What’s in a name?
We’re all familiar with most of the cities and towns throughout the Bay Area, but do you know how they got their names?
What was Oakland’s original name?
• You’re not fooling us; it was Oakland
from the start.
• Encinal del Temescal, which roughly translated is “the oak grove near the sweat lodge.”
• East San Francisco
How did Sunnyvale get its optimistic name?
• Residents delighted in the fact that the area had the most sunshine (or fog-free days, at least) of any Bay Area city, so they named their town Sunnyvale.
• It was pure crass marketing by the real estate speculator Walter E. Crossman. The town was originally called Murphy, but Crossman pushed the Sunnyvale name as a way to “attract winter-weary Easterners to a new world of sunshine, fruit and flowers.”
• The townspeople voted to incorporate, but couldn’t decide on a name. They finally agreed that the next morning, they would look out their windows and let the weather decide. Fortunately, it was sunny that day, or the town could have been called Foggyville.
The origins of Napa’s name aren’t clear, although most historians believe it’s derived from an indigenous word for village, fish or maybe grizzly bear. But what we do know is that originally, it was spelled Nappa. What happened to the second P?
• When recording the town’s official name and zip code, a postal clerk in Washington accidentally omitted the second P — and once it had become official, the post office refused to change it.
• The two Ps were considered vulgar, and the Women’s League for Decency petitioned the town leaders to change the spelling.
• No one really knows. Sometime around 1848, the second P just disappeared from use.
What’s the meaning behind Vacaville?
• The literal translation of Vacaville is cow (vaca) town (ville), and the town once had a thriving cattle market. • The original landowner, Juan Manuel Vaca, agreed to sell off the property for development on the condition the city was named after him. Voila.
• It was all a misunderstanding. Leaders of the new town wanted to call it Encantador Casa , meaning “enchanted home,” but something went wrong with the translation, and they ended up with Vacaville. bought eight HP audio oscillators to test recording equipment for which movie?
• “Fantasia”(1940) • “Pinocchio” (1940) • “Sleeping Beauty” (1959)
What’s the crookedest street in San Francisco?
• The Embarcadero • Vermont Street, near 20th • Lombard Street
The Hell’s Angels were hired to provide protection at what turned out to be the infamous “Gimme Shelter” Altamont Speedway Free Festival concert in December 1969. What were they paid for the gig?
• $50 per motorcycle
• $500 in beer
• The concert was such a disaster, they
ended up making nothing.
When Super Bowl XIX was played at the old Stanford Stadium, which relatively new, soon-to-be superstar company gave away seat cushions to provide padding for all those wooden stadium benches?
• Apple • Google • Amazon
What now-mega event was first launched at San Francisco’s Baker Beach in 1986 with about 35 attendees?
• Burning Man • Bottle Rock • Coachella
Where did Francis Ford Coppola write most of the “The Godfather” screenplay?
• Caffe Trieste in North Beach
• At American Zoetrope, the film production company he founded with George Lucas
• A hospital bed
What Bay Area community bills itself as California’s First Hollywood?
• Berkeley • Santa Clara • Niles
KCBS Radio got its start when Charles David “Doc” Herrold, who ran Herrold’s College of Wireless and Engineering in San Jose, broadcast his first voice transmissions in 1909. Herrold began regularly scheduled broadcasts in 1912. What was the station’s radio identification?
• KNBC
• KSFO
• San Jose Calling
A California winery stunned the world when its vintage cabernet sauvignon won the 1976 Judgment of Paris, effectively putting California and its Napa Valley on the global wine map. What was the name of the winery?
• Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars • Gallo
• V. Sattui Winery