Really Rude Map

There are many place-names around the world which sound rude to English speakers. The vast majority of these place-names are benign in their mother tongue but sound profane to English speakers.

Perhaps the most well known example of this is the Austrian town of Fucking. The town was named for a 6th century nobleman called Focko. The town's street signs have often been stolen. Because of this the town actually had a vote in 2004 on whether to change its name. The residents voted to keep the Fucking name.

Some place-names are now thought of as offensive because of changing sensibilities. An example of this is the once common UK name of 'Gropecunt Lane'. Historically this name was used to indicate a road used by prostitutes. For example Gropecunt Lane in York was long ago renamed 'Grape Lane'.

The theft of road signs is a common experience for many towns with strange sounding names. In 2010, the inhabitants of Shitterton in Dorset, purchased a 1.5-ton block of Purbeck Stone to place at the entrance to Shitterton, carved with the hamlet's name to prevent theft

The data for this map comes from the Vaguely Rude Place Names Map. All GeoJSON and ShapeFile downloads of the data are licensed under the Open Data Commons Attribution license.