3 ms·
There's a village here in my area called "Pipes". Every local calls it by this name, but the official name is completely different. There's a legend that there
by kgeist 3y ago
There's a village here in my area called "Pipes". Every local calls it by this name, but the official name is completely different. There's a legend that there once were 3 old men smoking pipes on their porch who'd greet travellers.
Nearby, there's a village called "Bandits" - same thing, the official name is completely different, and the locals claim the village was founded by 3 fugitives who settled there.
I wonder how widespread is the phenomenon when the official name and the real name used by the locals are completely different (and the real name is usually silly).
- kombookcha 3y agoNear my hometown, there is a particular crossroads named Light-Pipe-Cross. It's on no map, but everyone has called it that for centuries and it appears in old documents as a supplementary colloquial name. The story goes that because the distance between the crossroads and the old market square is exactly the right amount of time for you to smoke a pipe of tobacco before arriving, peasants going to market with their carts would stop there to light up. I think names with stories attached have a way of surviving, because they become integrated into oral history.
- ben_w 3y agoI suspect both tourist and sensible origins are quite common. Oxford was probably named after a ford where oxen crossed the river (although in Old Norse, so Öxnafurða originally). Cambridge, despite the seemingly obvious name, seems to have been a bit weirder, as both the place and the river have been renamed after each other at different times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge#Medieval https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge#Medieval The small villages of Washington[0][1] probably didn't mean "laundromat" in Anglo-Saxon, but the best guesses are equally mundane. There's a few places called Battle, one of which is named after the Battle of Hastings because that was nearby. It's my favourite, because the name led to this: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Battle+Station+Car+Park https://www.google.com/maps/place/Battle+Station+Car+Park Hell (Norway) was probably just named for an overhang or cliff cave: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell,_Norway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell,_Norway On the other hand, Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch very explicitly got this name for tourist purposes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llanfairpwllgwyngyll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llanfairpwllgwyngyll Likewise "Westward Ho!" (the exclamation point is part of the name), taking it's name from a 1855 novel written by Charles Kingsley: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westward_Ho https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westward_Ho! The place "Truth or Consequences" (New Mexico) manages to be both, because while it famously took the current name from a radio game show… the old name was "Hot Springs", which came from the nearby hot springs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_or_Consequences,_New_Mexico https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_or_Consequences,_New_Mex... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_Tyne_and_Wear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_Tyne_and_Wear [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_West_Sussex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_West_Sussex
- rolph 3y agoi think this happens when the time comes to attract visitors for some reason, and the name is a marketing mismatch.