Funny Town names (Echelon: neighborhood, school, mall)

[Mightyqueen801]

Originally Posted by EBWick

West New York, New Jersey. What happened? You ran out of decent names?

Hahaha. How come they don't have East New Jersey in New York?

[CamsMama]

I am late to the party but the Haddonfield in the Halloween (Michael Myers') movies was actually named for the hometown of the director/producer which was Haddonfield, NJ.

Just a little trivia

[kimchee]

Whitehouse Station... is it a town or is it a station? Weird.

[Retriever]

Originally Posted by kimchee

Whitehouse Station... is it a town or is it a station? Weird.

Well, for that matter, we have Cape May Courthouse.
Is it a town, or is it a courthouse?


In reality, years ago, many towns were named for the most important feature located there.
Thus--places like Blackwell's Mills (where there was a unique mill with two millstones, thus Blackwell's Mills, instead of Blackwell's Mill), Whitehouse Station (where there was a train depot), and Cape May Courthouse (where the county courthouse was located).

I think that town names like Hi-Nella and Ong's Hat are far stranger.

[HubCityMadMan]

I had a student once who was talking about visiting relatives in "Clark Westfield". And I was like whoaa kid I hope you know that Clark and Westfield are two separate towns. I know what he means though, the way it says it on the Parkway exit sign kind of makes it look a bit like that. Sounds like it could be a movie star's name like in a western film, kind of Clint Eastwood-esque if you know what I mean.

[HubCityMadMan]

Originally Posted by kimchee

Whitehouse Station... is it a town or is it a station? Weird.

Tons of places in NJ have the word station at the end. North Brunswick has an area called Adams Station. There is also Cranbury Station nearby too.

But yeah, rather bizarre and I do not understand why they do that or what it means. Another thing I do not get is places with the word junction at the end, such as Monmouth Junction, Princeton Junction etc.

Oh and corner, like Berdines Corner, Dunhams Corner etc.

[nybbler]

Originally Posted by HubCityMadMan

Tons of places in NJ have the word station at the end. North Brunswick has an area called Adams Station. There is also Cranbury Station nearby too.

But yeah, rather bizarre and I do not understand why they do that or what it means. Another thing I do not get is places with the word junction at the end, such as Monmouth Junction, Princeton Junction etc.

It's exactly what you'd think; the towns grew up around a train station or junction (a junction is a place multiple train lines come together and trains can switch from one to another; there doesn't have to be a station there, but there often is)

[Stone28]

Originally Posted by Retriever

Actually, the name is Toms River, not Tom's River.
There are various theories as to whether the settlement was named for an English sea captain with the last name of, "Toms", or if it was named after someone else with the first name of, "Tom".

According to Wikipedia:
The settlement and the river were usually spelled "Tom's River" in its early days, though its current spelling has been standard since the middle of the 19th century.

Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801

Dammit, you beat me to it.And there's no river, either. Just a sea inlet

Looks like you need a Toms River refresher course . There's no river? Just a sea inlet?....

There certainly is a river in Toms River named Toms River.

There is not a sea inlet in Toms River. The nearest inlets to TR would be the Manasquan Inlet to the north and the Barnegat Inlet to the south.

[Mightyqueen801]

Originally Posted by Stone28

Looks like you need a Toms River refresher course . There's no river? Just a sea inlet?....

There certainly is a river in Toms River named Toms River.

There is not a sea inlet in Toms River. The nearest inlets to TR would be the Manasquan Inlet to the north and the Barnegat Inlet to the south.

OK, I had previously read--but I cannot remember where--that Toms River is not actually a river (like the East River is not really a river). However, I can't find anything on it on the Internet. Wherever I read it, it was in print and a long time ago.

[EBWick]

Central NJ/Shore road names seem to have these elements in common:

- Taverns
- Mills
- The odds are that they're "Burnt" or "Old"

So Old Burnt Mill Tavern Road.