Residents were fed up with the way the village’s name was used in English.
A name is an incredibly important part of a person’s or a place’s identity. Sometimes they even have personal, cultural, familial and historical connections. There are places that are named after a river or a mountain or even a temple. But in Austria, a village had to suffer embarrassment for decades because of its name. And the rapid spread of the Internet and social media made it worse for F***ing, who renamed himself Fugging. This decision was made in 2021, after years of persistent derision.
According to an old report in The Guardian, Fugging is located 260 km west of the Austrian capital Vienna. With the rise of travel influencers, especially from English-speaking countries, this popular stopping point for tourists began to appear in a negative light. These travel bloggers took pictures of themselves near the road signs at the entrance and exit of the village with the word F***ing and posted them on social media. Dozens of road signs were stolen, forcing local authorities to erect them at a height of 2 meters and embed them in anti-theft concrete when they set up replacements.
The villagers were called “F***ingers”, adding insult to the already wounded pride of the locals. They became the butt of jokes on social media, leading to the decision to change the name of the place.
Fugging is part of the municipality of Tarsdorf, north of Salzburg and near the German border.
Officially settled around 1070, the village was probably named after a local nobleman named Adalpert von Vucckingen, although local lore suggests that a sixth-century Bavarian aristocrat named Focko actually founded the settlement, said The Guardian report.
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