There are so many options you can take when you name a town. You can name it after some famous historical figure. Though, that’s bound to turn out poorly when you learn that that guy was convicted of incest. Or, you can name it after some previous town, but it may turn out that that previous town was famous for incest. Or, you could choose some word that sums up the town’s values, but that will leave generations debating whether “Philadelphia,” meaning brotherly love, is just a fancy word for incest.
It’s hardly surprising then that some towns say, “Screw it,” and choose a name in the laziest or most arbitrary way imaginable.
Chicken, Alaska
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In 1902, when this tiny Alaskan mining village first formed, residents wanted to name it Ptarmigan. The rock ptarmigan is an Arctic bird, so this would be a fine way of representing the area. It’s also a word that sounds respectable enough to qualify as a proper noun, if you don’t know what a ptarmigan is.
Then everyone got together and realized no one knows how to spell ptarmigan. So, they switched to a word everyone knows how to spell: Chicken.
There is an alternate story about the name’s origin, which just says that miners said the gold dust from the mine looked like chicken feed. The nice thing about this story is that it, too, is very stupid.
Ixonia, Wisconsin
In 1841, the town of Watertown in Wisconsin split in two. One half remained Watertown, while the other result of the schism was called Union, because residents had a sense of irony. In 1846, Union split in two, because the spirit of irony remained strong. One offshoot was named Concord, which is a common name for towns but also means harmony, because they just wouldn’t quit with the irony.
As for the other half, they had no good ideas on what to name it. So, they just pulled letters out of a bag at random.
It must have taken them a bunch of tries before they found anything that qualified as a word. In fact, they arguably never did, but then they slipped in a couple extra vowels, and they settled on Ixonia.
Normal, Illinois
In French, an ecole normale is a training school, designed to produce teachers. As a result we used to call schools that specialized in pumping out teachers “normal schools.” When Illinois State University began in 1857, it was named Illinois State Normal University.
A town sprang up close to the college, and in 1865, it named itself Normal. It made some sense in relation to the university, but only barely. Then, in 1967, the university got around to changing its name, both because it no longer specialized quite as much in teaching and because no one knew what a “normal school” was any longer. But Normal, the town, kept its name as it was.
The town’s motto is “Everything is just as it seems.” It’s fitting enough. Though, it does sound a bit like they doth protest too much, and in reality, this is where the murders happen.
Zzyzx, California
In 1944, a radio personality named Curtis Howe Springer showed up at a strip of California desert that had been known, up to that point, as Soda Springs. This place would now be named Zzyzx, said he. That’s because “Zzyzx” is the last word in the dictionary, and the town of Zzyzx would be the last word — in health. The hot springs here had curative properties, and he could turn this into a resort to treat people’s illnesses.
“Zzyzx” wasn’t actually the last word in the dictionary. It wasn’t any word at all. No one checked whether Springer had told the truth about that. Nor did anyone check whether the springs around Zzyzx really did have curative properties; they must have believed Springer as an authority based solely on his surname. So, for the next two decades, he was able to draw people to the town of Zzyzx, advertising it as a miraculous location on the evangelical radio show he hosted in L.A.
It took till 1969 for the American Medical Association to issue a formal condemnation of Springer, which led the government to come after him. He might have been able to get off on the false health claims, since really, soaking in any hot water might be good for your health, if only because it boosts your mood. Harder to wiggle out of was the fact that he’d proclaimed himself the leader of this place despite not owning any of the land there. Worse, he’d sold some of the land there, despite never owning it in the first place, which is clearly illegal.
And so, Springer went to prison. In 1984, the area (having dropped all pretense of being a health resort) now had an opportunity to become an officially named unincorporated town. They could have went with a new name for a fresh start, but they decided to stick with Zzyzx. As for Springer, once he was released, he figured he was through with Zzyzx. He spent his last days in Las Vegas, the most healthful and Christian city of all.
Why, Arizona
See, towns don’t have to obey your conventional rules of what a “name” has to be. A town can be Zzyzx, which strikes newcomers as unpronounceable. A town can even be a single letter. One small community in Arizona just called itself Y. That’s because its most remarkable feature — it has a population of just around 160 — is the Y-shaped road junction where routes 85 and 86 meet.
Then they got a post office, and the government informed them that, actually, towns do have to obey conventional rules of what a name has to be. Specifically, a name needs to have at least three letters to be acknowledged officially.
So, the residents said, “Why.” Meaning both “Why, why must that be the case?” and “Why. We will be known as Why from now on.”
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Why Not, North Carolina and Mississippi
For a more optimistic name, look to this North Carolina town. During the town’s founding, people were debating suggestions for names, and one old guy kept yelling “why not,” because he was willing to accept anything, so they could just go home. In the end, his contribution to the debate won out.
The above photo isn’t of Whynot, North Carolina, however. It’s of Whynot, Mississippi, because two different towns chose this name. Originally, this Whynot was named Whitesville, but they changed that in 1852. They changed it, not because it sounded exclusionary (they were fine with that part, and anyway, it was only named that after a prominent founder named W.H. White). They were forced to change it because a different nearby post office also used the name Whitesville.
A couple residents who’d come from North Carolina suggested Whynot, in what we assume was memory of the town they’d come from. The name isn’t quite as punchy as Why, but it’s the superior choice. It doesn’t demand an explanation of you. It instead challenges you to accept all new possibilities.
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