The Myth about Nappanee

My hometown is named "Nappanee". In Nappanee it is well-known that it is the only city in the US with each letter in the name repeated twice. Except, it isn't true. Growing up in Nappanee, I had heard this story many times. This myth occassionally makes its way onto Wikipedia with a citation to a page like this one. Despite the fact that Hannah, ND also has this property.

Also, in that fix to the page I noted that Nappanee in the longest city name with this property in the US, though I didn't give evidence.

I suspected the myth was false, so I gathered the US census data and analyzed it with a simple Python script. I have created this page and have posted along with it (in addition to the above counterexample) the script and the data needed to prove this for yourself.

I wonder if the people of Hannah have this myth as well.

Download Source Code and Data

City Names in the US with Each Letter Repeated Twice

Notice, however, that Nappanee is the longest city name in the US with each letter repeated twice (assuming the correctness of my code and that the census data is complete).

Additionally, as far as I could find in the data there is no city name with each letter being repeated more than twice.


Ryan Stutsman