Climax, Georgia No. 2 on ‘Most Unfortunate’ town names list

Getting here is difficult. It's like a five-hour drive. (AJC file photo)

In college, I once drove my girlfriend to Climax, a little city in southwest Georgia so close to Cairo you could smell the syrup if they were still making it.

Long a geographic punchline, Climax narrowly missed having the “Most Unfortunate” city name, according to a poll conducted by family history website FindMyPast.com.

Boring, Oregon and Hooker, Oklahoma are off the hook too.

The new Number One? Toad Suck, Arkansas, which, according to legend and Wikipedia, got its name from the heavy drinkers working the docks (and the liquor bottles) along the Arkansas River.

“They suck on the bottle ’til they swell up like toads,” is the unfortunate quote.

Climax, as all south Georgia boys know, got its name because it was the highest point on the rail line between Savannah and the Chattahoochee River (which separates Georgia and Alabama).

Josh Taylor, a genealogist and spokesperson for FindMyPast says such places of origin are not the worst bit of info that may fall from the family tree, but “some people are disconcerted to learn that their [ancestors] came from somewhere called, for example, Toad Suck, Roachtown or Monkey’s Eyebrow.”

Hmmmm … never heard of Roachtown or Monkey’s Eyebrow either.

Here’s the complete Top 11. (I’d also add Hopeulikit, which, thankfully, is nowhere near Forsyth County.)

1. Toad Suck, Arkansas
2. Climax, Georgia
3. Boring, Oregon and Maryland
4. Hooker, Oklahoma
5. Assawoman, Maryland
6. Belchertown, Massachusetts
7. Roachtown, Illinois
8. Loveladies, New Jersey
9. Squabbletown, California
10. Monkey’s Eyebrow, Kentucky
11. Chicken, Alaska