Comment by sdiq
5 years ago
Kumamoto in Japan has a similarly bad name in Swahili. If you break the city's name into 2 four-letter words, you get vagina (kuma) and hot (moto) in Swahili. Thankfully, Swahili speakers are not going to harass this city's residents anytime soon.
In Norway, we've got a place called Hell; you pass through it on the way from the town of Trondheim to its airport.
A friend of mine was born in a place called Time on the southwest coast, and quips after just about every flight that he was born in Time and had to go through Hell to get wherever he's at.
Oh, and as a special treat for the Germans reading this - a former colleague's last name was Ficken. He did not enjoy checking into hotels in Germany.
The sign at Hell train station says "Hell Gods-expedition" (which is a slightly old Norwegian spelling meaning something like "Hell - Goods reception").
Hell is also the word for a blonde beer and there is a beer named like this after the town:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fucking_Hell
There was also the case of a guy with the last name Hell (which means "bright" in German). He wanted to be part of a church in the US and they denied him
At least the Finns are routinely turning this to their advantage. When there is an international (tech) conference in Helsinki, those flying in to the capital may be greeted with a sponsored banner:
Welcome to HEL
I feel like the worst has to be Bastardstown, Ireland.
The main spoken language in Ireland is English and the construction of the name strongly implies it was not an etymological accident.
In a fierce competition with Scunthorpe.
There's a town in Denmark called Middelfart ...
Never thought of what Middelfart means in english. Now i cannot unsee it.
Somalia too had Dhuusamareeb, which in Somalia directly means 'can't stop farting'. I understand the president recently issued a directive of a name change for the city.
I met an indie techno producer who called himself Kura-C which means "penis" in Serbian. He enjoyed learning this fact.
Pula in Croatia, for similar reason famous between Romanians :) (meaning "dick"). Also, Brest in France.
meanwhile in Turkey, Batman can be found.
Turkey has bad city names even in its own language.
Along the north coast, you will find a town called Çarşamba (Wednesday), which if you continue to drive for a few hours is followed by a town called Perşembe (Thursday).
The name of the capital of Tajikistan, Dushanbe, means Monday as well iirc.
2 replies →
But Who's on first.
Also in Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Batman#Places_named_after...
Yeah, you know nobody's going to mess with Batman though.
The joker who did would have to be crazy!