The internet is filled with things. Here is one of them.
Let's do it2024 Jun 26
There's a town in the timber country of far northern California called "Loleta." Why name a town after a Nabokov book about a ... you know? Well, it's not. That book wasn't published until 1955, whereas this town was named in 1893. However, the name is still bad. Because it turns out that... well, read it direct from the source (Ellen Golla, in a 2007 letter to the editor of Humboldt County's Times-Standard):
"In 1893, the residents of what was then known as Swauger's Station decided to change the town's name. Mrs. Rufus F. Herrick consulted a Wiyot elder to find an appropriate indigenous appellation. The Indians actually called it katawólo 't.
A joke was played on Mrs. Herrick. The elderly gentleman told her that it was hó wiwItak. This does not translate as 'beautiful place at the end of the river,' but rather 'Let's have intercourse!'
She interpreted the last part of the phrase, in baby-talk fashion, as Loleta. And thus she suggested 'Loleta' to the residents of the town, which they accepted."
There's a town in the timber country of far northern California called "Loleta." Why name a town after a Nabokov book about a ... you know? Well, it's not. That book wasn't published until 1955, whereas this town was named in 1893. However, the name is still bad. Because it turns out that... well, read it direct from the source (Ellen Golla, in a 2007 letter to the editor of Humboldt County's Times-Standard):