Nicholas Graham’s revelation of Carrboro’s backstory — how UNC president and chemist Francis P. Venable gratefully handed over title to the town’s name to the way less modest Julian Shakespeare Carr — reminded me of other instances in which North Carolina’s intent to honor the intelligentsia proved challenging:
— Conover is named for the Italian sculptor Antonio Canova.
— Murphy is named for the North Carolina educator Archibald Murphey.
— And the namesake town of the New England writer Oliver Wendell Holmes gets the spelling right — but calls itself (as acknowledged by the Gazetteer with a rare pronunciation tip) Wen-DELL.
Other examples, anyone?