On a recent visit to Philadelphia, I was driving in to Center City from the south side when I suddenly saw a street sign with a name that made me jump a little. It read: MOYAMENSING AVE.

And I’m thinking…how and when did Bangladeshis in South Philly succeed in getting a large avenue named after Mymensingh, Bangladesh (with a slight distortion in spelling)?

After my initial intrigue, a couple weeks later I was bored and googling and came across some information…

Apparently Moyamensing was one of the earliest townships created after the settlement of Pennsylvania. The name dates back at least as early as 1684 (around the time of William Penn’s arrival), when the tract of land was handed over by the Dutch to the British. It was officially incorporated as Moyamensing Township of Philadelphia in 1812, and today remains a neighborhood in South Philadelphia.

Just as interesting is the meaning of “moyamensing.” It is said to be the original Native American name for the area, and actually means……pigeon droppings! How tragic.

I found this description on a website:

“Moyamensing signifies an unclean place, a dung-heap. At one time great flocks of pigeons had their roost in the forest and made the place unclean for the Indians, from whom it received its name.”

So I was finding this thing really interesting. Was it possible that there was a misunderstanding about the Native American word, and that really it came from Bengal? (This would be pretty exciting).

Or was the opposite possible? That Mymensingh in Bangladesh was actually named after this place in Philadephia? That some Dutch or British trader from Pennsylvania traveled to Bengal and in a moment of annoying humor named the place after a dung heap?

After doing a little research on the naming history of Mymensingh in Bangladesh, I found an article in a 1964 issue of The Oriental Geographer published in Dhaka. It said that “Mymensingh” is actually a distortion of the name “Momenshahi,” a place named after Momen Shah, who was zamindar of the biggest pergana in the district during Akbar’s time.

I guess it’s just a big coincidence…