9 Tennessee Town Names That Make Out-of-Staters Do a Double Take
Yes, there’s a Yum Yum, Tennessee. It’s in Fayette County.
There’s a story behind that name, and locals don’t always agree on it.
Here are the Tennessee town names that make out-of-staters do a double take, and the stories behind them.
1. Difficult
The name Difficult belongs to a community along Highway 85 in Smith County.
The Difficult Post Office opened in February 1866, according to the Smith County Chamber of Commerce.
A local story says the Post Office Department rejected the name residents wanted as too difficult, and Difficult took its place.
It has company.
Difficult and Defeated, both on Defeated Creek, grew into trade centers for people in the northern part of Smith County.
2. Nameless
The origins of the name Nameless, a Jackson County community, are debated.
The Cookeville Herald-Citizen reported one version in 2010: the first settlers couldn’t agree on what to call their town, so the postal service labeled it Nameless.
A 2006 story has it that residents applied for a post office without a name, and Washington stamped the application nameless and sent it back.
Its heyday population was about 250, with homes, farms and a post office.
The post office closed in 1909, and the name has stayed for more than a century.
3. Yum Yum
Yum Yum is the name of a community in Fayette County.
WKRN reports a story that a store owner named Garnett was seeking a post office for the community in 1887.
In that telling, a friend of Garnett’s proposed Yum Yum after a brand of candy.
4. Ducktown
Ducktown, in Polk County, has two possible name roots, a museum guide told Local Memphis.
One is a nearby Native American settlement whose name translates to Land of the Duck.
The other is a Chief Duck.
Ducktown’s Burra Burra mine also carries a borrowed name, chosen after a famous Australian mine of the period.
5. Soddy-Daisy
Soddy-Daisy, a city in northwest Hamilton County, gets its name from two coal mining communities, Soddy and Daisy.
A community history page at soddy-daisy.org says both were thriving until the 1930s.
Daisy was named after Daisy Parks, the daughter of Thomas Parks.
Soddy has two accounts, and one says it is an English version of Tsati, a Native American word that means sipping place.
The other says residents changed the name of William Sodder’s trading post to Soddy.
Town or Community on This List?
WKRN calls Difficult, Nameless and Yum Yum unincorporated communities, and none of the three appears on the University of Tennessee’s list of incorporated cities and towns.
Ducktown and Soddy-Daisy do appear on that list, along with the towns below.
Soddy-Daisy’s two communities incorporated together in April 1969.
6. Gruetli-Laager
The Gruetli-Laager name joins two places that started out separate.
Gruetli began in 1869 as a permanent Swiss colony in Grundy County.
A Tennessee Historical Commission marker says Gruetli was apparently named for a commune in the canton of Glarus, Switzerland.
Founder Peter Staub, a native of that locality, bought land here with 100 Swiss families.
Laager, on a branch railroad line east of Gruetli, started out as Henley’s Switch and became Laager in 1920.
The two incorporated together as Gruetli-Laager in 1980.
7. Bell Buckle
The name Bell Buckle, in Bedford County, comes with more than one origin story.
The 1975 National Register nomination for the Bell Buckle Historic District says a variety of local legends explain the unusual name, and none has been documented.
In the version called widely accepted, the first white men to traverse the area found a carving on a tree near a free-flowing creek.
The carving was shaped like a cow bell and buckle.
It was read as a warning from Native Americans that the livestock of white settlement was intruding on their lands.
The creek was then called Bell Buckle Creek, and the town that grew up on its banks adopted the name.
8. Hohenwald
If you stumble over Hohenwald on the first try, it helps to know the Lewis County town name means High Forest.
The Tennessee Encyclopedia says Augusta Smith, a German immigrant, named the community Hohenwald.
Hohenwald began as a crossroads store and house owned by Warren and Augusta Smith.
The name reflects the surrounding countryside and the community’s location on the Western Highland Rim.
Psst! How much do you know about Tennessee? Take our quiz and see if you can ace it.
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9. Bulls Gap
Bulls Gap, a Hawkins County town, takes its name from one man and one mountain pass.
In 1792, John Bull received a grant for 55 acres near the east-west passage over Bays Mountain.
Bull operated a stage line through the passage, and the passage became known as Bulls Gap.
More Odd Names on the Map
WKRN's list of weird town names also includes Bitter End, Sweet Lips and Nankipoo.
The origin of the name Bitter End remains unknown.
A 1995 newspaper excerpt says Sweet Lips got its name when a passerby drank from a nearby creek and found it sweet.
Nankipoo has two theories behind its name.
One credits a chief who used to frequent the area.
The other credits a post office worker who took the name from a character in a play.
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