page_title: Place names considered unusual
section_title: Unorthodox spelling or pronunciation
hierarchical_section_title: Place names considered unusual / Unorthodox spelling or pronunciation
caption_attribution_description: English: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch railway station sign, September 2011 livery
context_page_description: Unusual place names are names for cities, towns, and other regions which are considered non-ordinary in some manner. This can include place names which are also offensive words, inadvertently humorous or highly charged words, as well as place names of unorthodox spelling and pronunciation, including especially short or long names.
context_section_description: Unorthodox spelling or pronunciation, particularly short or long names, and names derived from unusual sources are often seen as unusual, especially by people outside the culture which named them. The Welsh village Llanfairpwllgwyngyll­gogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch changed its name in the 1860s from the shorter Llanfairpwllgwyngyll to increase its publicity. At 58 letters, it has the longest place name in the UK. The body of fresh water in Webster, Massachusetts that has historically (since at least 1921) borne the apparently Native American 45-letter/fourteen-syllable name Lake Chargoggagoggmanch­auggagoggchaubunagungamaugg is usually shortened, for instance on road maps, to using only the final six syllables from its "long form"; as Lake Chaubunagungamaug, or even more simply to "Webster Lake". 
  Conversely, there are several settlements whose name consists of only one letter. A number of Norwegian towns are named Å. The name often comes from the Old Norse word Ár, meaning small river. Examples include: Å, Åfjord; Å, Meldal; Å, Lavangen; and Å, Tranøy (also compare rivers named Aa). A village in northern France has been called Y since the 13th century. The Netherlands has IJ (Amsterdam), formerly spelled Y. The Dutch digraph IJ, although typed using two characters, is sometimes considered a ligature, or even a single letter in itself.
  There are a number of place names that seem unusual to English speakers because they do not conform to standard English orthography rules. Examples include the Welsh towns of Ysbyty Ystwyth and Bwlchgwyn which appear to English speakers to contain no vowel characters, although y and w represent vowel sounds in Welsh. Aioi, Japan; Eiao, Marquesas Islands; Aiea, Hawaii; Oia, Greece; Oia, Spain; Aia and Ea, Spanish Basque Country; and Ii, Finland, on the other hand, contain only vowels and no consonants.
  Unusual names may also be created as a result of error by the naming authority. An example is Rednaxela Terrace in Hong Kong, which is believed to be the name Alexander but erroneously written right-to-left (the normal practice for writing Chinese in the past), and the name has stayed and even transcribed back to Chinese phonetically.
caption: The railway station sign in the town of Llanfairpwllgwyngyll­gogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, Wales, gives an approximation of the correct pronunciation for English speakers
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