Welcome to Taintsville? 16 strange Florida town names you may have never heard of
A weekend trip to New York or even Bagdad might be easier than you thought. Turns out both of them are near Pensacola. Honest. You can visit Hollywood, Melbourne, Venice, Havana and Beverly Hills without ever leaving the state.
Florida has a wealth of weirdly named cities and towns. We named them after plants, Confederate leaders, food, and other places. There are also many names from Native American words that sound strange to English ears, such as Okeefenokee, Estiffanulga or Okahumpka, or the many bizarre Keys and island names such as Beercan Island, Money Key and, yes, Dildo Key.
Boca Raton, Palm Beach County: It doesn't sound that strange unless you speak Spanish. "Boca de ratones" means "rat's mouth," a term used by seamen to describe a potentially dangerous hidden rock.
Christmas, Orange County: It's a tiny census-designated place in Orange County but it does a lot of business in December from people wanting to get the postmark on their cards. Plus it boasts the world's largest alligator-shaped building, so there's that.
Couch, Bay County: Located along U.S. 231 north of Youngstown in the Panhandle. Naming your community after furniture isn't that unusual, there are Couches in Alabama, Missouri and West Virginia.
Dogtown, Gadsden County: It sounds like that farm upstate you've told your kids about. But Dogtown was a mining community just south of the Florida-Georgia line. "Dogtown" was a common name for mining towns around the country, named after the sight of holes everywhere at a mine. A "dogtown" was a collection of huts near a mineral deposit.
Fluffy Landing, Walton County: A small waterside place near Freeport east of Destin.
Road trips you have to make: Enjoy views along Florida's 27 scenic highways
Frostproof, Polk County: I mean, it's not wrong. Cowboys brought cattle to the area during the winter months to avoid freezing temps and mostly succeeded.
Howie-in-the-Hills, Lake County: Who is Howie? And why was he in the hills? The town, which will be celebrating its 100th birthday next year, was named after its founder, William J. Howey and later changed to Howey-in-the-Hills due to the hills in the area that are somewhat unusual in this very flat state.
Lorida, Highlands County: Yes, it sounds like someone got the f out of Florida. Lorida, south of Sebring, originally used the Seminole name Istokpoga but the U.S. Post Office forced them to change it in 1937 because there was already a Lake Istokpoga in the state.
Lulu, Columbia County: This North Florida town was named for the postmaster Walter Gillen's girlfriend Lula in the 1890s. She moved on, but the name stuck.
Mayo, Lafayette County: Don't make the jokes, they've heard them all. The town is named after James Mayo, a colonel in charge of the Confederate Army who delivered such an impressive speech one Fourth of July that the settlers there named their community after him.
Florida bucket list: 65 fun things to do, places to visit from the Keys to the Panhandle
Niceville, Okaloosa County: Pleasantly odd name aside, Niceville is notable for the number of name changes in its history. It was Boggy Bayou for years, according to Jack C. Nichols, author of "Up, Down, In and Around Boggy Bayou." But in the 1920s the post office was getting confused about which bayou was which and the residents changed it to Niceville. Then it was changed to Valparasiso, or "valley of paradise," until someone named an estate across the bayou "New Valparasiso" which annoyed the residents, who went back to Niceville.
Scrambletown, Marion County: The town near Silver Springs began, they say, as Cedar Creek. But as moonshine became something of a growth industry in the area in the 1930s, it got the new name Scrambletown after the way everyone scrambled when the revenue agents showed up. The name survives on a country store, an auto salvage yard and a recycling center.
Spuds, St. Johns County: Spuds was once called Holy Branch, according to floridamemory.com, but after a railroad line opened up between East Palatka and St, Augustine truck farming became a major industry in the area along with the timber and turpentine industries and potato-farming was huge. One farmer suggested renaming the town to reflect the town's prosperous crop. Not much is left now but there are still farms there.
Taintsville, Seminole County: Residents around Lake Eav between the two Central Florida towns got tired of explaining and came up with their own name in the early 1970s. That's when local teen Boyd Best said, according to floridahistoryblog,.com. "We 'tain't in Chuluoata and it 'tain't in Oviedo either." They put up their own signs, confusing county and state officials, and kept pushing until Seminole County recognized it in 1971.
Two Egg, Jackson County: This blink-and-you'll-miss it place by Greenwood near the Georgia border, about 70 miles northwest of Tallahassee used to be called Allison when it was a sawmill town in the 1880s. The origin of the name has been lost, but one persistent suggestion is that during the Great Depression, people used to pay for things with eggs at the local store. Resident Nell King told Charlie Carlson of the book "Weird Florida" that there was a theory that someone once dropped two eggs in the road. All the locals know is that people keep stealing the sign.
Yeehaw Junction, Osceola County: Where "yeehaw" originally came from is open to debate. The famous cowboy yell is also a corruption of the Muskogee word for wolf, "yaha." But the town about 30 miles west of Vero Beach was almost named "Jackass Crossing" for the local landowner's 100 donkeys and the locals quickly grabbed the name from the nearby Yeehaw Junction railroad watering station instead.
Interested? Here's some more: From 'pretty prairie' to 'dead man's creek,' find out origin of Florida city names
Test your Florida placename knowledge in this quiz
Can't see the quiz? Open in a new browser.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Florida filled with cities and towns with weird names, here are 16
