Places 📍 Optimistic City Names...

[spokanite]

Were your town founders just a little too psyched about where they lived?

I know some on here have discussed the use of branding as a modern-day attempt to market a city as unique or memorable. Some noted that there are rather large pitfalls with doing this if the chosen marketing doesn't reflect the true nature of the area. Some also noted that cities were actually renaming themselves as an attempt at branding.

This got me to thinking, and as I drove around my area, I started to take literal notice of the names of some of the older and smaller towns around mine. I thought of three immediately:

• Opportunity, Wa
• Liberty Lake, Wa
• Freeman, Wa

These are within roughly 15 miles of each other.

I know this is not something peculiar to my 'younger', western area (Eastern Washington, USA), but wanted to find out from other Cyburbians if cities or towns near you have similarly positive names.

 

[Lee Nellis]

There's a Paradise in W Montana, as I recall. And I think there's an Eden in Kansas, but I don't have an atlas handy to confirm that.

 

[JustARetiredTownPlanner]

Florida, Massachusetts, which traditionally has some of the coldest temperature reports in the state in the winter.

 

[Budgie]

Protection, Kansas

Which was founded in 1884 by my GGgrandfather (James Robert Holland) and a number of cousins, uncles and a brother in-law. JRH built the first structure, which was his general store and post office. Northern Oklahoma was still indian territory (The Cherokee Strip), so Protection was so named because it was optimistically elected at a strategically safe location from indian raids.

 

[Trail Nazi]

I think Kissimmee, Florida would be considered an optimistic city name. (Looking for love in all the wrong places.)

 

[PlannerByDay]

Star City, Mi

Freesoil, Mi

Paradise, Mi

 

[PlannerGirl]

Climax NC
Sweetwater Al
Hopewell Va

 

[PlannerByDay]

Climax NC

Michigan also has a Climax

 

[mgk920]

Michigan also has a Climax

-All of those places in the western USA called 'Sweetwater';
-Winter Haven, FL

I'm waiting for someone to create a new city in Florida called (or rename an existing one to) 'Sunny, FL'. It seems that whenever I meet someone from Florida and I ask them where they are from, more often than not they will say that they are from "Sunny Florida". That must be one HUGE secret city!

Mike

 

[Richmond Jake]

There's also a Paradise in Northern California... I like Panacea, FL.

 

[JNA]

In New Jersey there is a Loveladies.

 

[Bear Up North]

Paradise, MI was mentioned.....i second the motion. (Ahhh, da Yoopee....).....

I heard there is an Intercourse, PA.

I lived for a long time in Liberty Center, OH.

Optismism may be expressed by residents of Florida, OH, telling people they live in Florida (especially when the cold winds of January are a-blowing).

Defiance, OH
Fairport Harbor, OH

Bear Ever Da Optimist

 

[biscuit]

There's a Prosperity in both South Carolina and Pennsylvania.

 

[SideshowBob]

I grew up near New Hope, Minnesota

 

[jsk1983]

Hope, Arkansas
"I still believe in a place called hope" -Bill Clinton

 

[Joe Iliff]

There is a utopian community in southern Indiana called New Harmony.

A city name that I've always thought of as discouraging rather than encouraging was Coldwater, Michigan. If I lived in the days before indoor plumbing, a place called Coldwater would not be at the top of my places to live. Someplace like Hot Springs would sound better.

 

[PlannerByDay]

A city name that I've always thought of as discouraging rather than encouraging was Coldwater, Michigan. If I lived in the days before indoor plumbing, a place called Coldwater would not be at the top of my places to live. Someplace like Hot Springs would sound better.

Our friend SW MI Planner resides in Coldwater or near by.

 

[boilerplater]

There is a "Jersey Shore" in PA.

In NJ's Somerset County is a place called Zarephath, which means "Pillar of Fire". It was founded as a religious community and I believe the name refers to the Pillar of Fire that God appeared to Moses as while the Isrealites were wandering in the wilderness. What's more optimistic than putting God on the bill of acts to appear?

Also around here: New Hope, PA, and Hope, NJ.

 

[H]

Winter Haven, FL

Funny story: WH was actually supposed to be named Lakeland (because if you look at the map it sorta looks like Swiss cheese from all the lakes, the at the time industrial 'chain-of-lakes') and Lakeland was supposed to be named Winter Haven (because it was intended to be a winter retreat for Yankees). But… both places were being named at the same time and someone down at the county courthouse in Bartow got the names switched… so there it stands.

My personal fav town name of all time is still Whynot, Mississippi

“Should we stop here?” “Whynot!”***

***(an historical incorrect uneducated guess of how it happened )

 

[Cardinal]

A few I can think of...

Cape Disappointment and Cape Fear
Desolation Mountains
Dead Horse Point
Hell's Canyon
Terminal, CA

 

[teshadoh]

Any classically named city: Athens, Rome, Sparta (all Georgia cities).

 

[Bear Up North]

Just north of Swanton, OH, there is a small cross-roads community called Ai. If you say it loud it sounds like you are screaming in pleasure or trying to be a cowboy. It is pronounced "a-eye".

There are quite a number of Devils Lakes scattered around this great land, including southern Michigan, Wisconsin, and North Dakota. This Bear wonders if early settlers got in some boating trouble out on these lakes and that's where the name came from. Anybody know?

Bear & Katie Yelling "Ai"

 

[silentvoice]

my friend commented once, that places with optimistic names usually encounter some problems. Maybe it's better not to jinx it

 

[SkeLeton]

The only city (actually town) I can think of is Port Eden, and well, it's a very isolated town in the archipielagic Patagonia, and has no more than 3,000 inhabitants... It's very rainy and cold down there so I actually wonder why the name...

 

[Miles Ignatius]

All's Not In A Name

Pleasant Prairie, WI :-o

 

[zman]

In New Jersey there is a Loveladies.

I live in Loveland, Colorado, if that counts.
In fact they say Valentine's Day is big here with people getting Loveland as a postmark on their Valentines

 

[Bear Up North]

At this time of the year we can't forget the hidden optimism in the town of Rudolph, Ohio.....just south of Bowling Green.

Dasher, Dancer & Bear

 

[mgk920]

At this time of the year we can't forget the hidden optimism in the town of Rudolph, Ohio.....just south of Bowling Green.

Ditto Rudolph, WI (it's on WI 34 [future WI 13] a few klicks north of Wisconsin Rapids, WI).

Mike

 

[mgk920]

Pleasant Prairie, WI :-o

And it's right at 'Sprawl Central' along I-94 between Chicago and Milwaukee, from the state line to WI 50.

(personal editorial comment here - Pleasant Prairie and Kenosha should be merged into one city. MGK)

Mike

 

[AubieTurtle]

I've always wondered what the town founders of the many cities named "Fairview" were thinking. Doesn't sound too optimistic.

 

[biscuit]

I've always wondered what the town founders of the many cities named "Fairview" were thinking. Doesn't sound too optimistic.

As in...
"Hey fellow town father. How was the view from your log cabin?"
"Mehhh, fair at best."

There is the community of Fair Play, SC, just up I-85 from Atlanta, that was settled by Mennonites. I'm sure their beliefs had something to do with the name choice.

 

[JNA]

There is a Fairplay, CO
on Colorado Highway 9 south of Breckenridge.

 

[Muz]

A few places seeking to keep outsiders away

Hell, MI
Why, Arizona
Boring, OR

 

[mentarman]

How about all the Midwestern towns that share their names with famous world cities and European capitals? To name a small settlement in Illinois Paris, Venice or Cairo is its own form of optimism. Naples, Versailles, Dublin, Vichy, Cabool (Kabul)... Missouri even has a Cuba, a Nevada and a Brazil. There was a bus crash here awhile back that occured in Bowling Green (Missouri). Surivors were taken to hospitals in Mexico (Missouri) and Louisiana (Missouri). With most of these, trying to guess how the locals pronounce the name is a stab in the dark.
Not to mention Braggadocio, Economy, Lithium, Peculiar, Defiance...

 

[jsk1983]

Upstate New York has quite a few places that follow along a Greco-Roman theme. Ithaca, Homer, Ulysses, Romulus, Greece, Syracuse, Ovid, Rome.

 

[Dan]

Old thread, but I saw it while looking at what guests were looking at.

Future City, Illinois is just north of Cairo. I've been there, and it's an even sadder place than Cairo.

Horizon CIty, Texas, is one of many "desert land speculation town on steroids" communities found throughout Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.

 

[SlaveToTheGrind]

What Cheer, Iowa
Virgin, Utah

 

[SlaveToTheGrind]

Old thread, but I saw it while looking at what guests were looking at.

Future City, Illinois is just north of Cairo. I've been there, and it's an even sadder place than Cairo.

Horizon CIty, Texas, is one of many "desert land speculation town on steroids" communities found throughout Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.

Future City, IL...it does have a funeral home so it does have that going for the resident(s).

 

[78rpm]

A few places seeking to keep outsiders away

Hell, MI
Why, Arizona
Boring, OR

A few I can think of...

Cape Disappointment and Cape Fear
Desolation Mountains
Dead Horse Point
Hell's Canyon
Terminal, CA

Kentucky has a great many colorful town/city names-
the ones that especially seem to want to keep outsiders out:

• Blackey**
• Black Bottom**
• Black Gnat
• Booger Branch
• Viper
• Monkey's Eyebrow
• Rabbit Hash
• Hazard
• Oddville
• Ashcamp
• Belcher
• Pig
• Cranks
• Ransom
• Stamping Ground
• Fisty
• Lackey
• Slaughters
• Marrowbone
• Typewhoppity
• Forked Mouth Creek
• Lick Creek
• Bee Lick
• Wolf Lick
• Flat Lick
• Mud Lick
• Paint Lick
• Knob Lick
• Deer Lick
• Big Bone Lick State Park

There many questionable names that I would have flagged for most other states,
but I gave Kentucky the benefit of the doubt, (for what it's worth).

**The first two=> blatantly racist.