Top 9 Ridiculously Named Places in the World

Here is a list of the top 9 ridiculously named places that KnowInsider wants to share with you.

WONOWON, BRITISH COLUMBIA

Photo: GNS Trailers

It’s not a coincidence that this Canadian town, pronounced “one-oh-one,” is located on Alaska Highway’s Mile 101, where the U.S. Army operated a 24-hour checkpoint during World War II. The town was originally named Blueberry after the nearby Blueberry River, but was eventually changed to Wonowon to prevent people from confusing it for another Blueberry in the southeastern Kootenay region. It’s not clear when the name officially changed to Wonowon, but according to a mention in a 1956 issue of the Northern Sentinel, the Post Office recognized it as Wonowon, while the residents still called it Blueberry. Why Blueberry in the first place, you ask? Possibly because British Columbia produces 96 percent of Canada’s cultivated blueberries.

BATMAN, TURKEY

You’d think the mayor of this otherwise – to be polite – modestly featured Turkish town might be happy to coincidentally share a name with a certain tight-drawered Gotham superhero, but no. Batman’s mayor once threatened to sue the makers of the Dark Knight film trilogy, proclaiming, “There is only one Batman!”

Although he never did, it all just being a publicity stunt to put Batman on the map – any map!

SPA, BELGIUM

Spa, Belgium. Photo: Radisson Blu Blog

Spa, Belgium, sounds relaxing, and for good reason. The word spa comes from this eastern Belgian town, whose curative mineral springs have been visited since the 16th century and were even mentioned by Pliny the Elder. Spa itself could be derived from espa, the Walloon word for "spring" or “fountain,” or the Latin word spagere, meaning “to scatter, sprinkle, moisten.” Or it could be an acronym for the Latin phrase sanitas per aquas, which fittingly means “health through water.”

EGGS AND BACON BAY, TASMANIA

Tasmania’s Eggs and Bacon Bay is named after a regional wildflower commonly known as eggs and bacon, whose petals are a mixture of the sunny yellow of egg yolks and the deep red of bacon. The bay made national news in 2016 when PETA petitioned unsuccessfully to change its name to a more animal-friendly “Apple and Cherry Bay.” It doesn’t look like the idea ever made it to a vote at the local council, and officials didn’t seem keen on it. Huon Valley deputy mayor Ian Paul told The Guardian that the idea was “ludicrous,” adding “I feel pretty strongly about it. This is our heritage, it is our history.”

MY LARGE INTESTINE, TEXAS

Photo: Cheapflights

We obviously have a knack for naming places here in the U.S., because here’s another zinger. Apparently, the very concept of a place named My Large Intestine is so crazy that all GPS Mapping Services have refused to acknowledge it thus far.

PUNKEYDOODLES CORNERS, ONTARIO

The origin of the name of this tiny hamlet has been debated for decades. Some people say it’s the product of a German tavern owner’s slurred rendition of “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” while others say Punkeydoodle was an insult thrown at resident pumpkin-grower John Burbrigg by a vexed neighbor, and from then on his plot of land was called “Punkeydoodle’s Corners.” The charming Canadian town was once home to a somewhat charming Canadian crime: Mischief-makers often stole the town’s sign, until Canada Day in 1982, when community members replaced it with a concrete monument that weighs almost a ton.

BORING, OREGON

Photo: Cheapflights

Not the best name this small town in Oregon could have given itself, but hopefully the locals have a great sense of humor. Boring is actually named after a civil war veteran, who lived to a ripe old age and was buried with his wife in the local cemetery.

THE OFFICE GIRLS, ANTARCTICA

The Office Girls are two glacial islands, also called nunataks, about seven miles away from Welcome Mountain near the Southern Ocean coast of Antarctica. There are so many tiny pieces of land to map in Antarctica that the U.S. has an Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names to name them all—and in 1970 they chose “The Office Girls” as a tribute to all of the personnel who assisted with the administrative side of the missions from home in the continental U.S.

WESTWARD HO!, ENGLAND

Westward Ho!. Photo: Cheapflights

In 1855, Charles Kingsley published a book called Westward Ho!, in which a young man leaves his home in Bideford, England, to pursue a seafaring life of adventure under the tutelage of famed explorer Sir Francis Drake. The book became a bestseller, and some enterprising folks formed the Northam Burrows Hotel and Villa Building Company in 1863 with the intention of capitalizing on the attention. They started by building the Westward Ho! Hotel, and continued to develop the area by constructing terraces, lodges, bath houses, stables, and a golf club. As development progressed, the village that sprung up around the hotel became known as Westward Ho! also.

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