This is another one I’m stealing from the foolish games I would play with my friends to pass the time. Ages ago, the woman once known as Posh Spice and her superstar athlete husband chose the name “Brooklyn” for their daughter. Since then this moniker has entered the pantheon of popular names, though at the time it seemed rather novel. (On the scale of celebrity child names, it ain’t got nothin’ on a couple of humdingers out there.)
Anyhow, my pals and I spent an afternoon coming up with other New York locations with names one might choose for one’s child. As was our wont, however, we were trying to pick the worst possible. Sadly, I’m unable to use New York locations now because we have already discovered the New York metro location with the absolutely, indisputably worst name for a child — Fresh Kills. (If you can think of a worse one, by all means share.)
So, which place has the worst name to adapt for use on a child? The more well-known, the better. (There may be a small hamlet in your state called “Rancid Whore,” but a bobo mother in Park Slope is unlikely to be familiar enough with it to consider it for her child. [Though, come to think of it, I’d still want to know if there were a place called Rancid Whore out there.]) Points obviously go to the more creative or outre choices, and bonus points go for any evidence you can provide than anyone has actually used it.
Elephant Butte.
Intercourse, PA?
Flushing is not a bad second place to Fresh Kills, let us not forget. Were we allowed to do ridiculously named tiny towns, I might nominate Coward, SC, or my personal fave, Kings Contrivance, MD (which actually isn’t all that tiny). As far as major cities, Split and Pest are worth considering.
There’s a town here in Utah called Beaver which isn’t terribly strange. However, it is just down the road from a town called Fillmore. When driving on I-15, you get to see road signs that say :
Fillmore
Beaver
as if it is a suggestion, like “eat more chicken.”
Both Flushing (NY) and French Lick (IA) seem lie they would be bad. There’s a Boring here in OR, but that might not pass the well known test.
None of these, however, matches Fresh Kills. (My wife is insisting Canada has a city called Dildo, but I think she is putting me on.)
You mean she’s “strapping you on.”
BTW, Mother Google would indicate that there is indeed a Dildo in Newfoundland. So, sit on that.
Mark – I’m trying to decide which of your responses I like best. Maybe the second, since it confirms the existence of Dildo.
You can take the girl out of Dildo, but you can’t take the Dildo out of the…
Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania. This never would have been anything but a bad name, but in recent years such a name would be nothing short of a guarantee that the child is the Anti-Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Also, I’d not be in the least surprised to learn that this has actually been utilized as a name.
ZZYZX–a town in the Mojave Desert.
And for Jason, ZWISCHENZUG!
I don’t think there’s a town out there at all, man. Just a road with a funky name, and a failed health spa.
You’re right, Burt. I always thought I had driven through a town by that name, ZZYZX. Maybe I mistook the name of the road to be the name of the town. It’s a classic name, nonetheless.
The one for Jason is not a place, unless places in the brain count. It most certainly is not an entirely imaginative place–people would kill over this.
Oh goodness—bath houses even in the middle of the Mojave Desert! Are we not safe anywhere??? What will we next–Plato’s Retreat?? No doubt Weiner will be connected to Sodom and Gomorrah in the Dunes….
Best. Thread.
My offerings:
Old Horse, New Mexico.
Big Bone Lick, Kentucky.
Spread Eagle, Wisconsin.
Surprise, Arizona. Not good for the kid’s self-esteem when she realizes where babies come from.
Skagit, Washington. “Skagit” sounds like it should have been the name of that strange, cruel little beast that sat on Jabba the Hutt’s shoulder and cackled at Princess Leia.
If I recall correctly, that little beast is named Salacious Crumb. I wouldn’t name my daughter Salacious, but you have to admit it’s a pretty good name for an evil sci-fi muppet.
Wow, I thought I was reaching back into obscurity to come up with the little feller at all; I didn’t know his actual name. I still like “Skagit” better, but I’ll concede that “Salacious Crumb” does have a “k” sound, so that helps redeem it out of the category of totally sucky Lucas names like “Jar-Jar Binks,” “Qui-Gon Jinn,” and “Darth Plagueis.”
If only the names had been the suckiest part of the new trilogy.
Is that second one sucky? It works so nicely:
I thought I and Qui-Gon Jinn
Could talk the Federation in-
to maybe cutting them a little slack
Qui-Gon Jinn is a pretty reasonable name for a transparent knockoff of Obi-Wan Kenobi, I think.