READER REACTION. The reaction we got to our confusion over the names of New Jersey’s municipalities included another duplicate, Hampton Borough in Hunterdon County and Hampton Township in Sussex and the addition of West Cape May to Cape May City and Cape May Point. Then, just for the sake of confusion we should point out that Plainfield, North Plainfield, and South Plainfield are inexplicably in three different counties, Union, Somerset, and Middlesex, respectively. Also, a resident of Upper Freehold, which is south and west of Freehold Township with Millstone squarely between them, says “Damned if I can figure out how it’s even remotely situated ‘upper’ of Freehold.” And, perhaps uniquely in the nation, South Hackensack, once much larger, is split into three non-contiguous parts because several boroughs have been carved out of it over the years.

DISJOINTED. And South Hackensack isn’t the only municipality that isn’t contiguous. A sliver of Bergenfield is cut off from the rest of the borough by a few blocks and sits inside Dumont. Haddon Township boasts two enclaves, West Collingswood Heights and West Collingswood Extension, that are separated from Westmont, the township’s biggest piece by Collingswood. It doesn’t look to be a tripartite municipality, however, because the two outliers are connected at a single point, like the top and bottom of an hour glass, with a very narrow waist. Egg Harbor Township, on the other hand, is in three discrete parts. West Atlantic City and Anchorage Poynte, which lie on islands, are separated from the township’s large mainland portion not only by water but also by Somers Point, Linwood, Northfield, and Pleasantville.

MULTIPLE NON-MUNICIPAL MADNESS. We’ve had some fun with the craziness of municipal names — and that brings us to all the places that aren’t municipalities at all but whose names people offer when you ask them where they live. For example, nobody ever says “I live in South Brunswick.” They live in Dayton, Deans, Kendall Park, Kingston, Monmouth Junction, or any one of a half dozen smaller communities. Only those who live in Woodbridge proper, one of the eponymous township’s ten towns, will definitely say they live in Woodbridge. Many of the others will tell you they live in Avenel, Colonia, Fords, Hopelawn, Iselin, Keasbey, Menlo Park Terrace, Port Reading, or Sewaren — then some will add “in Woodbridge.” In neighboring Edison, on the other hand, nobody ever claims to be from Bonhamton, Clara Barton, Menlo Park or Nixon, although those are every bit as much neighborhoods as Woodbridge’s. There’s no figuring these things. People may pay their property taxes to Middle Township, but they’ll tell you they live in Burleigh, Cape May Courthouse, Goshen, Green Creek, Rio Grande, Whitesboro, or any one of another two dozen or so unincorporated communities too small to have their own zip codes but with evocative names like Nummytown and Potato Island. People whose votes get recorded under Galloway Township may tell you they reside in Absecon Highlands (not to be confused with the actual city of Absecon next door), Cologne, Conovertown, Germania, Higbeetown, Leeds Point, Oceanville, Pinehurst, Pomona, Smithville, South Egg Harbor (which is just south of the genuine municipality of Egg Harbor City), and a bunch of other communities. And Toms River has subdivisions on the mainland (Silverton and Pleasant Plains, for example) and on barrier islands (Chadwicks Beach Island, for example), but its most famous are across the bay on Barnegat Peninsula, most notably Dover Beaches North (Chadwick Beach, Normandy Beach, Ocean Beach, Silver Beach, and others) and Dover Beaches South, more commonly referred to as Ortley Beach.

CITIES. Urban dwellers don’t get it until we explain that, when you’re in Vailsburg or the Ironbound or Weequahic, you know you’re in Newark. If you’re driving through Communipaw or Greenville or Pavonia, you’re actually on Jersey City’s streets. Bayway, Elmora, and Keighry Head may not be all that familiar to outsiders, but Union County folks recognize them as parts of Elizabeth. If you’ve ever had a sub at the White House, you’ve been in Atlantic City’s Ducktown. Anyone who’s ever had dinner in Trenton understands that Chambersburg is part of the Capital City, while locals recognize Cadwalader Heights and Chestnut Park as neighborhoods there as well. (OK, West Trenton, which is part of Ewing Township, not so much. So, maybe it’s not that simple after all.)

WHAT ARE THEY? There are several thousand of these unincorporated communities. Some are old town centers that didn’t get split from larger townships and become doughnut holes. Others are 20th century developments. Many are Post Office designations. (That’s how the mail got delivered before the advent of zip codes in all those places with duplicate names.) Still others are Census designated places. Some have their own fire districts. Some have highway signs directing you to them; others survive in relative obscurity. Over the next few weeks we’ll take a look at some of these places and their maddening array of names.

MORE. An “endearing quirk” is what one of our wags calls the multiplicity of neighborhoods that turns our 565 municipalities into a bewildering array of several thousand place names. For example, in the past people eferred to different parts of North Bergen as Babitt, Bergenwood, Bull’s Ferry, Meadowview, New Durham, Nungessers, Transfer Station, the Racetrack (always THE Racetrack, never just Racetrack), and Woodcliff, but most current residents would look at you strangely if you told them they lived in one of those places. Similarly, old time Paterson residents would know where Dublin, the Eastside, Lakeview, Riverside, and the Totowa section (to distinguish it from the neighboring borough of the same name), are — and exactly which ethnic group lived in each. These days, as new ethnic groups have replaced the old, these names have been increasingly forgotten. On the other hand, only relative newcomers say they’re from Clifton, and longtime residents just shake their heads when they hear somebody say it. They’re still from Allwood, Athenia, Botany Village, Delawanna, Dutch Hill, Lakeview, Richfield, Rosemawr, or Styertowne. (You may have noticed that both cities have a section named Lakeview even though there’s no lake to view from either place. There is a Lakeview Avenue, which is the border between the two municipalities, but the only view from there is of the Passaic River.)

THE SUBURBS. If you live in Montgomery Township, you’ve never received a piece of mail that bears the name of the place. Instead, your address says Belle Mead (which also includes part of Hillsborough), Blawenburg, Princeton (which is a story unto itself), Rocky Hill (which is so small it had one of those school boards without a school until Jon Corzine abolished it), and Skillman. A native who wants to tell another native where he lives will offer a post office designation, but to outsiders the good burghers of Montgomery will describe their home town as “Montgomery. It’s just north of Princeton.” There are more than two dozen notable place names within Middletown, but whether folks declare their residency to be in the township as a whole or in one of its parts depends. Most residents will just declare Middletown to be the place they live. Those in the Lincroft section prefer that designation. And those who live along the Bayshore will claim Belford, Leonardo, or Port Monmouth as home. And, finally, there may be nothing more confusing than residing in Somerset. First, you have to specify whether it’s the one that’s part of Ewing or the one within Franklin Township. And, if it’s the latter, it doesn’t help much to say so, because, you’ll recall, there are four Franklin Townships in the state. So you also have to declare which county your Franklin Township is in. One Somerset resident we know simply describes his home as “Somerset, near New Brunswick” and lets it go at that.