Dueling Portmanteau Placenames

My recent article on Mexican borders visible on Street View reminded me of a situation that’s long fascinated me. It came to the forefront as I viewed this image:

Can you find the border in this image? Sure you can. That’s a silly question.


Calexico vs. Mexicali

The rural area north of this amazingly stark line is the United States just outside of Calexico, California. This town in Imperial County was incorporated in 1908 and has nearly 30,000 residents. A member of my extended family lived there as early as 1915 so wow, I have another instance of a relative figuring into the early history of a town. I didn’t realize that until just now. Even my ancestors seemed to have had an interest in geo-oddities. At least I come by it honestly.

Border crossing to Mexicali. Photo by Dan Cipolla; (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Border crossing to Mexicali

The densely settled area immediately south of the line is Mexicali, the capital of Baja California, in Mexico. It is considerably larger that Calexico with nearly 700,000 residents. Both towns were laid-out by the Imperial Land Company, which had interests in colonizing the Imperial Valley on both sides of the border. I have no idea why two towns starting at the same time by the same company now differ so completely by population. That’s not the purpose for today, though.

I’m fascinated by the names. One is a portmanteau of California + Mexico and the other is a portmanteau of Mexico + California. The only way it could have been more perfect would be to make it Calexico/Mexinia or Mexicali/Calimexi. Nonetheless I appreciate that they’re adjacent towns with sort-of opposite portmanteau names that have their roots in the underlying geography. I suppose someone will point out that Mexico is a nation and California is a state so it’s not absolutely perfect symmetry. Nonetheless it feels rather remarkable.


Norlina vs. Virgilina

I started to wonder if there might be similar examples elsewhere, either in the United States or places farther afield. I couldn’t find anything that approached Calexico/Mexicali personally but figured there had to be some equally amazing examples out there somewhere. The closest I found were two towns along the border between North Carolina and Virginia: Norlina and Virgilina.

I have two problems with this example, though.

  • They are not adjacent, nor even particularly close for that matter. It would take about an hour to drive between the two.
  • They’re both portmanteaus but they don’t reflect the underlying geography symmetrically. Virgilina does combine Virginia with North Carolina. Norlina, however, just seems to be the front and back ends of North Carolina shoved together. Where’s Virginia? For that I think it would have to be Norlinia.

I stumbled across a fun page on Wikipedia while I was investigating this. Can you believe they have an entire list of border towns in the United States with portmanteau names? There are apparently people with even more geographic curiosity on their minds and time on their hands to do something about this than I. However, I’m glad they’ve gone through the effort and I love their results.

My search came to an abrupt end right here. Is anyone aware of other adjacent towns that are named in a fashion similar to Calexico/Mexicali, or can we declare this a unique instance? Maybe somewhere in Benelux since they already seem to have that theme going for them? Let’s hear what you’ve found oh wise and wonderful 12MC audience.

Comments

11 responses to “Dueling Portmanteau Placenames”

  1. David Overton Avatar
    David Overton

    Wikipedia does seem to be very fond of portmanteaux, as satirized by this XKCD comic: http://xkcd.com/739/. Of course the name “Wikipedia” is itself a portmanteau…

  2. Mr Burns Avatar
    Mr Burns

    It’s not quite the symmetry you’re looking for, but could you count Texarkana, Texas and Texarkana, Arkansas? Too bad they didn’t name one half of the city “Arktexana” or something.

    And though they’re not portmanteaus, and not adjacent to one another (and therefore have absolutely NOTHING to do with your post – sorry), I’ve always found it amusing that there’s an Easton in eastern Kansas, and a Weston in western Missouri.

  3. Pfly Avatar
    Pfly

    Not portmanteaus, but your post reminds me of Lewiston, Idaho, and Clarkston, Washington, starting at each other across the Snake River at the mouth of the Clearwater River, where Lewis and Clark passed by long ago. I’ll see if I can think of a portmanteau example…

  4. Alger Avatar
    Alger

    It’s not a place name per se, but there are lots of regional names that combine states.
    My favorite pairing is that it’s Kentuckiana in Louisville, but Indiuky north of the Ohio River.

  5. Brian Avatar
    Brian

    Texarcana TX, Texarcana AR should be given at least a nod in this post.

  6. Pfly Avatar
    Pfly

    Found some. Most are tiny, maybe ghost towns, maybe mere “locales”, but I at least checked to make sure they were in GNIS and came up in Google Maps.

    Delmar, a pair in both DE and MD, and Marydel, also a pair in both DE and MD.
    Pen Mar, MD, and another pair, Sylmar, in MD and PA.
    Arkana, a pair of them in AR and LA, along with Laark, LA, and of course Texarkana)
    Moark, another pair, in AR and MO, along with Arkmo, AR.
    Virgilina, VA, and Carova Beach, NC.
    Latex, a pair in TX and LA, and Texla, TX, and Texana, TX.
    Idmon, ID, and Monida, MT (both near Monida Pass, on the border).

    In addition to Texarkana, TX & AR, there’s Texhoma, TX & OK.

    Found these mainly from http://www.usends.com/Explore/Portmanteaus/index.html –which has many more, though some seem questionable (ie, Alaflora & Florala; not sure about Alaflora…), and most not in two state “dueling” form. Also, I didn’t check to see how close the pairs are–some may be dueling at a distance…

  7. Hm Avatar
    Hm

    Three near my home come to mind:

    Delmar, DE/MD
    Marydel, DE
    Mardela Springs, MD

    And not quote a portmanteau, but there is the legal fiction of a town known as S.N.P.J., PA.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.N.P.J.,_Pennsylvania

  8. Bill Harris Avatar
    Bill Harris

    DelMar, DE/MD is a unique place. the state line runs right down the middle of main street. There are two separate town councils but they share municipal services. Children attend elementary school in Maryland and middle and high school in Delaware. As far as I know, this is one of only a handful instances in which children legally attend public school outside of their home state.

    1. Pfly Avatar
      Pfly

      Where else, I wonder. Bristol, TN/VA?

  9. Fritz Keppler Avatar
    Fritz Keppler

    Not a portmanteau either, but I’ve always been fascinated by Penn Yan, New York. The original settlers came from Pennsylvania and New England (Yankees).

  10. Gary Avatar

    One of my favorite portmanteaus is here in Florida right near me in the form of Oranole Road. It goes east-west and is right on the county line between Orange County and Seminole County. The south side of the road is Orange and the north side is Seminole. The city is Maitland, as that is a city (along with its neighbor, Winter Park) in more than one county. I am sure there are a lot of those.

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