Our country has plenty of beautiful place names, but it also has a few that make you stop the car, reread the sign and wonder what on earth happened here.
Dullstroom/Simon Hurry/Unsplash
From a town named after unbearable heat to a place whose name requires an impressive amount of lung capacity, South Africa’s stranger place names often reveal something about the landscape, people and history that came before. Here are nine of the country’s most entertaining examples.
1. Tweebuffelsmeteenskootmorsdoodgeskietfontein
Let’s get the obvious one out of the way first.
Tweebuffelsmeteenskootmorsdoodgeskietfontein is a farm in North West, about 20km east of Lichtenburg, and at 44 characters it is generally recognised as South Africa’s longest place name. The Afrikaans name translates roughly as “the spring where two buffaloes were shot stone-dead with one shot”. It is an impressively detailed name for a place that could simply have been called Two Buffaloes. But where would be the fun in that?
2. Tietiesbaai
Mention Tietiesbaai and there is usually a brief pause while everyone processes the name. The West Coast bay near Paternoster is said to have acquired its memorable name because rocks in the area resemble breasts. Another explanation links the name to Jacques Titius, a trader associated with the West Coast. Either way, Tietiesbaai has become one of those South African names that is difficult to say without a grin.
3. Hotazel
Hotazel sounds less like a Northern Cape town and more like the name of a particularly aggressive air-conditioning company. The name originated on the farm where the town was established and is a pun on “hot as hell”, referring to the scorching conditions experienced when the farm was surveyed.
Ironically, Hotazel can also experience extremely cold winter conditions. So perhaps the name should have been Hotazel, Coldazel, depending on the season.
4. Pofadder
Pofadder literally means “puff adder” in Afrikaans, so it is tempting to imagine that somebody simply saw a snake and reached for the nearest map. The more widely accepted explanation is rather more historical. The Northern Cape town was named after Klaas Pofadder, a Koranna chief who lived in the region. The settlement was briefly renamed Theronsville in 1918, but Pofadder eventually returned.
Today, the name has another meaning in everyday South African speech: somewhere extremely remote.
5. Kakamas
Kakamas is another name that sounds wonderfully odd until you discover its history. The name was originally attached to a drift on the Orange River and has several proposed origins. One explanation links it to a Korana word meaning “poor pasture”, while another connects it to an incident involving a raging cow. The irony is that modern Kakamas sits in a surprisingly fertile part of the Lower Orange River valley, where irrigation supports vineyards, fruit and other crops. Not exactly poor pasture these days.
6. Twee Riviere
There is no elaborate punchline here. Twee Riviere simply means “two rivers” in Afrikaans, and the name comes from the Diep and Dwars rivers that flow through the settlement in the Langkloof. It might sound rather ordinary compared with Tweebuffelsmeteenskootmorsdoodgeskietfontein, but there is something charmingly literal about it. South African place-name logic often boils down to: What is here? Two rivers. Excellent. Put it on the map.
7. Amsterdam
South Africa has its own Amsterdam, although you will find this one in Mpumalanga rather than the Netherlands.
The town was originally called Roburnia after Scottish poet Robert Burns. In 1882, it was renamed Amsterdam after the Dutch city where State Secretary Eduard Bok was born, and partly as a gesture of gratitude towards Dutch support during the First Anglo-Boer War. South African maps contain layers of European, African and colonial history, sometimes all packed into a single name.
8. Dullstroom
Dullstroom sounds like somewhere that desperately needs a marketing department. Fortunately, the reality is considerably prettier. The Mpumalanga town was named after Dutch settler Wolterus Dull, while “stroom” means stream in Afrikaans and refers to the waterways in the area.
Today, Dullstroom is known for its cool climate, misty landscapes, fly-fishing and mountain scenery. So despite the name, boredom is not exactly guaranteed.
9. Nieu-Bethesda
Nieu-Bethesda sounds mysterious, but its story is actually rooted in water. The Eastern Cape village was founded in the 19th century near a strong water source and was named after the biblical Bethesda, associated with a pool of water. There is even a linguistic quirk behind the spelling. The original name was “nu Bethesda”, but it was misspelled as “Nieu Bethesda”, and the error stuck.
It seems South Africa’s place names prove one thing: sometimes history, geography, humour and a spelling mistake are all you need to create a destination name people never forget.
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