Waterloo Region Citizens

I’ve had a handful of searches land on my site looking up “geographical humour”. I’m a bit surprised because I thought that those who were into geography were, as a rule, humourless. Since this might not be the case, I have more geographical humour for my area. It takes that old question, what to call citizens of a specific town, and through humour, degradation and puns tries to answer this for Waterloo Region. Here is my map to get a lay of the land. Waterloo Region is in southwestern Ontario, about 100 km west of Toronto.

Warning. Extreme pun alert. Nearly everything that follows will have a pun or three.

Well let’s start with the cities. Kitchener is the largest city and I believe the inhabitants should be called KitcheNERDs. That’s right, I’m going to emphasize every pun with capital letters. Like wise Waterloo residents should be called WaterLOONIES, and Cambridge residents should be called Cambridge Copycats. Why should it be this non pun? Simply put, I think in 1973 when Cambridge was formed they thought ahead to this very post and decided to name themselves something hard to corrupt. Others had noticed this incorruptibility in the past which is why there are almost as many Cambridges in the English speaking world as there are Springfields.

Four towns in Waterloo Region end in -berg or -burg so of course they will be called New HamBURGERs, BamBURGERs, PetersBURGERs and HeidelBURGERs. Then there are the -villes. Roseville natives should be called RoseVILLAINs, and Hawkesville natives should be called HawkesVILLAINs. People of the -dales ought to call themselves FloraDILDOs and BloomingDILDOs. The same insult can be used on the -hills, CrossDILDOs and MaryDILDOs.

I couldn’t corrupt a Saint so the 2nd part of these names needed to be worked upon. People from St. Jacobs, St. Clements, and St. Agatha become St. JakeOBSOLETEs, St. ClemENTRAILs, and St. AGHASTLIEs.

Of all the towns I think I’m letting Elmira off the easiest, calling its inhabitants ElmiraNITES. If you’re not from this area you might never get the play on the religious sect name, Mennonites, which Elmira has aplenty. From Conestogo you might have ConesTOKERs. You might see the WinterBURNT in Winterbourne. West Montrose would have West MontPOSERs.

WallensTEENIEs are from Wallenstein, LinWOODIEs hail from Linwood, WellesLEECHes are from Wellesley.

IRON Badens come from Baden, New DunDWEEBs are from New Dundee and AYR HEADs are from Ayr.

And that is my region and hopefully I’m all punned out for my next few posts.