Are These 18 Texas Town Names Real, Or Made Up For Movies?

"Names have been changed to protect the innocent..."

Sometimes movies and TV shows make up city and town names for their stories. They can do this because they want to protect something about that area, or they don't want the preconceived notions about that city infecting their stories.

But sometimes cities and towns just have names that sound like they were made up. A place you see on a map and just laugh and say "there's no way", right before you pass the city limits sign. Think about places in Louisiana like Dry Prong, or Dinosaur, Colorado.

One of my favorite fake towns of all time is a Texas-based small town named West Canaan. Do you recognize that name at all? If you do, you were probably around the high school football universe in the late 1990s or early 2000s. Because that is the name of the town in the movie Varsity Blues

While there's no specific reason we can find online for the movie to create the fake town of West Canaan, we can make some assumptions. Without spoiling the movie, there are some major plot points that would be embarrassing for a real city to be affiliated with. At the same time, it could have impacted the story for viewers to try and rationalize the events of the movie taking place in a city they recognized.

But what about Texas cities that sound like they could be fake, but are 100% real?

In Texas, there are a lot of city names that sound like they're fake. Something make up for a movie. We're looking at names like Oatmeal, Dime Box, or Sugar Land. These all sound like fake places made up for movies.

Take a look at these bizarre community names from across Texas that weren't made up for movies: