Warning: some of this video is rude. Starting now. Have you ever been to Bonar Bridge? Ever had breakfast in Bacon or seen the delights
of Fan Y Big? The world is awash with weirdly named places
and in this video we’re taking a tour. We’ll look at the best that Britain, the
US and world has to offer. Which town is named after a gameshow? Which city sued the makers of Batman? What goes on in Scratchy Bottom? Find out NOW in another RobWords. For this very special episode all about strange
place names, I’ve hit the road with my pal Martyn and travelled all the way to the Estonian
village of Aa: a place that’s surely first on any list of ludicrously-named locations. At least that’s what I thought before I
got here and then I found that there’s a place in Norway called Å. Anyway, in this video I’ll be looking at
the weird names the whole world has to offer: from Aa to however the hell you pronounce
that. But allow me to begin with the best of British. Being a Brit, I’m well acquainted with how
silly our place names can be. My ancestors came from Clowne, I’ve holidayed
in Cockermouth, and I’ve frequently enjoyed a pint of Butcombe. It’s a beer from a place near Bristol. But those are merely skirting round the rim. England, for example, contains a bonanza of
bottoms. There’s Slap Bottom, Flash Bottom, Scratchy
Bottom, Burnt Bottom, Galloping Bottom and Lickham Bottom. Why? Because bottom just means valley. But England also has places called Shitterton
and Cocking, Bell End and Buttock. Most of these have a perfectly innocent explanation
of course, except for Shitterton, which was actually sited around an open sewer. Then there’s of course Ugley and Nasty,
both of which I’m actually told are quite nice. And if you go North of the Border, Scotland
also has its fair share of silly names. There’s Bonar Bridge, The Isle of Muck and
the quaint Perthshire village of Dull, which nowadays is twinned with Boring in the US,
and Bland in Australia. And in Wales, the local language throws out
some fun ones, not least the hiking hotspot Fan Y Big, which is not far from a pair of
Pants. That one’s funnier to the Brits watching
than the Americans. Fan Y Big just means “point of the peak”
in Welsh and a pant is a hollow. And then there’s of course perhaps the most
famous whacky Welsh place name of all: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch I got a nice Welsh lady to teach me that and
isn’t so much ludicrous as it is long. It means “St Mary's Church in the Hollow
of the White Hazel Near to the Rapid Whirlpool of Llantysilio of the Red Cave”. But the locals just call it Llanfair. If we hop across the Irish Sea to Northern
Ireland, you can pay a visit to Muff to enjoy its famous Muff Festival. In County Tyrone they have a pair of Balix. Upper and Lower Balix, that is. And in County Antrim you can stare open-mouthed
into The Giant’s Ring. More funny place names coming up in this next
bit. So all of this has reminded me just how much
I miss the good old UK. Not just because of the place names, I miss
the fish and chips, I miss the people, I miss the beer but do you know what I don’t miss? The TV. Not because it’s bad - it’s great - but
because I use NordVPN to stay on top of all the best telly from back home. Whether you’re in the German village of
Rimsting, or in Intercourse, Pennsylvania, with a VPN you can surf the net like you’re
anywhere else in the world and that means you can access streaming services for other
countries too. There are lots of other benefits as well:
NordVPN can protect you on public wifi networks and disguise your location when websites want
to know where you are. Some travel sites will charge you more if
you’re in Twelve O’Clock Knob, Virginia than if you’re in Clit, Romania for example,
assuming you’ve been able to find the place. But with a VPN, you can pretend you’re anywhere. NordVPN also blocks malware, stops you being
tracked by cloaking your IP, and intercepts malicious adverts plus, you can have it on up to six devices,
so your whole family can stay protected. So go to nordvpn.com/robwords to get the two
year plan with an exclusive deal, plus 1 bonus month on top. It’s risk free with NordVPN’s 30 day money
back guarantee, so what’s stopping you? Twelve O’Clock Knob is just the tip of the
iceberg when it comes to the many bizarre place names that the Good Old US of A has
to offer, although the difference with the UK is that, whereas with British place names
you can explain them away with a [shrug] “history!” In the US, many of these places have only
had these names for a couple of hundred years. So you don’t have to go back very far to
find out the story behind each one although my first example appears to have
been named purely by happenstance. Watch out! There’s an Accident on Route 219. The town of accident, boasting a population
of about 300 people. Which wouldn’t constitute at town in most
parts of the world, but Accident has its own Town Council and it gives an official explanation
for how it happened upon its unfortunate name. The story goes that in 1751 a man called George
Deakins was told by King George II that he could have 600 acres of land anywhere he fancied
in the west of the state so Mr Deakins sent out two groups of engineers to survey the
area and they both happened to start and end their survey in the same place at this big
old oak tree. He therefore named that bit of land “The
Accident Tract” because of the coincidence and the new settlement on the site shares
the name. Let’s get ourselves from A to B and to the
delicious Bacon County of Georgia. The state has you fully covered first thing
in the morning because it also has Coffee County. Disappointingly though, neither is named in
an homage to the most important meal of the day. They’re named after segregationist Senator
Augustus Bacon and local congressman John E. Coffee. Don’t you think Johnny Coffee sounds like
a regular at a 50s diner? “Hey it’s Johnny Coffee.” I’m not going to keep that bit in, that’s
terrible. Perhaps the most arrogantly named place on
the planet is Centre of the World in Ohio. These days it’s actually quite a modest
place with just a few houses but back in 1845 an eccentric businessman called Randall D
Wilmot - old Randy Wilmot - had high hopes for the place. Its position at a crossroads made him think
it could be a major trade hub, hence the hyperbolic names. However, the arrival of the railroad not long
after meant its position was just no longer so pivotal. This guy had previous by the way, he also
established The Beginning of the World in New York. The next town I want to look at is Nameless. Nameless, Tennessee. Local legend goes that it ended up with its
nonspecific name because of an error when officials applied for a post office. They apparently left the “Name” field
blank and the area was designated Nameless. I wonder if the same story is behind No Name
in Colorado and Nowhere, Oklahoma. A real favourite of mine is the surprisingly
ill-fortified town of Protection in Kansas. It got its name because the locals wanted
to show support for a protective tariff proposed in 1884, however Protection’s name took on new significance
in the 1950s when it was chosen as the headquarters for the distribution of free polio vaccines. That’s some smart public health messaging. A PR campaign is also behind my next crazy
place name. So back in 1950 the host of a hugely popular
radio quiz show made a surprise announcement. The show was planning to hit the road and
maybe it could be coming to your town. To secure a slice of showbiz all your town
had to do was rename itself after the show. And that’s how we end up with Truth or Consequences,
New Mexico. The excited people of Hot Springs - as it
was then called - were the first to get their town’s name changed and a day after the
deed was done, the show “Truth or Consequences” aired live from there. They’ve kept the name ever since and hold
a festival every year to commemorate the event. Our next place has had more than its fair
share of media limelight. It’s this bit of land in San Bernardino
County, California: Zzyzx. The fella who gave it the name appears to
have just made it up for a laugh. He was determined to create the last word
in the English language. Indeed, Zzyzx Road is the last road alphabetically
in the US and, you’ve got to say, probably the world. No one actually lives there, which is probably
a good thing, but its remote location and end of the earth style name did mean that
it inspired not one, but two movies the second of which appears to have taken
an astonishing $30 dollars at the box office. Almost enough to pay for a taxi out of the
place. From the alphabetical depths, let’s return
to the top. I think Aa, lovely as it is, shows well enough
that the world outside of the UK and the USA can more than hold its own when it comes to
the ludicrous labelling of localities so I have scoured the globe and picked out
some of the whackiest of them while doing my best not to be offensive towards local
languages and cultures. It’s time for a world tour. Music please! I hereby bring you my top ten terrible place
names. At number 10, it’s the Turkish town of Batman. No cape crusaders here, but that didn’t
stop the mayor trying to sue the makers of the movies over their use of the name. Grabbing our attention at number 9 is the
Russian village of Oy! Actually, not the rudest place on the list,
but probably the coldest. Next, I’ve bought us a one-way ticket to
Disappointment Island. It seems the folk who stumbled across this
barren rock off New Zealand were unimpressed by its lack of natural resources. Happily, no one’s ever had to stoop so low
as to live there. At number 7: what’s that coming over the
hill, the town of Monster? Does anyone else remember that song? Anyway Monster in the Netherlands probably
gets its name from a local monastery or because of its monster of a church, which was pretty
big for its time. For 6 let’s scramble and head to the Austrian
town of Egg. It boasts the Egg Brewery and the Egg Museum,
neither of which contains any egg. It’s a mere 450 kilometres away from its
stinky sister village of Rottenegg. Barely stayin’ alive at number 5 is Kill
in Ireland. The same often unfortunate prefix meaning
church also results in Kildeer, Kilbride, Kilmacow, Kilmore and - oh my god - Kilkenny. Putting up stiff competition at number 4,
it’s Dildo, Newfoundland. Talk show host Jimmy Kimmel is honorary mayor. Wriggling its way into third place, it’s
Maggotty in Jamaica. You’d be well advised to steer clear of
Maggotty Market. Next in this race to the bottom at number
2 it’s the central French village of Anus. The locals will tell you it’s anoose, but
you don’t have to put up with their cheek. And at number 1: it’s the cream of the crop;
the town with the brown; the settlement with the excrement; it’s the Iranian village
of Sh[bleep]. -No -Is it too rude? Okay, let’s go with Condom, France. It’s not twinned with Protection, Kansas,
but it probably should be. There are enough of these to make many more
videos like this one. We havent even touched on the ones that are
funny in their own language, for example). If you want me to make more, let me know in
the comments and if I haven’t left you on Disappointment Island, please do hit subscribe
and click the bell thing so that you know when my next video is up. If you enjoyed this, I think you’ll like
this video too or just let the algorithm do its thing. Me and Martyn now, we’re going to head back
home and maybe stop off at the Loo on the way.
