Odd and Provocative Town Names in South Central Pennsylvania

South Central Pennsylvania does certainly have its fair share of funny names.  We can find odd names of towns everywhere in the United States, but they sound even funnier if you collect them and put them together.

What’s interesting is for being a very conservative and religious area, the Amish Country in South Central Pennsylvania, has several provocative sounding town names. If you travel a certain direction in the Lancaster area, it’s possible to go from Blue Ball to Bird-n-Hand to Intercourse and then finally Paradise all consecutively.  Other unusual town names in the Lancaster region are: Burnt Mills, Fertility, Lititz,  Mount Joy, Lickdale, Ono and Falmouth.

Let’s get our mines out of the gutter, and learn some real history about some of the sexually suggestive and other odd town names:

Blue Ball - Named after a building at the same location, the Blue Ball Inn, after it was struck by cannon balls from a British war vessel in 1777. The Inn was demolished in 1997. 

Intercourse - The Amish Village of Intercourse was named by George Brungard in 1813. During this time period, “Intercourse” referred to commercial or trading sites.

Jugtown -  Located in  Franklin County, it is said this town was named for booze and/or pottery.

Paradise - Joshua Scott named the town around 1800 because he thought it was beautiful “like paradise.”

Peach Bottom – This village got its name in 1815 from a settler named John Kirk who was a peach orchard owner.

Pillow - Located in Dauphin County, the village was named after General Gideon Pillow.

Rough and Ready - Located in Schuylkill County and named for a California Gold Rush town.

There are definitely some funny town names in our parts of the country,

how about yours?