8 Georgia Towns Everyone Outside the State Says Wrong

You spot a town name on a highway sign and sound it out with total confidence.

Then a local corrects you.

Here’s how Georgians actually say some of the state’s trickiest town names.

1. Louisville

Louisville, Georgia, takes its name from King Louis XVI of France, a Revolutionary War ally.

The legislature began meeting there in 1796, which made it Georgia’s third state capital.

The original city plan followed Philadelphia’s layout, with a raised statehouse in the central square, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia.

By 1806, you’d have found nearly 100 homes and about 550 residents there.

The capital moved in 1807.

The move is linked to malaria concerns, poor river trade and distance from western settlers.

Ken Krakow’s reference book Georgia Place-Names spells the sound as Lewis-vil.

That’s how you say the name of the Jefferson County seat.

2. Cairo

Many visitors see Cairo on a sign and think of Egypt.

You say the Grady County seat KAY-roh, and the New Georgia Encyclopedia spells the sound Cayroe.

The name comes from either the city in Egypt or Cairo, Illinois.

Cairo had 10,179 residents in the 2020 census.

Ken Krakow’s Georgia Place-Names adds that the spot was first called Miller’s Station.

Cairo incorporated in 1870.

The railroad station there opened in 1867 and took its name from an older post office.

Cairo earned a reputation as the heart of Georgia’s syrup industry for decades, the encyclopedia says.

In Cairo, the Roddenbery Company grew out of Seaborn Anderson Roddenbery’s open-kettle sugarcane syrup business.

You’ll spot Jackie Robinson, the baseball player, on its list of notable Cairo residents.

3. Hoschton

Hoschton started as a store.

The first post office there opened in 1878 under the name Hosch’s Store, after postmaster Russell Hosch, who ran a general store.

Ken Krakow’s Georgia Place-Names respells the name Hush’-ton, so you say HUSH-tun.

A 2015 list of hard-to-pronounce town names in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution instead writes the first syllable HOOSH, like the word push.

In both versions, you say the sch in Hoschton as sh.

Hoschton incorporated in 1891.

The New Georgia Encyclopedia lists Hoschton among Jackson County’s incorporated towns.

4. Buena Vista

Krakow’s book says Buena Vista is Spanish for good view, but the Marion County seat began as a settlement called Pea Ridge.

The county seat moved there in 1849 after fire destroyed the old seat at Tazewell.

Pea Ridge sat about a mile and a half from the site of Kings Town, home of the Uchee chiefs.

The New Georgia Encyclopedia says residents felt the name Pea Ridge didn’t fit a county seat’s new standing.

They renamed the town Buena Vista in 1849 to honor Zachary Taylor’s recent victory in the Mexican War.

That victory came at Buena Vista, Mexico, in February 1847.

Taylor beat Santa Ana there.

You say the town BYOO-nuh VIS-tuh, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution list.

If you follow baseball history, you may know that Negro League player Josh Gibson was born in Buena Vista in 1911, before his family moved to Pittsburgh.

Folk artist Eddie Owens Martin, who went by Saint EOM, created the Pasaquan art estate in Marion County.

5. Hahira

Ken Krakow’s Georgia Place-Names lists four possible origins for the name of Hahira, a Lowndes County town.

You can start with the first one it lists: Berry Folsom reportedly named the town in 1888 for a river in Liberia.

Krakow couldn’t find that river on any maps of Liberia.

The entry says the name has also been said to mean good water.

It also points to the Bible place Hahiroth, where the Israelites camped early in the Exodus.

A legend credits a locomotive engineer named Hira.

You say the town hay-HIGH-ruh, according to both Krakow’s book and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution list.

Hahira incorporated in 1891, and the New Georgia Encyclopedia calls it famous for its Honey Bee Festival.

6. Vienna

Vienna, the Dooly County seat, took the Austrian capital’s name in 1841, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia.

Krakow’s book says the town went by Berrien and then Centerville before that.

Vienna incorporated in 1854.

Say it Vy-eenna, so you start with vy, as in the word vie.

The Big Pig Jig, a barbecue cooking contest, started in Vienna in 1982, according to WALB.

The Jig is a barbecue cooking championship aimed at a national audience.

The festival began by combining a barbecue cooking contest with an arts and crafts fair and the county livestock association’s hog show.

If you plan to go, the festival’s site lists November 6 and 7, 2026.

7. Dacula

Dacula’s name has two pronunciations in print.

In Ken Krakow’s Georgia Place-Names, you’ll find day-CUE-luh and day-COO-luh.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution list writes duh-CUE-luh.

You put the stress on the second syllable in all three.

Dacula began as a railroad camp in 1891, and its post office went by Hoke.

The first postmaster, John W. Freeman, coined the name Dacula using three letters each from Atlanta and Decatur.

Dacula incorporated in 1905.

Dacula had 6,882 residents in the 2020 census, according to the Census Bureau.

8. Dahlonega

You can trace Dahlonega's name to a Cherokee word for the yellow color of gold, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia.

Dahlonega, the seat of Lumpkin County, had 7,537 residents in the 2020 census.

Thousands of miners poured into the area after gold turned up in 1828 and 1829.

The town's branch of the United States Mint produced $6 million worth of gold coins before it closed in 1861.

You'll see duh-LAW-nuh-guh in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution list, but Krakow's book writes the sound as Dah-lahn-e-ga.

Another name was Licklog.

People placed salt in a log for cattle on what is now the public square, which gave Licklog its name.