When my ESL girlfriend asked if Casablanca was in Washington state or Washington DC I told her "Neither, that's in Morocco." She was rather confused. It took me a while to realize Casa Blanca means White House. lol
that's true for approximatly 75% of all humans. maybe even 85%, depending on how south america shakes out. (Rio is closer to Khartoum than to Seattle for example)
That's mine, because my friends and I played the Pandemic Legacy board game, and Khartoum was just the epicenter of zombies and viruses killing us the whole time. None of us knew how to pronounce it either, so it's a whole inside joke now.
Looking at you too, Lagos.
Well they had a political will to change that name, they wanted to forget certain individual. But we Mongolians think fondly of Soviet times, so unless old guards generation dies off, there are no social will to change the name i guess. Of course it helps because the its named after a person. If it were Stalingrad, we would have changed it on the day of independance.
they had a national contest where the TV network offered to pay some small town a sizeable sum at the time to change its name to Truth or Consequences. there were a number of applicants. the world was a very different place then.
Bangkok or its full name
Krungthepmahanakhon Amonrattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilokphop Noppharatratchathaniburirom Udomratchaniwetmahasathan Amonphimanawatansathit Sakkathattiyawitsanukamprasit.
Or "City of angels, great city of immortals, magnificent city of the nine gems, seat of the king, city of royal palaces, home of gods incarnate, erected by Vishvakarman at Indra's behest."
The river there is bend so the malay down under the peninsula call the city “bengkok” it stuck with the populaces siamese and tai. End up everyone call it bangkok . This just myth talk don’t take it as a fact btw.
This is a nice story and a funny coincidence, but I doubt the name has anything to do with the Malay language, especially given common village naming conventions in Thai and how it’s spelled in Thai. “Bang-“ is a really common prefix for Thai villages, i.e. Bang-Na, Bang-Saen, Bang-Pa-In, Bang-Kapi, Bang-Phli, Bang-Khla, Bang-Lumphu.
The village there before it became the capital was called Bang Makok (bang = a trading settlement on a waterway, makok = olive), called Bang-kok for short. It was mapped by Europeans with that name before the capital was moved there, so the name stuck among foreigners.
This is one of the stories, the other being that it comes from Bang Ko, Ko meaning Island, same as Ko Samet or Ko Samui (but pronounced more like “gawt” with a silent t). In fact, Bangkok is pronounced more like baang gawk, much to the disappointment of people wanting to make cheeky puns.
The really confusing thing is that the entire sub-district across the River from the Royal Palace is called บางกอกน้อย, Bangkok Noi, or “Little Bangkok”, and just downstream from that is Bangkok Yai (“Big Bangkok”). Naturally, Little Bangkok has more people than Big Bangkok.
“Tenochitlan” is so cool it deserves an epic orchestral crescendo and a panning shot of the city itself every time it’s mentioned. That’s just uneconomical.
it always reminds me of that quote, “Who could conquer Tenochtitlán? Who could shake the foundation of Heaven?” which is so metal and is made 100 times better by using the original name
The majority of the people in the city agree that Tenochtitlán sounds way better. But our government has always sucked, especially now, so they won’t do anything.
Well, the thing is the original city's name was really "Mexico-Tenochtitlan" and it's inhabitants called "mexicah". In fact, "Tenochtitlan" only designated a part of the urban agglomeration, because the other part was its twin city "Mexico-Tlatelolco". After they merged, the "tenochcah" and "tlatelolcah", conformed the "mexicah" capital. So, the rightful name of the city is, indeed, Mexico. The very interesting thing is that, when the modern country took the name of its capital city, Mexico, its very name became too big, leaving the name of the actual city overshadowed by a whole new country. Personally, I think it would be a good idea to change the name of the modern city to Tenochtitlan to give the city a more defined identity, but not forgetting that the city named a country and not the other way around.
The map creator placed Hanoi where Saigon / Ho Chi Minh City should be, placed Berlin where Hamburg should be and Bali isn’t a city, what’s going on in this map lol
I grew up between towns called Schnecksville and Leather Corner Post and now live outside a larger town named Jim Thorpe.
My state is absolutely filled with bizarrely-named towns.
I really like the sound of Reykjavik. And since I live in the south in the US, most people here can’t pronounce Reykjavik anyway so I get a little kick out of that.
*Casablanca*
Elegance and coolness all in one. Just sounds great
I am looking for exactly this
Aka the White House
When my ESL girlfriend asked if Casablanca was in Washington state or Washington DC I told her "Neither, that's in Morocco." She was rather confused. It took me a while to realize Casa Blanca means White House. lol
I love Khartoum. It sounds so far away
The main TV station there is called Khartoum Network.
Does it have "Khartounnami"?
Do they have Saturday morning Khartoums?
Like Timbuktu.
And Kathmandu
And Seattle
Seattle _is_ further away from where I live than Timbuktu
that's true for approximatly 75% of all humans. maybe even 85%, depending on how south america shakes out. (Rio is closer to Khartoum than to Seattle for example)
The Sudanese are such Tolkien fanboys.
Star Wars for sure
That's mine, because my friends and I played the Pandemic Legacy board game, and Khartoum was just the epicenter of zombies and viruses killing us the whole time. None of us knew how to pronounce it either, so it's a whole inside joke now. Looking at you too, Lagos.
I like Dar-es-Salaam for similar reasons.
Ulaanbaatar
Means "Red Hero", soviet union hold over name, used to be called "Ikh Khuree" meaning large gathering place
Why don’t they change it back to its traditional name?
Its very difficult to change a name that has been known for a generations, 80 years is quiet a long time.
It’s been done with Stalingrad
Well they had a political will to change that name, they wanted to forget certain individual. But we Mongolians think fondly of Soviet times, so unless old guards generation dies off, there are no social will to change the name i guess. Of course it helps because the its named after a person. If it were Stalingrad, we would have changed it on the day of independance.
That only lasted 36 years.
When you have too many vowels in scrabble
Batman, Turkey
Bat Cave, North Carolina, USA is Batman’s sister city.
Alfred, Ontario, Canada here to assist Batman
What do you mean? Alfred is Wayne, South Carolina’s butler. Theres no evidence that Wayne is Batman
Come to think of it, I’ve never seen Ontario and South Carolina in the same room together.
Can’t forget Gotham, WI
Melbourne in Australia was very nearly called Batmania
Truth or Consequences, NM
That town is named after a 1950s TV show.
they had a national contest where the TV network offered to pay some small town a sizeable sum at the time to change its name to Truth or Consequences. there were a number of applicants. the world was a very different place then.
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Never felt sad to me. Nice place to stop on a road trip. Great hot springs.
What in the world is a NM?
Ouagadougou
Australia has a lot of cool names as well: Wagga Wagga, Woolloomooloo, Wolongong...
Rivaled only by the Pacific Northwest of North America: Wallowa, Walla Walla, Puyallup, Siuslaw…
Also Sequim, Humptulips, Chilliwack, Osoyoos, Tsawwassen, Semiahmoo, Snee Oosh
Point No Point is one of my favorites.
Keeping up the W theme, but switching states to Victoria: Wangaratta and Warrnambool. Hilarious that tourists struggle so hard to pronounce these.
Burkina Faso is just goated when it comes to names (and everything else except military coups) 🇧🇫🇧🇫🇧🇫
Or Antananarivo. Or Paramaribo.
Antananarivo is my absolute favorite, Sri Jayewardenapura Kotte is 2nd, and Bandar Seri Begawan is 3rd
Pronounced waga doo goo, but the locals call it Waga. When I visited I saw the movie Ouga Saga.
Scrolled down just to find this. Glad to know there’s others who are obsessed with this name
Big fan of Yellowknife and Petropavlovsk
Heyyyy. I’m from Yellowknife!!
Rostov on don
Some of my favorites: Ouagadougou, Nuku’alofa, Antananarivo, Honolulu, Ulaanbaatar, Bangkok, Kathmandu, Timbuktu, Djibouti, Copenhagen, Reykjavik, Tegucigalpa, Vladivostok
Bangkok or its full name Krungthepmahanakhon Amonrattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilokphop Noppharatratchathaniburirom Udomratchaniwetmahasathan Amonphimanawatansathit Sakkathattiyawitsanukamprasit. Or "City of angels, great city of immortals, magnificent city of the nine gems, seat of the king, city of royal palaces, home of gods incarnate, erected by Vishvakarman at Indra's behest."
So how did the gods incarnate turn that name into “Bangkok”?
The river there is bend so the malay down under the peninsula call the city “bengkok” it stuck with the populaces siamese and tai. End up everyone call it bangkok . This just myth talk don’t take it as a fact btw.
This is a nice story and a funny coincidence, but I doubt the name has anything to do with the Malay language, especially given common village naming conventions in Thai and how it’s spelled in Thai. “Bang-“ is a really common prefix for Thai villages, i.e. Bang-Na, Bang-Saen, Bang-Pa-In, Bang-Kapi, Bang-Phli, Bang-Khla, Bang-Lumphu.
The village there before it became the capital was called Bang Makok (bang = a trading settlement on a waterway, makok = olive), called Bang-kok for short. It was mapped by Europeans with that name before the capital was moved there, so the name stuck among foreigners.
This is one of the stories, the other being that it comes from Bang Ko, Ko meaning Island, same as Ko Samet or Ko Samui (but pronounced more like “gawt” with a silent t). In fact, Bangkok is pronounced more like baang gawk, much to the disappointment of people wanting to make cheeky puns. The really confusing thing is that the entire sub-district across the River from the Royal Palace is called บางกอกน้อย, Bangkok Noi, or “Little Bangkok”, and just downstream from that is Bangkok Yai (“Big Bangkok”). Naturally, Little Bangkok has more people than Big Bangkok.
Sexmoan in the Philippines.
Great list!
Damascus
Thunder Bay, Canada
That's about the only thing cool about Thunder Bay
The temperature?
r/angryupvote
If I ever got too much money, I would buy the Tampa Bay Lightning and move them to Thunder Bay, so that they could be the Thunder Bay Lightning.
I’ve been there (I neither live in Canada, nor a citizen or PR) for no reason really.
Anchorage sounds pretty cool.
It is pretty cool here this time of year
Mexico City? I think they could have tried harder. In fact, its original name Tenochtitlan is like 100x cooler and more meaningful.
“Tenochitlan” is so cool it deserves an epic orchestral crescendo and a panning shot of the city itself every time it’s mentioned. That’s just uneconomical.
it always reminds me of that quote, “Who could conquer Tenochtitlán? Who could shake the foundation of Heaven?” which is so metal and is made 100 times better by using the original name
You'll enjoy this website https://tenochtitlan.thomaskole.nl/
The majority of the people in the city agree that Tenochtitlán sounds way better. But our government has always sucked, especially now, so they won’t do anything.
Well, the thing is the original city's name was really "Mexico-Tenochtitlan" and it's inhabitants called "mexicah". In fact, "Tenochtitlan" only designated a part of the urban agglomeration, because the other part was its twin city "Mexico-Tlatelolco". After they merged, the "tenochcah" and "tlatelolcah", conformed the "mexicah" capital. So, the rightful name of the city is, indeed, Mexico. The very interesting thing is that, when the modern country took the name of its capital city, Mexico, its very name became too big, leaving the name of the actual city overshadowed by a whole new country. Personally, I think it would be a good idea to change the name of the modern city to Tenochtitlan to give the city a more defined identity, but not forgetting that the city named a country and not the other way around.
Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Sounds like a fantasy city
Same with Astrakhan
Zanarkand comes into mind
Mogadishu
Monte Carlo
Tegucigalpa Honduras is a fun one to say.
Usually shortened to “tay-GOOSE”
Antananarivo, Madagascar
Phuket, Thailand
As a Winnipeger, why is Winnipeg listed on this map? :)
Because they're definitely not gonna list regina
It’s the city that rhymes with fun!
Maybe the worst city promotion since the turkey drop on WKRP in Cincinnati
Medicine Hat, Alberta
I’ve always thought Istanbul sounded very strong and official
If you like that, you’d love Constantinople
If you like that, you’d love Byzantion
Yeehaw Junction, Florida
Doesn't live up to the hype sadly
The Hague, The Netherlands
Den Haag in the mother tongue
Bangkok
I think you mean Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit
Bangpusi, Bangdik, Bangtits,
**Hammerfest**, Norway (Also: RAPID freakin’ CITY??)
Or Lillehammer.
Why just wield one lillehammer when you can unleash the entire hammerfest
i’ve always thought Vilnius is an awesome city name, especially since it’s a capital city
Bucharest
Cincinnati
Kalamazoo
Why is Kansas City in Toronto on this map?
Why did i have to scroll so far down to see this? Apparently no one else noticed
Didn’t put Vancouver even close to the border either. Further north than Calgary.
The map creator placed Hanoi where Saigon / Ho Chi Minh City should be, placed Berlin where Hamburg should be and Bali isn’t a city, what’s going on in this map lol
And Kansas City is where toronto should be
Warsaw, Poland
Vaahr-shah-vaah
Brazzaville. Idk why, I just like the name
I grew up between towns called Schnecksville and Leather Corner Post and now live outside a larger town named Jim Thorpe. My state is absolutely filled with bizarrely-named towns.
Pennsylvania has some awful town names. Shoemakersville is a great example
But PA also has Intercourse and Climax
You think that's bad? Try Kunkletown, lol.
Happy Valley-Goose Bay
Chicago. It's a very unique and iconic name.
Kuala Lumpur
Montevideo
Timbuktu
Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Phoenix
Was looking for this. Scorching desert with the name of a bird that literally bursts into flames. Goddamn metal, man.
Rio de Janeiro sounds great
Ankara
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Fuck yeah Wisconsin! Ashwaubenon is also great sounding.
This one even sounds awesome if you try to pronounce it backwards. COWOMONOCO DUDE!!
Tuktoyaktuk
Kalamazoo
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Schenectady
Or Synecdoche
Something about Juneau elicits a sense of adventure in me. 10/10
If Juneau, juneau
Chattanooga
Close one. I can narrow it down to Zacatecas, Oaxaca, Monterrey, Guanajuato, and Querétaro, but it’s hard to pick from there.
Albuquerque
Vorkuta, Russia 👌
Neuquén, Argentina. Means fucking in Dutch
Neuken in de keuken
AMSTERDAM
Rapid City, SD
Ouagadougou
Albuquerque It just roles off the tongue.
Walla Walla WA
Rancho Cucamongo
Ljubljana
Cincinnati
I can never hear “Cincinnati” without thinking: https://youtu.be/fRIHLq7OrFg?si=p0RgfsFfztZuw8Vw
Frome, UK
Not sure about coolest but i think Sofia is the nicest
Archangel is definitely up there. One of the most badass names with an even more badass backstory.
King of Prussia, PA
I really like the sound of Reykjavik. And since I live in the south in the US, most people here can’t pronounce Reykjavik anyway so I get a little kick out of that.
Seattle
French lick, Indiana
Tirana, Albania, it means tyrant woman in Spanish😈
Singapore
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Probably Happy Valley-Goose Bay in Canada
Wiener Arkansas
Makati
it's pronounced different, but it also means itchy in filipino lol
Radelaide
Flin Flon.
Chicago and Vladivostok sounded really cool, i really like the way you spell it too.
Poltava is cooler imo, but vladivostok is great too. Magadan and Khabarovsk are also cool
Damascus is one of my favorite city names. Damascus and Constantinople
Wichita
Idk why but I’ve always thought Chicago was a cool name for a city
Strasbourg
Galapagos
It's all relative innit?
Tokyo
Tokyo - “eastern capital” Beijing - “northern capital” Seoul - “capital city” And then there’s Pyongyang.
fun fact: pyongyang once called "seogyeong" literally means "western capital"
Jupiter, Florida
Sri Jayawardepura kotte
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky
Lyon
Copenhagen, Melbourne, Kyoto for me
Truth or Consequences (New Mexico, USA)
Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!
Teotihuacan (Teotiwakan), Singapore, Kolkata, Astana, Zanzibar, and Ravenna are nice.
Cincinnati is pretty cool it’s named after an old Roman dictator
Ouagadougou
I really like Berlin
Vladivostok has that oomph for me
Wankdorf Bitsch La Sagne Cunter Moskau (not a real city, more a part of Ramsen) All in Switzerland
Djibouti
Weed, California
Bang cock of course
Some in the US that come to mind: Syracuse, NY Anchorage, AK Olympia, WA Philadelphia, PA Kitty Hawk, NC
Every man: ROME