Unique names of cities/town/villages in Poland

This is true. I live near Aliso Creek. The Spanish word aliso means "creek" in English, and thus it is indeed named Creek Creek.

That is true, for example the River Avon in England... "Afon" is river is Welsh...when we cross it we all shout "RIVER RIVER" ( well it keeps the little ones amused anyway)

According to an online Spanish to English translator aliso means "alder" in English and so I was misinformed by my Mexican friend who'd told me that it meant "little creek" as we mountain biked through the smelly rivulet. I do have a couple examples of unique town names in my area though. Just inland from me is a city that used to be called El Toro which got its name back in the days of Spanish domininion because a bull fell into the new settlement's well and bellowed loudly for three days before finally dying. Back in the 1990's the residents of El Toro voted to change the city's name to Lake Forest. Next to Lake Forest is a city that was founded rather recently but in keeping with the general spirit of town names in Southern California its founders decided to give it a Spanish name, but these founders were not fluent in Spanish and so they named it Mission Viejo, despite the fact that it was not "old", which is what viejo means, nor did it contain a mission (the nearest one being the celebrated Mission San Juan de Capistrano, of the yearly returning swallows, which is quite a few miles away). Moreover the word mission is of the feminine gender in Spanish and so for the city's name to be correct it would have to have been named Mission Vieja, but the founders apparently never bothered to confer with anyone who actually knew Spanish and so we have the city of Mission Viejo.

as we all know:

woodstock
america
washington
boston
pennsylvania

are in the uk.

I live not far from a little place called Ramsbottom, there's also a place called Bottom I drove through last week, but my personal fav is Nob End, which in fact is quite pretty...

penninewaterways.co.uk/mbb/mbbc34.htm

Just evoking some action to the thread. You see, after my comment it became more informative and interesting :)


For the nth time:


That was my intention - OBVIOUS (is Thorpe or caster - OBVIOUS even for English-speakers?), but I am happy the thread grew into digging for the places etymological background when the current names don't sound like meaning anything, you cactus.

In some ways Warsaw is like a Russian woman. On one side Ochota and Wola, on the other Bródno and Włochy.

In Poland, I always want to leave Liw.

Chickasawhatchee, Georgia
Burnt Corn, Alabama

Quite a long way from Cockermouth.

Filthy boy! :D

Who'd A thought it, Alabama
Eek, Alaska
Greasy Corner, Toad Suck, Turkey Scratch Arkansas
Zyzx Springs, California
Two Egg, Florida
What Cheer, Iowa
Rabbit Hash, Bug, OK, Kentucky
Tightwad, Missouri
Hot Coffee, Mississippi
Wynot, Nebraska
Stifflknee Knob, North Carolina
Lickskillet, Ohio
Lick Fork, Virginia
Embarrass, Wisconsin
Coldass Creek, North Carolina
Sugar Tit, Kentucky
Fuc**ing Creek, Tickle Cu*t Branch, Virginia

These places exist or existed according to Bill Bryson, Made in America.

Leniuszki (Little Sluggards)

Kłopoty (Troubles)

Nowe Rumunki (New Romanian Women)

Męcikał (Stir feces) - (In middle ages known as Menczykał, Mendczikal and Męcikały). Chojnice County, Pomeranian Voivodeship. (Kashubian: Mãcëkôł, Mãczëkôł, Mãcykôł, Mãczikôł, German: Mentschikal). Surrounded by Tuchola Forests, many lakes, a small but very charming village. Could not find any explanation for the name so far. I will try later.

Pryszczowa Góra (Pimply Hill)

Moszna (Scrotum) - Probably from a family name of early immigrants: Mosce or Moschin

Browarek (Little Brewery) - Śląskie

Zimna Wódka (Cold Vodka) - Opolskie

Biały Kał (White feces) - changed to Białykal in 1999

Stolec (Stool) - Dolnośląskie, this Old-Polish word "stolec" means a throne.

Kałowice (Feces...) - near Wrocław

Suche-Cipki (Dry-Pussies) near Poronin (village Suche, hamlet Cipki). Request for name change was denied in 2009 because Gmina thinks that it has other pressing issues to spend money on. No one knows where the name Cipki came from, but it is possible that it came with the name of the first settlers, as in "ten Cipek", "te małe Cipki". The locals do not laugh, because they got used to it.

Tumidaj (Give it to me here). A small village on £ódź - Wrocław highway is known for its inn, where Madam Walewska and Napoleon supposedly kept their secret rendezvous. To make it more interesting there are also "Baby" (Women) and "Baby-Towarzystwo" (Women-Camaraderie) nearby.

Koniec Świata (The end of the World) - Wielkopolska (near village Głuszyna)

Koniec (The End) - (Roztocze National Park, near Narol).

I wonder if this town gained its excretory name because it was a center of leather tanning which used to use such a fecal stew.

Dumpwater, Florida
Six toe, Arkansas

I think 'kał, kały' had somewhat if not completely different meaning in the past - there is a village Kały north of Opole, I have seen Kaliska on map which is the same root - still I am not a professional linguist and I just don't know - btw many words and their meanings have gone into oblivion since middle ages

This is what I was suspecting and this was a reason I was still searching around. I think I found it.
Apparently "kał" formerly meant simply silt, mud or ooze, which is present in abundance in Kashubian swamps and marshes; therefore "Męcikał" would mean "mud stirring".

Similarly, Biały Kał would therefore mean White Silt. Geographically, it is one of the villages in the watershed of the river Orla, Wielkopolskie. Polish ethnographers of early 1960s claimed that that region was still settled by the ethnographic Slavic group "Hazacy" (Chazacy, Hazaki also Leśniacy). pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazacy

Few more Polish humorous place names:

Stare Niemyje (Old No-washers) - Podlaskie

Geniusze (Geniuses) - Podlaskie

Bojadła (Because she ate) - an add in daily Lubuska says: "sprzedam krowę - Bojadła" (I'll sell a cow - because she ate)

Burdelowa Góra (Bordello Hill) - Beskid Żywiecki Mountains, Polica Range

Krzywe Kolano (Crooked Knee) - Kujawsko-Pomorskie

Lenie Wielkie (Great Deadbeats) - Kujawsko-Pomorskie

Spaliny Wielkie (Great Exhaust Gases)- Mazowieckie. This probably stems from a burnt area, after the big fire.

Twarogi Ruskie (Russian White Cheeses) - Mazowieckie

thorp(e) is actually Germanic word for village cognate of German 'dorf' (in Danish it is trup (rup), in northern German torf, torp

in Britain I presume -thorpe names suggest Nordic (aka Danelaw) settlements as do -by names (-by = village,town) (as Anglo Saxon word for village must have been -ham as in hamlet)

@ Gumishu
Yups:)
Im on the border of Danelaw myself. In fact,the area I live in has always been border country so we have a fascinating mix of place name origins

Doncaster started as a tiny settlement at a crossing point of the Don,the Romans arrived and named the settlement Dano,the Fort their Danum or Caer Danum, anglo saxons named it Don caister which became Doncaster.

Just down the road from me, about 3 miles away in fact is a place called Slay Pits lane running near Ancient Lane,now, the reason why Slay Pits lane,and the the fields around it are called the Slay pits is quite simple ;

The Battle of Hatfield Chase (O.E. Haethfelth) was fought on October 12, 633 at Hatfield Chase near Doncaster, Yorkshire, in Anglo-Saxon England between the Northumbrians under Edwin and an alliance of the Welsh of Gwynedd under Cadwallon ap Cadfan and the Mercians under Penda. The site was a marshy area about 8 miles NE of Doncaster on the south bank of the River Don. It was a decisive victory for the Welsh and Mercians: Edwin was killed and his army was defeated, leading to the temporary collapse of the Northumbrian state.

After the battle was over the enemy turned on the village, murdering everyone they could find. The church, the palace and all the houses were looted after which they were set on fire and burnt down. Only the stone altar of the church survived.

More than 10,000 bodies, including King Edwin and Prince Osfrid, were left. The King’s head was cut off and sent to York for burial in St Peter’s Church.

The only reminder of this momentous event is the name Slay Pits Lane, reputed to have been the resting place of all those who perished in the Battle of Hatfield.

Bit grim,but around here isn a bit like living in Sunnydale,if the brutaly killed all rose up on one night we would have one hell of a population problem :)

just to name some nearby:

Grzeczna Panna (next to Szubin) - polite maiden
Kotomierz - cat gauge
Samoklęski - self-defeats
Występ - performance, gig
Ruda - red haired, or ore
Kaczory - drakes
Białe Błota - white muds
Studzienki - little wells

and many others...

Cinek

At last an inoffensive (and interesting!) thread!!
One of my favourites ever was a little Spanish place in the region of Murcia that I used to pass through on the bus called "Molinas Derribados" (Broken down windmills)

Strange indeed on PF.
From UK
Batchelor's Bump, Sussex
Beer, Devon
Booze, Yorkshire
Bottom Flash, Cheshire
Buttock, Lancashire
Cockup Bottom, Cumbria
Dancing Dicks, Essex
Great Cockup, Cumbria
Great Snoring, Norfolk
Nasty, Hertfordshire
Pisser Clough, Yorkshire
Rest and Be Thankfull, Argyll and Bute
Shagg, Dorset
Shitlington Crags, Northumberland
Spunkie, Ayrshire
Titty Ho, Northamptonshire
Twatt, Orkney

Stare Kurewo (Lubuskie) - 'old tarty thing'.

nytimes.com/2009/01/23/world/europe/23crapstone.html

We mustn't omit the now sadly renamed Gropec*nt Lane in the City of London. Is the meaning obvious enough for you Nat?

c'mon teflcat admit it...you're making them up!!
Gropec*nt lane is superb though...what a shame they had to change it...

Absolutely not. The London street was, as you can imagine, a red light area. Apparently, there are other places which had streets of the same name.

oh I heard of that one before, true, it was Dancing Dicks I was having doubts about....;))
reminds me of that popular pub name "The Fighting Cocks"...
oh we had to lower the tone didn't we??

Low comedy is much underated. I might just start a thread on the best toilet humour onscreen. The dinner table in Nutty Professor, or Dumb and Dumber when the laxatives take effect. Puerile? I'm fine with that.