To Deuce of Clubs

The Site of
Unimaginatively
Named Cities

Autographed copies of Adventures with the Mojave Phone Booth are now available!
 

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The Site of Unimaginative City Names:
Naco, Arizona

Tom A. suggests that Naco, Arizona is a contraction of the final two letters of Mexico and the final two letters of Arizona. I had always thought that was a shaggy tale. There are some other possibilities for the name's origin, such as "because the railroad line on which it was built was constructed principally to reach mines at Nacosari (sic), Sonora, Mexico" (Will C. Barnes, Arizona Place Names or that "Naco, Arizona and Naco, Mexico are the only towns in the Americas, North, South and Central, that are named for a CHEMICAL FORMULA. N being Nitrogen, Ac, representing Actinium, and O, which of course, represents Oxygen. A combination of these three chemicals would give us a bomb so powerful that it could knock us plumb `out of round.'" Also, apparently naco in the opata language refers to prickly pear fruit.

So... anyone know for sure the origin of the name Naco?