Tightsqueeze, Climax, Goochland: Why Virginia has raunchy place names
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In Virginia, you have to get through Tightsqueeze to get to Climax. Ballsville is right under Goochland, and it's possible to literally be sent to Pound town.
Why it matters: If Texas thought the state's boob flag was raunchy, wait until they find out we have multiple roads and towns with the word "Balls," "Butts" or "Lick" in them.
The big picture: We wanted to find out whether Virginia set out to be sneakily vulgar or it's simply a coincidence that Lickinghole is in Goochland, the right way to pronounce Norfolk is "Nor-fuhk" and a tourism website for Onancock says "We hope you find your way here."
- The likely reasoning is these places weren't trying to be funny when they thought New Erection was a solid name or they wanted to drive on Butt Hollow Road — our minds have just gotten dirtier.
- "Often, these names sort of have mundane explanations," like being derived from Indigenous words or prominent family names, says Matthew Guillen, a library services coordinator at the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.
- "But they're not any less funny," Guillen tells Axios. We're looking at you, Bumpass.
Between the lines: It's hard to pin down a name's origin, says Guillen, who suggests trying to identify its earliest known usage.
- So we dug into the archives, and here's what we found:
Virginia was named after Queen Elizabeth I, who was dubbed "the virgin queen."
- The English also used to call the East Coast "Virginia" because they saw it as "virgin land."
Tightsqueeze in Pittsylvania County came to be because in the 1800s, there was a road between two buildings that was a … tight squeeze for buggies.
- The Board of Supervisors once tried changing the name around the 1980s. Residents protested until the board gave up.
Climax, near Tightsqueeze, was named after a school post-World War I. And the school got its name because a reverend allegedly said building it was the "climax" of their efforts.
- Fun fact: Richmond used to have its own Climax sign in the 1930s on Belle Isle, per Richmond Magazine.
- Climax was a soda brand.
Goochland's name comes from former Lt. Gov. Sir William Gooch, who was alive well before the body part "gooch" ended up on Urban Dictionary in the early 2000s.
Lickinghole: It's what was used in pre-colonial times to call the creek where wildlife stopped to … lick from.
- Roanoke was also once named "Big Lick" because of its "salt licks," or salty springs, and had a newsletter called "The Big Lick Gayzette."
- And don't forget about Backlick Road near Manassas.
Some names are rooted in Indigenous history:
- Tuckahoe refers to an Eastern Algonquin word for a plant.
- Onancock is the Algonquin word for "foggy place."
The town of Pound seems to come from the area having a major pounding mill, and it has almost ceased to exist in recent years.
Honorable mentions: We failed to track their history, but we love them all the same:
- Pinch 'Em Slyly Place in Charlottesville.
- Ballsville, an area in Powhatan County that people speculate is linked to the Ball family, related to George Washington.
The bottom line: We might not ever know where Balls came from, and maybe Virginia's road signs haven't been flirting with us after all — but at least we'll always have Longwood.