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| Na na na na na na na na... |
1) Batman
As well as being the alter ego of [spoiler alert] Bruce Wayne, Batman is also the name of a town in Turkey.
Amusingly, back in 2008 the mayor of Batman threatened to sue Warner Bros for not asking his permission to use the name Batman in the movie 'The Dark Knight'. I'm no expert on copyright law, but here are two facts which may explain why the mayor of Batman never actually went through with his legal threat...
* Batman first appeared in Detective Comics 27 published in May 1939.
* The town of Batman was previously called Iluh. It's name wasn't changed to Batman until the 1950s.
2) Boring
The town of Boring in Oregon is twinned with the town of Dull in Scotland. It's also twinned with the town of Bland in Australia.
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| A hospital, pictured above. I'm not sure where it's located, but it's definitely not in Hospital! |
3) Hospital
Hospital is a town in Ireland. If you visit though, make sure you don't get ill because ironically, the town of Hospital doesn't have a hospital!
4) Half.com
The town of Half.com was originally called Halfway (and has now reverted to its original name), but for a year it changed its name to half.com as a publicity stunt for a company of the same name. In return for the name change, the town received $110,000, twenty computers for the school and other benefits. The original name of Halfway was chosen because the town is almost exactly halfway between the equator and the North Pole.
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| Cool by name. Sweltering by nature. |
5) Cool
Cool is a small community in California with a population of 4,100. Ironically, the town of Cool has summer temperatures in the very not cool range of 24C to 40C! So it's Cool by name, uncool by nature.
6) Å
There are eight villages in Norway with the long-winded name of ... Å.
The reason for so many villages being given the unimaginitive name Å is because in many Scandinavian languages Å is the word for a stream or a brook, so presumably all of the villages named Å are near to streams.
7) Hell
Hell is the name of another village in Norway which used to host a music festival. However, the festival went bankrupt in 2007 due to falling attendance numbers. So apparently it seems the people of Norway must be good people because not many people go to Hell in Norway.
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| The Planet Mars. Photo copyright NASA.* Used with kind permission. #NotReally |
8) Mars, Venus and Moon
Mars, Venus and the Moon are all located in the Solar System. However, the towns of Mars, Venus and Moon are all located in Pennysylvania in the US.
Actually, Pennysylvania is also located in the Solar System, so I guess that means there are two Mars, two Venus, and two Moons in the Solar System!
N.B. In actual fact there are 173 or 182 moons in the Solar System, depending on whether you count only planetary moons, or also include the moons of dwarf-planets.
* Legal disclaimer: It's actually a photo of a toy planet that belongs to my nephew. It looks quite realistic though, if you only have a quick glance.
9) Zzyzx
Zzyzx may look like it's a made up name, and that's because it is! The town of Zzyzx was given its made-up name in 1944 by Curtis Howe Springer who claimed it was the last word in the English language.
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| "Can you tell me where I am?" |
10) Lost
Lost is a hamlet in Scotland which may cause some confusion with disorientated visitors...
Visitor: "Excuse me, I'm lost. Could you tell me where I am?"
Resident: "Lost."
Visitor: "Ha, ha. Yes, very funny. But where am I?"
Resident: "Lost."
Footnote: Number 8 featured three towns, so if you want to be pedantic then this article should technically have been called '12 Unusual Town Names'. That means readers have got two bonus towns for free!
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This blog post was written and compiled by Charles Fudgemuffin, author of the unusually named short story 'Wagon Wheels, Star Wars Memorabilia and the Nice Ham', which is available for kindle from Amazon.
Related posts:
10 unusual town names (part 2)
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