The epitaph on poet Charles Bukowski's grave says "Don't Try."
Whoever is naming the new cities around Atlanta has clearly adopted the same philosophy.
To put it kindly, Georgia's newest cities have lame names.
Stonecrest? If you name anything after a mall you're doing it wrong.
I'd suggest running whoever came up with that gem out of town but they'd probably like living someplace that doesn't sound like a subdivision.
South Fulton? I've seen squirrels employ more imagination.
County government is so bad in these parts new cities pop up like mushrooms in a cow pasture after a warm rain.
If you want to buy a house in a town that sounds like it's rife with vinyl siding, metro Atlanta has you covered.
Chattahoochee Hills was incorporated in 2007, Peachtree Corners in 2011. Fortunately for our ears, Greenhaven and LaVista Hills failed to materialize.
As bad as those are, it gets worse. Johns Creek sounds like a sewage spill.
New Georgia city names haven't always stunk.
Our forefathers didn't feel the need to get fancy. They just looked at a map of somewhere else and picked a word in a big font.
Georgians in Dublin, Athens and Rome knew a good thing when they saw it.
Sure, some things got mispronounced along the way but that made the cities sound even cooler. It also gave the locals a quick way of spotting interlopers.
Berlin (BRRR-lin), Georgia sounds nothing like Berlin, Germany.
Cairo (KAY-row) sounds like syrup used to make pecan pies, not the city in Egypt.
Vienna sounds like tiny sausages, not the capitol of Austria.
As a young reporter, I covered the Big Pig Jig and the mayor of Vienna asked me to introduce myself at a city council meeting. I stood up and said I was happy to be in "VEE-in-uh" instead of "VIE-anna" and you'd have thought I passed gas by all the hooting and hollering that ensued.
I never returned.
Cordele, I learned, was less tricky to pronounce.
Coming up with better names than Stonecrest and South Fulton is so easy we can barely try and do better.
To create mass Google search confusion, how about Stonecrest being renamed Tbilisi? I'm not sure how we'd mispronounce that one but there's plenty of opportunity. "TEE-BILL-easy" makes the place sound wealthy.
South Fulton needs a little jazzing up. How about "Forgottenburg?"
Some new Georgia cities got it right by sticking with tradition.
Milton sounds like someone's kind uncle. It's also the name of a county that merged with Fulton during the Great Depression to avoid bankruptcy.
Tucker sounds like a Labrador Retriever and a solid town with a noisy railroad line running through it.
Sandy Springs? A bit misleading because I've yet to see any sand or a spring, but I like it.
If you travel our great state you will quickly learn Georgia was once festering with creativity.
I'll never forget the time I drove my girlfriend to Climax, located in Decatur County near Bainbridge.
And even though it's not a real city, the residents of Hopeulikit (pronounced "Hope you like it") should take a bow.
Down where I'm from almost every village sounds chock full of awesome.
Enigma, Ty Ty, Omega, Eldorado, Sparks, Chaserville ...
I'm likely biased, but those are the kind of names people might actually enjoy writing on an envelope for the rest of their lives.
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