You do not have to cross the Mississippi or chase the horizon to find the names of America’s most curious places. Some of the strangest, funniest, and most enduring town names in the country sit just beyond the beltway, hiding in plain sight along roads D.C.-area drivers travel every weekend.
Less than three hours from the District, Maryland offers Accident, a mountain town whose name sounds like a warning but lives like a retreat. Tucked into Garrett County near Deep Creek Lake, Accident owes its name not to chaos, but to an 18th-century land dispute, when overlapping surveys left one parcel labeled exactly that. The paperwork faded. The name did not.
“There’s a moment when people slow down just to make sure the sign is real,” said Charles Rouson, a photographer who has spent years documenting roadside America. “That hesitation is the photograph.”
Maryland adds the unincorporated town of Boring to the list, a place whose name suggests nothing at all while quietly defying it. Named for a postmaster rather than a personality trait, Boring sits comfortably north of Baltimore, content to let the joke land without explanation.
Virginia answers with Bumpass, pronounced carefully by locals who learned long ago that correcting outsiders is part of daily life. The name traces back to a family surname, though that rarely stops drivers from pulling over for proof. Nearby, the 800 or so populated town of Tightsqueeze offers no apologies and no clarification, just a reminder that early settlers often named places the way they told stories, loosely and without concern for future reactions.
Cross into Pennsylvania and the tone sharpens. Blue Ball and Intercourse sit miles apart in Lancaster County, names rooted in inns, trade routes, and translations that lost their original meanings long before they gained their current reputations. Tourists arrive amused. Residents remain unmoved.
West Virginia contributes its own poetry. Lick Fork, Booger Hole, and the town of Odd sit quietly among hills that have seen generations come and go. These names were not designed for postcards or headlines. They were practical, descriptive, and spoken aloud long before they were printed.
Geographers say that proximity matters. The closer these places are to Washington, the more surprising they feel.
“People think unusual town names belong somewhere far away,” said Ian Dayley, a geographer who studies settlement patterns in the Mid-Atlantic. “But this region was settled early, fast, and informally. Names stuck because there was no reason to change them.”
That may be the real story behind the DMV’s most curious map markers. These towns did not chase attention. Attention found them later. The names survived wars, highways, and suburban sprawl because no one saw a reason to erase them.
For District-area drivers, these places sit just beyond routine. They are the turnoffs you pass without stopping, the signs you notice only when traffic slows, the reminders that history does not always announce itself politely.
Sometimes it just puts up a sign and waits.
“This is not a mistake,” one local saying goes. “This is where we are.”