A SMALL Austrian village has finally grown tired of its name of Fucking — a name it has held since the 11th century — and changed it last week to Fugging. The residents — who used to be known as Fuckingers — have had enough of being joked about and decided to take action in a town meeting. The mayor of Tarsdof, the municipality to which the village belongs, Andrea Holzner, said “I can confirm that the village is being renamed,” as reported by The Guardian. She added in a quote to the regional daily Oberoesterreichische Nachrichten (OOeN): “I really don’t want to say anything more — we’ve had enough media frenzy about this in the past.” Things have become much worse in recent years with people stopping to take photos of themselves by village signs and posting them on social media. People have even tried stealing Fucking name signs, forcing the council to use anti-theft concrete. As reported by Euronews, the village’s name has inspired a movie called “Bad Fucking” and a brand of lager called “Fucking Hell” because hell is the German word for pale. There are about 100 people in the village, 350 kilometers west of Vienna, who will be living in the town of Fugging from Jan. 1, 2021. It is thought that the village was founded by a Bavarian nobleman called Focko in the sixth century but it wasn’t officially inhabited until around 1070. A map from 1825 uses the settlement name of Fucking. It isn’t the only village or town name to cause mirth to Anglophone tourists — Petting is a municipality in Bavaria and Middelfart is a town in Denmark. The BBC has a map showing the rudest place names in the world. (SD-Agencies) |