Made In America - Bill Bryson [72]
Brainy Boro and Cheesequake, New Jersey
Rabbit Shuffle, Stifflknee Knob and Shoofly, North Carolina
Knockemstiff, Pee Pee, Lickskillet, and Mudsock, Ohio
Bowlegs, Oklahoma
East Due West, South Carolina
Yell, Bugscuffle, Gizzards Cove and Zu Zu,Tennessee
Lick Skillet, Bugtussle, Chocolate Bayou, Ding Dong,
Looneyville, Jot ‘Em Down, and Cut and Shoot, Texas
Lick Fork, Unthanks and Tizzle Flats, Virginia
Humptulips and Shittim Gulch, Washington
Superior Bottom, West Virginia
Embarrass, Wisconsin
Often a prosaic explanation lies buried in an arresting name. Goodnight, Texas, has nothing to do with a memorable evening or bedtime salutation. It simply recalls a Mr Goodnight. So, too, Humble and Oatmeal (named for a Mr Othneil), Texas, and Riddle, Idaho. Chagrin Falls, Ohio, does not, as the name would seem to suggest, have any connection with some early exploratory setback, but is simply a misrendering of the surname of François Seguin, an early French trader who settled along the river from which the town takes its name.20 The town and river were both commonly spelled Shaguin until well into the nineteenth century.
In the eastern states, colourful names often have their roots in the name of a tavern or inn. Such, a bit disappointingly, is the case with King of Prussia, Blue Ball, Bird-in-Hand, Rising Sun, Bishop’s Head, Cross Keys and many other curiously named towns lying mostly in or between Pennsylvania and Virginia.
The twentieth century has seen an odd, and mercifully intermittent, fashion for giving towns names that it was hoped would somehow put them on the map. Breakthroughs in science often provided the spur, prompting towns to name (or more often rename) themselves Xray, Radio, Gasoline, Electron and Radium. Bee Pee, Kansas, after putting up for years with jokes concerning the urinary habits of honey-making insects, decided to change its name to something less risible – and opted for Chevrolet.
Changing their names is something that towns do more often than you might expect. Few communities have not changed their names at least once. Scranton, Pennsylvania, has gone through no fewer than eight names, the most notable of which perhaps was its first: Skunk’s Misery. Sometimes names are changed for reasons of delicacy – as when Screamerville became Chancellor or when Swastika, Arizona, transmuted into Brilliant – but just as often it was a desire by some real-estate developer to make the place sound more desirable. Thus Willmore City, California, became Long Beach, Roscoe became Sun Valley, Girard became Woodland Hills, and parts of Van Nuys and North Hollywood declared independence as, respectively, Chandler Estates and Valley Village. Merely changing the name can reportedly give property values an instant boost of up to 15 per cent.21 Mellifluousness is generally given priority over etymological considerations, as with Glendale, California, a name that combines the Scottish-Gaelic glen with the northern English dale to form a name that means ‘valley-valley’. Practically every city in America can boast subdivisions whose names owe nothing to anything other than their developers’ vision of what sounds appealing: Wellington Heights, Canterbury Hills, Vista View Estates and the like. Somewhere, I suspect, there may even be a Laconia Heights.
By the late nineteenth century, America had accumulated so many names for towns, lakes, mountains and other topographical entities that the situation had grown confusing. Many states had as many as five towns with the same name, causing constant headaches for the postal service. Hundreds of other features on the landscape went by two or more names, like the mountain near San Diego sometimes called Cloud Peak and sometimes called Cuyamaca. Then, too, there were hundreds of places with variant spellings – like Alleghany, Virginia; Allegany, New York; and Allegheny, Pennsylvania.
In 1890, to sort out the mess, President Benjamin Harrison founded the ten-man Board on Geographic Names. The board was chronically underfunded – it didn’t get its first