Lake Wobegon - Name

Name

On the show Keillor says the town's name comes from a fictional old Indian word meaning "the place where we waited all day in the rain ." Keillor explains, "Wobegon" sounded Indian to me and Minnesota is full of Indian names. They mask the ethnic heritage of the town, which I wanted to do, since it was half Norwegian, half German." The English word "woebegone" is defined as "affected with woe" and can also mean "shabby, derelict or run down." The term could also be a compound word: composed of "woe" "be" and "gone", as in "woe, be gone".