43 of the Strangest Town Names in America

Howdy from Kermit! (CC BY 2.0) by Matthew Rutledge

Kermit, Texas
> Municipal status: City
> Population: 6,614

Having a famous and beloved father may get some people a city named after them. Kermit, a city of about 6,600 people in eastern Texas, was named after Theodore Roosevelt’s son, Kermit Roosevelt. Kermit Roosevelt was frequently hunting in the area. The city has a Kermit the Frog-decorated water tower.

Source: Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

Dry Prong, Louisiana
> Municipal status: Village
> Population: 502

A prong, which we usually think of as the tine of a fork or part of an electrical plug, can also be one arm of a forked river. This village most likely takes its name from a creek that powered the local sawmill most of the year but dried up every summer.

24/7 Wall St.
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Eek, AK from a bush plane (CC BY-SA 3.0) by Porkypinekiwi

Eek, Alaska
> Municipal status: City
> Population: 491

Eek’s name may suggest the sound a frightened person makes, but it’s actually an anglicized corruption of the locality’s Central Yup’ik name, Ekvicuaq — literally ˚little cliff.”

Embarrass, WI (CC BY 2.0) by Corey Taratuta

Embarrass, Wisconsin
> Municipal status: Village
> Population: 548

The French verb embarrasser can mean “to hamper,” “to stop,” or “to embangle [entangle].” The word is said to have been attached to this place by French-Canadian lumberjacks who found the nearby river almost impassable.

Zap, North Dakota (CC BY-SA 3.0) by Andrew Filer

Zap, North Dakota
> Municipal status: City
> Population: 157

One version of the history of the city’s name is accepted as true. The city had a coal mine at the edge of town, and the official in charge of naming new areas at the time knew of a town with coal mines in Scotland that was named Zapp. So it only made sense to him to name the city with the same name, dropping one “p” as a way of Americanizing it.