Strange Towns Educational Resources K12 Learning, Social Studies, Social Studies Lesson Plans, Activities, Experiments, Homeschool Help

Lesson Plan - Get It!

Audio:

What is the most unusual — or even funniest — city or town name you’ve ever heard?

Sandwich town sign

_{Image [cropped] by Kenneth C. Zirkel, via Wikimedia Commons, is licensed under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.}

What is the name of the town where you live?

Do you consider this to be a strange name? Why or why not? Discuss your answer with your teacher or parent.

Towns get their names from a variety of sources. Some are named for the person or family that founded it, others are named after historical figures, and others are named after a symbol that can be found within the town. The names of some towns can be a little stranger than others. During this lesson, you will research some of the most bizarre city and town names in the United States and decide which state has the strangest towns.

As you research the names of towns and cities in the United States, you will record the name of the town and the state where it is located on the interactive slides below. If you come across any additional information you find interesting, you can record that in the third space on each slide:

You need to find a minimum of 40 strange towns and record them on your chart. Use the following sites to help you:

Towns With the Most Unusual Names (Amanda DiGiondomenico, The Travel Channel)
52 Weird Names Of Places In The United States That You Just Can’t Believe Are Real (Michael Koh, The Thought & Expression Company, LLC.)

Next, add five strange town names you find using your own research. You can also perform your own research by using a search engine. Try using phrases such as, “towns with strangest names” and “list of towns with odd names.” When you are finished, you should have a total of 45 strange towns on your list.

When you are finished researching, share the chart you created with your teacher or parent. Click on "Export Text" to create a Word document you can save and print. Discuss the following questions:

Of all the towns listed on your chart, which do you think has the strangest name?
How would you feel living in a town with that name?
Why do you think some of these names were given?

Hold on to the chart you created. In the Got It? section, you will put the data you researched into a graph.