MA Town Names That You May Not Want To Say Out Loud
Here's a question for you, residents of Berkshire County. Did you ever take a road trip with your family when you were a kid, or maybe even recently, where you took the back roads to avoid the traffic and suddenly you saw a road sign(perhaps a town limits sign) that just made you chuckle or downright guffaw?
Chances are the reason you started laughing was due to something immature. Admit it. The name of the town on the sign looked or sounded dirty. Much in the same juvenile way that kids find the name "Uranus" hysterically funny.
When I was younger, my family traveled all over this country practically, and, without fail, every state we passed through usually had two or three town or city names that we thought were hilarious because they sounded dirty. I fondly remember laughing every single time we passed the sign for "Coxsackie" in neighboring New York.
So, without further ado, here are the names of 10 towns right here in Massachusetts with names that look or sound dirty. Here is #1:
Peabody. Peabody is located in the North Shore region of the Bay State in Essex County. Doesn't require a whole lot of imagination. Pea-Body. Sounds dirty. Onward we go to #2:
Sagamore is located in the town of Bourne in Barnstable County. The name 'Sagamore" is actually one of the words used by Native Americans to mean an elected leader. That's what it means. But when you say it out loud, it sounds dirty. Here we are at #3:
Woods Hole is a very small region of the town of Falmouth located in the southwest portion of the Cape near Martha's Vineyard. According to the 2020 Census, the population was still under 1,000. Dirty-sounding town name #4:
Hardwick, Massachusetts, is located in Worcester County about 20 miles away from Worcester itself. Again, not a lot of imagination is needed for this one. Sounds dirty. On to #5:
Mashpee is another town located on Cape Cod in Barnstable County. I guess if the name of the town contains the word "pee" or any derivation, it sounds dirty...to me, at least. At #6:
Athol, Massachusetts. Not so much in how the name of the town reads unless you do so out loud. It sounds like someone with a swollen tongue calling you a bad word. And, like Hardwick, it's also located in Worcester County. Now #7:
Located right here in Berkshire County, the town of Hancock. And if you're going to tell me that I'm the only one who laughed at that when I was a kid, stop kidding yourself. Continuing with #8:
Norfolk, Massachusetts is located in Norfolk County and has a population of approximately 12,000. Looking at the name doesn't give you much. It's all in the way the name is pronounced. Some locals say "Naw-Fik", and others say "Naw-Fuk" which definitely sounds dirty. Now #9:
Cummington is located in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, and is of course the site for the beloved annual Cummington Fair. Anyway you look at it (or say it) it sounds dirty. Finally, we arrive at #10 on our list:
Felchville is a region of Natick located in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. Even though the town's name came from two brothers with the last name of Felch who owned a mill there, the name also evokes the act of "felching". Which is extremely dirty and I won't go into it because this is a family site. If you're going to look it up, I'll just tell you that it's NSFW.
And there you have it, 10 names of Massachusetts towns that sound dirty. There are actually a few more. Perhaps we'll save them for another time. However, while we're on the subject of names, read on...
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