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Moreno Valley, California - moreno means black in spanish and the hills surrounding the valley are more grey, granite. Well... there are alot of black people living there now that many blacks were priced out of South Central so i suppose it's not ironic anymore in that sense.
Escondido, California - escondido means hidden, and this city isn't really all that hard to find having a major interstate freeway cutting through it.
Long Beach - wheres the beach? It's mainly just a port city. No one in LA thinks about the beach when they think about Long Beach.
Thousand Oaks- are there really 1,000 oaks within the city limits and not 999 nor 1,001? Hmmm
Surprise, AZ - what the heck is so or was so surprising about it?
The city was founded in 1938 by Flora Mae Statler, who named it Surprise as she "would be surprised if the town ever amounted to much", It currently has a population of 132,677 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surprise,_Arizona
Oil City, WA, it is not ironic to be called Oil since it was the site of large scale petroleum extraction during the late 19th and early 20th century, but it's hardly a city, only a mere 5 people live there lol.
University Place, WA "University Place received its name in the 1800s when the University of Puget Sound, a private liberal-arts college in North Tacoma, purchased land along the primary north-south route of Grandview Drive. The school sought to build a new campus there, but ended up selling the land back to the city for about $11,000. University Place remained an unincorporated part of Pierce County until the City of University Place was formed on August 31, 1995." To this day there is no University there.
I can't believe I hadn't thought of this, but DUH. Las Vegas, Nevada. Las Vegas is Spanish for a verdant, fertile field or meadow, normally in reference to green riparian areas. Of course, Las Vegas is a desert town far removed from that type of landscape. It was supposedly named after the artesian wells in the area that were believed to support those types of landscapes. It obviously didn't work out so well.
I can't believe I hadn't thought of this, but DUH. Las Vegas, Nevada. Las Vegas is Spanish for a verdant, fertile field or meadow, normally in reference to green riparian areas. Of course, Las Vegas is a desert town far removed from that type of landscape. It was supposedly named after the artesian wells in the area that were believed to support those types of landscapes. It obviously didn't work out so well.
Edited to add: Sorry OP, I see you beat me to it.
I went on a Hummer tour out into Red Rock Canyon. The tour guide was an old guy who had written books on lesser-known battles of WWII. Interesting person.
I asked him why Las Vegas was named that, and he said because it used to be exactly that--a lush meadow where the Spaniards could water their horses and let them munch some grass.
It just couldn't survive supporting a permanent population.
Pennsylvania community names tend to be easy targets, such as Blue Ball being six miles from Intercourse. Less well known is the close proximity of Panic and Desire.
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