L. Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz, had finished the outline to his famous book, but he hadn't come up with the name of the enchanted land where Dorothy, the Tin Man, Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion sought the help of the Wizard. As he gathered up his files, Baum's eyes fell upon a drawer in his filing cabinet marked, "O-Z." And thus he came up with a land called "Oz."

There's nothing peculiar about Peculiar, Missouri, Frank Gallant learned in researching a book about unusual American place-names. In 1868 the town's first postmaster proposed names that Washington, D.C. kept rejecting.

Exasperated, he wrote the Postmaster General asking him to take over the job: "We don't care what name you give us so long as it is sort of peculiar." And so it was.

Some places got their names by acci…