After years of disputes, the inhabitants of the Austrian settlement of Fucking decided to change its name. From next year, the village with a hundred inhabitants will be called Fugging. The locals want to avoid the unwanted attention they faced due to the similarity of the name of the settlement with the English vulgar expression for sexual intercourse.
Fucking is located in Upper Austria, about thirty kilometers north of Salzburg. After years of debate, the change of the name of the settlement to Fugging was approved by the council of the municipality of Tarsdorf, of which the village is a part.
“The municipal council has decided to rename the settlement Fucking to Fugging with effect from 1 January 2021,” it said in a resolution published on the Tarsdorf website. “I can confirm it – but I will not comment on it more,” Mayor Andrea Holzner told Reuters.
According to the Austrian media, the locals changed the name probably because they were already tired of the interest of jokers on the Internet and those who came to Fucking to take a photo at a sign indicating the beginning or end of the village. In addition, traffic signs with the words Fucking became the subject of frequent thefts, and the municipality of Tarsdorf had to pay for their replacement.
According to some sources, the name of the village is derived from the name of a certain Adalpert von Vucckingen, who lived here in the 11th century. According to other sources, the Bavarian nobleman Focko, who lived as early as the 6th century, is to blame. The suffix -ing is relatively common in the names of Bavarian municipalities.
The Fucking settlement has so far been a permanent part of the lists of local names that evoke a smile on the faces of people who know English. After visiting the Upper Austrian village, sly tourists often headed to Petting in Bavaria, which is less than 20 kilometers from Fucking, or to the slightly more distant Bavarian village of Kissing.
Czech municipalities, such as Pičín and Řitka in Central Bohemia, also face a similar unwanted interest as Fucking.
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