Fugging, Austria

Since the Americans came into the town of Fucking in the 1940s following WWII, the Fuckingers, as people of the town were then called, had to deal with hordes of people posing in front of, defacing and stealing their street signs.

Originally named for the medieval Baron Focko, the town's name evolved through multiple iterations (Fukching and Fugkhing) before becoming Fucking in the 1700s. Despite the obvious choice of English articulation, the town is actually pronounced Fooking (rhymes with “booking”) and didn't raise the slightest eyebrow until English speakers came to the small town on Austria's western border.

Although the town of about 104 people drew in tourists for years with its name, the behavior associated with sign tourism in the area was only bad news for locals. Street signs were regularly stolen, including 15 thefts in just a few years and for a few years the town also had a problem with visitors filming themselves engaged in sexual acts in front of the signs as well.

To stop the mayhem, the town held a vote in 2004 to change the name, but it was kept, due to a stubborn mayor who didn't feel it necessary to change a name that had been around for 800 years before any tourists set foot there. After 2005, a number of measures were enacted to stop theft and lewd behavior, including theft-proof signage and closed-circuit televisions that monitored the town's four "Fucking" signs.

At the end of 2020, the town finally approved changing the name.