The official name for Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, is Krung Thep Maha Nakhon, which is an abbreviation of its ceremonial name, "Krung Thep Mahanakon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit". (source)
The Canary Islands got their name not from canaries but from the wild dogs that the Romans found when they landed there. They called the island Insulae Canariae, which means "Island of the Dogs." [ Animals | Place Names ] (source)
What we now call Iran has, in the past, been called Persia, Parthia, or Media, depending on the ethnic group ruling it. [ Place Names | World Countries ]
Over 1,500 years after they occupied parts of Spain, the Vandals, a Germanic tribe, are still present in name: the region in the south known as Andalusia is merely "Vandalusia" with the initial letter missing. (source)
The modern country of Ghana is not the same as ancient Ghana. Today's Ghana was formerly known as the Gold Coast, on the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa. Ancient Ghana, which lasted until around 1240, occupied parts of what are now Mali and Mauritania, between the Senegal and Niger rivers. The word "ghana" was a title meaning "war chief", and the area got its name from Africans from the north who would trade with "ghana". [ Place Names | World Countries ]
On January 19th, 2000, Halfway, Oregon accepted an offer from the website Half.com to rename itself to Half.com, Oregon in exchange for $100,000.
The word "uptown" was in use before the word "downtown" was. Both words were originally used to describe parts of Manhattan. [ Place Names | English Words ] (source)
The shortest place names in the world are only a single letter long. There is a village of Y (population 143) in France, which has been so named since 1241, and villages called Å located in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. (source)
The word "spa" comes from the Belgian town of Spa, in the Ardennes, whose mineral springs and baths were popular among the wealthy starting in the 18th century. (source)
The names of Minnesota and Winnipeg have the same meaning. Minnesota means "murky water" in Sioux, and Winnipeg means "murky water" in Cree. [ Languages of the World | Place Names ]
Levan, Utah, is "navel" spelled backwards. It received this name because it is located in the centre of Utah.
"Idaho", the name of one of the states in the United States of America, doesn't mean anything in any language. (source)
Los Angeles can be abbreviated to "L.A.", a very short abbreviation. However, the city's original name was quite long. It was "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula", which means "The Village of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of 'Little Portion'" in Spanish. (source)
While Chicago is rather windy (although nowhere near the windiest in the United States; its average wind speed of 10.4 miles per hour ranks it sixteenth in the list of windiest U.S. cities, with Great Falls, Montana the windiest at 13.4 miles per hour), its nickname of the "Windy City" is not because of its weather. It was christened the "Windy City" by the editor of the New York Sun, Charles Dana during the 1893 World Exposition. He was referring to the long-windedness of Chicago's politicians and their ceaseless boasting about their city and about the Expo. [ Place Names | Misconceptions ] (source)
Pakistan was named by the British. They took the initials of Punjab, Afghanistan, and Kashmir, and added the ending "stan", which means "land of", to create the Asian-sounding name.
Chicago, Illinois, in the United States, was once known as Fort Dearborn, Indian Territory. (source)
There are 66 cities in the United States named Fairview. (source)
There is a place in the State of Florida in the United States called Two Egg. (source)
There used to be a place called "6" in West Virginia. (source)
There are places in the United States of America named Christmas, Florida, North Pole, Alaska, Santa Claus, Indiana, Santa Claus, Georgia, Noel, Missouri, and Snowflake, Arizona. (source)
New England was originally on the west coast of North America, not the east. When Francis Drake claimed that area for Queen Elizabeth I, he named the area Novus Albion (New England) because he thought the white cliffs near Point Reyes resembled the chalk cliffs near Dover. (source)
The name of Switzerland used on Swiss stamps is not in any of Switzerland's four official languages (German, French, Italian, or Romansch), but in Latin (Helvetia).
The shortest place names in the world are only a single letter long. There is a village of Y (population 143) in France, which has been so named since 1241, and villages called Å located in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. (source)
The Cambridge River (in England) is the current spelling of a name that has been previously spelled in three different ways. (source)
The longest place name in the world is the name of a hill in New Zealand, Tuamatawhataktankihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukuokaiwhenuakitanatahu, which means "the place where Tamateakokai-whenua—the man with the big knees who slid, climbed, and swallowed mountains, known as land eater—played his flute to his loved one." (source)