on the other side." The town sits on Apalachicola Bay, just off the Gulf of Mexico.
Azusa California	Take your pick. One story says it's from a Native American term meaning "hill to east"; another says it comes from a local store that boasted it sold everything from A to Z in the USA. According to Frank K. Gallant in A Place Called Peculiar, another version has townspeople discussing every (town) name from A to Z in the United States of America. Gallant comes down on the side of a Gabrielino Indian word for "skunk." I'm inclined to go along with the local store story.
Chattahoochee Georgia	Muskogean term for "rocks marked."
Cheektowaga New York	This Buffalo suburb gets its name from a Native American term translated as "land of the crab apple."
Chickasawhatchee Georgia	The town, located a few miles west of Albany, was named for a creek. The name comes from the Hichiti tribe of Chickasaw Indians and has been translated as "house is there stream," referring to a council house along the shore.
Chittenango New York	This is the Americanized spelling of an Indian term – probably one of the Iroquois tribes – translated as "where waters divide," something that happens a lot during the course of Chittenango Creek, one of the most crooked streams in the world. The word might also apply to Chittenango Falls, located in what is now a state park near Syracuse.
Chugwater Wyoming	This comes from an Indian term translated as "water at the place where the buffalo chug." First there was Chug Springs, then Chugwater Creek, then the town of Chugwater (population: about 25), off Interstate 25, about 50 miles north of Cheyenne.
Clatskanie Oregon	This is from an Indian description of streams taken enroute to Tlats-kani, an area in the hills south of the Clatskanie River. The town is in northwest Oregon, close to the Columbia River and the Oregon-Washington border.
Delaware Water Gap Pennsylvania	Don't know why, but I've always gotten a kick out of this one, which has a name that is self-explanatory – it's for the gap through which the Delaware River flows between Mount Minsi and Mount Tammany at the Pennsylvania-New Jersey border.
Gnadenhutten Ohio	This town, about midway between Zanesville and Canton, gets its name from the German "tabernacle of grace."
Gnaw Bone Indiana	I'd noticed this name before, but it was A Place Called Peculiar that provided its strange history. Seems a fellow named Jim Schrougham stopped by a sawmill on his way to Columbus, in south-central Indiana. Sawmill proprietor John Ayers was gnawing on a bone when he greeted Schrougham, who was to take a piece of broken sawmill equipment to Columbus for repairs. When Schrougham returned the equipment a few days later, Ayers again was gnawing on a bone when he came to the door. Schrougham told friends about the incident and jokingly suggested the town ought to be called Gnaw Bone. The name soon caught on.
Hackensack New Jersey	This was named for an Indian tribe and village originally spelled Achensachys and/or Achkencheschakey. The city is across the Hudson River from New York City.
Ho ho kus New Jersey	This comes from the language of the Chihohokies Indians and the shortening of mehohokus, meaning "red cedar." The town is in northern New Jersey near the Garden State Parkway.
Irondequoit New York	This Rochester suburb sits on Irondequoit Bay and Lake Ontario. The city was named for the bay, an example of the redundancy that often resulted when Native American words were used for place names. Irondequoit means "bay." So what we've got is Bay Bay, which sounds like a song by No Doubt.
Itta Bena Mississippi	From the Choctaw language, bina (camp) and ita (together).
Kalamazoo Michigan	This southern Michigan city is well known and celebrated in song (I've Got a Gal in Kalamazoo), and like many places is named for a nearby waterway, the Kalamazoo River. In this case, it's an Americanized spelling of a native term that may have been spelled Ke-Ken-a-ma-zoo, variously translated as "boiling water," "otter tail" and "reflected river."
Knob Noster Missouri	This village sits on US 50 about 70 miles east of Kansas City and the explanation is it was named for two hills in the prairie, which, to me, at least, may explain the Knob. But what the heck is a Noster?
Lackawanna New York	This Buffalo suburb takes its name from an Indian term meaning "fork stream." I've always loved the sound of it, but prefer my own interpretation of a purely American expression, denoting an absence of desire. Why did I fail the test? Because I lackawanna.
Loachapoka Alabama	Love the sound, though the "poka" was a hint I wouldn't love the definitiion of this Native American term, translated as "turtle killing place."
Mariposa California	Spanish for "butterfly."
Meddybemps Maine	Say this one quickly three times. Doesn't take long for this to sound like something else. In its actual pronunciation it sounds to me like someone with a head cold, describing a drive along a backcountry dirt road that was uncomfortable because of its "meddy bumps." It's actually from an Algonquian phrase that has been translated as "plenty of alewives." But then, Darmiscotta, Maine, has been translated the same way.
Minnetonka Minnesota	A small toy truck, right? No, the name was created by Alexander Ramsey, first governor of the Minnesota territory. He took two Dakota words, minne (water) and tonka (big, great) and put them together to name the lake that later was passed on to the city. Apparently there's no evidence that Dakotas had ever combined the two words or had even given the lake a name.
Nankipoo Tennessee	One town founder was a big fan of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, The Mikado, and its key character, Nanki-poo. Somehow he convinced other early residents that it would be a good name for the town, though without the hyphen.
Ochlockonee Georgia	This village in southern Georgia comes from a Muskogean term meaning "yellow water." It's a definition that might be a better fit with the New Jersey place name three spaces down the list from here.
Osawatomie Kansas	The name was put together from the Osage River and Pottawatomie Creek. Osawatomie is famous for the raid by abolitionist John Brown, who burned the town.
Oxnard California	I really wish there were an interesting story to go along with this one, like a Post Office misspelling of a town named for a nerdy ox. Truth is, it was named for Henry T. Oxnard, owner of the American Beet Sugar Company.
Piscataway New Jersey	This city, a few miles southwest of Newark, is from an Algonquian term meaning "fork river."
Punxsutawney Pennsylvania	No list would be complete with this one, from an Algonquian word for "sand fly" of "gnat." Early settlers in this central Pennsylvania town reportedly were plagued by swarms of insects. I can imagine the answer when someone asked one of these settlers how he liked his new hometown. "Punxsutawney!!"
Ponchatoula Louisiana	This city about 40 miles from Baton Rouge gets its name from a Choctaw term meaning "hair to hang," a nice way to describe the Spanish moss that hangs from trees in the area (and indeed from live oaks throughout the South).
Rabbit Hash Kentucky	This is one that bunny lovers just don't want to think about – a town named for a meal that was daily fare for a while – in true Survivor fashion – when high water along the Ohio River forced rabbits out of their habitat and into the frying pans of hungry settlers.
Schenectady New York	A favorite since childhood; I still can't spell it correctly without cheating. The Iroquois called it "the place of the pines," while the Dutch named it Scheaenhedstede, the -stede meaning "town." I'm glad the Dutch version never caught on.
Shickshinny Pennsylvania	This town on the Susquehanna River comes from an Indian term for "five mountains."
Skaneateles New York	You say toe-MAY-toe, I say toe-MAH-toe ... We pronounced this one skinny-AT-lis, but I believe it's more correct to say scan-ee-at-ell-is, with no emphasis on any particular syllable. Anyway, the name comes from an Iroquois word, skan-e-a-dice, which means "long lake," and the village was named for the long lake it borders, the smallest and loveliest of New York's Finger Lakes. This is one of Earth's truly special places, about 20 miles west of Syracuse, great to visit in the summer and early fall.
Skullbuster Kentucky	Chances are you won't see this on a map; the Scott County community never had its own post office. The story goes that sometime in the mid-1800s, a tall man entered a log structure and hit his head on the cap of the door. A friend had warned him to duck, saying he could bust his skull. He didn't, though he did provide the community with a name.
Smackover Arkansas	There's a small dispute over the origin of the name for this small town in southern Arkansas (click on Sorry, but You Just Had to Be There), but the short version is the French gave it a name that got lost in the way English settlers pronounced it. My fondness for Smackover goes back to childhood. One of my first football heroes, fullback Clyde Scott (who played first for Navy, then for the University of Arkansas) was known by his nickname, which came from his hometown – Smackover Scott. It befitted a player at his position.
Sopchoppy Florida	This tiny town lies south of Tallahassee, near the Gulf of Mexico. It's from an Indian term, translated as "red oak."
Sylacauga Alabama	From the Muskogean language, translation: "buzzard roost."
Tommy Squatter Vermont	So far I haven't been able to verify its existence, but I have read and heard this name from time to time, including the book American Place Names by George Stewart, who said Tommy Squatter was taken from the Algonquian temi-isquattan ("deep water here"). I don't know if it was a town or a neighborhood – the name doesn't appear on any map or on the long list of Vermont place-names I found on the Internet. But the name is too good not to exist.
Toomsuba Mississippi	Chocktaw for the bird called pigeon hawk or blue darter.
Tucumcari New Mexico	The name of this small city near Interstate 40 in eastern New Mexico is from a Comanche word for "to lie in wait," as in an ambush. The site was frequented by war parties.
Tuscaloosa Alabama	Named for a Choctaw chief. The word also means "warrior black," and the town sits on the Black Warrior River.
Walla Walla Washington	Fondly remembered from the Pogo comic strip as part of Walt Kelly's lyrics to his Deck the Halls spoof ("Deck us all with Boston Charlie, Walla Walla Wash. and Kalamazoo ... ). It is an Indian tribal name that appears in the Lewis and Clark journals as Wollah Wollah and Wallow Wallow. The name is translated as "little swift river." There's also a Walla Walla in Oregon.
Wapakoneta Ohio	This town in western Ohio off Interstate 75 was named for a Shawnee chief.
Weeki Wachee Florida	Americanized spelling of a Muskogean term for "little spring."
Winnemucca Nevada	Named for a local Indian chief.

Thanks to American Place Names by George Stewart; A Place Called Peculiar by Frank K. Gallant

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• Place-name histories: The Top Ten