A town by any other name

For a good chunk of my childhood I lived in Horseheads, New York — named for the numerous horse skulls left behind when the Continental Army was forced to put down sick and starving packhorses during the Revolutionary War. While I liked my town, I hated the name. Who wants to think of dead horses every time you say your address?

So I was even more defeated when my husband and I were signing paperwork to our new home in Minnesota and discovered we wouldn’t be living in Andover — our house would have to be located across the street to claim that name. Instead, our address would be Coon Rapids, named for Coon Creek where settlers hunted raccoons for pelts. That meaning was bad enough, but it was worse: Coon is an offensive term and caricature since slavery.

I began wondering where else I was destined to live in Minnesota? Perhaps Beaver, named for the large, semiaquatic rodents that build creek dams nearby. Due to its other (vulgar) meaning, I’d prefer not to take up residence. Or how about Buffalo? It was named not for big furry creatures known to roam prairies but for buffalo fish swimming in nearby Buffalo Lake. Of course, those fish were named for the furry animals. No, thank you.

Or how about Pelican Rapids? That small town took its name from Pelican River, the English translation of the original Ojibwe name. OK, I could live with that. Or how about Red Wing, a charming Mississippi River town named after an early 19th century Dakota Sioux Chief, Hupahuduta, Wing of the Wild Swan Dyed Red? So cool. Sign me up.

Of course, we don’t have to stick with animal-themed city names. While I’m sure these towns have lots of wonderful attributes, I wouldn’t want to live in any of these Minnesota municipalities either — just based on their names:

• Ball Bluff, Climax and Kiester for obvious reasons;
• Embarrass named for the Embarrass River, so dubbed by early French explorers because of their great frustration traveling the challenging area by canoe;
• Mountain Lake, whose namesake is barely a hill (talk about embarrassing);
• and Nimrod, whose inspiration was a mighty biblical hunter, but whose current-day meaning is anything but.

By the way, earlier this year a Coon Rapids nonprofit began surveying residents in hopes of changing the city’s name. I wish them luck and am sending a check.

In the meantime, I thought I’d share: The name Horseheads could have been worse. Once, when my mother was shopping, she passed a payphone. A woman leaned out and said to her husband, “What is this place? Hogsheads?”

For many years now, Karin B. Miller has happily lived in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, named after the ultimate destination of the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway.