倫敦地鐵站的怪名字原來都大有來頭！

Oxford Circus
牛津馬戲團站

The oldest sense of circus is ‘a large building, surrounded with rising tiers of seats, for the exhibition of public spectacles’but, in this instance, it is simply a ‘circular open space at a street junction’.
circus最古老的意思是“一幢大樓，由層層座椅圍繞着，可以作展覽和公開表演之用”。但這裏就是“十字路口圓形空地”的意思。

King’s Cross St Pancras
國王的十字聖潘克洛斯站

This tube station services King’s Cross and St Pancras National Rail stations. The former is now perhaps best known for being Harry Potter’s entrance to Hogwarts, but the king in question is King George IV (who reigned 1820-1830), and the cross, a monument that was demolished in 1845. St Pancras was born around 289, and beheaded for his Christian faith when he was 14 years old.
這個地鐵站監管國王的十字和聖潘克洛斯國家火車站。前者即哈利波特通往霍格沃茨的車站，廣爲人知；但引人熱議的國王是指喬治四世（1820-1830執政）；而十字毀於1845年。聖潘克洛斯出生於約莫289年，14歲時因其基督信仰而被斬首。

Angel
天使站
It’s named after a former coaching inn on the Great North Road called the Angel, dating from the 17th century.
這個站名來源於大北方之路過去一家名爲“天使”驛站，可以追溯到17世紀。

Baker Street
貝克街站
The most famous resident of Baker Street is, of course, Sherlock Holmes. You might think that it was named after a maker of cakes of pastries, but its namesake is actually William Baker, a builder who laid out the street in the second half of the 18th century.
貝克街最著名的居民自然是夏洛克·福爾摩斯。或許你覺得這名字是根據蛋糕點心師傅取的，但事實上，街名來自建築師威廉·貝克，18世紀下半葉，貝克對這條街做了佈局規劃。

Bank
班克站
Bank is named after the Bank of England. Incidentally, it was voted the most disliked tube station in 2013.
班克（英語中”銀行“的音譯爲”班克“）取自英格蘭銀行。順便一提，2013年班克被投票選爲最受人討厭的地鐵站。

Canary Wharf
金絲雀碼頭站
Canary Wharf takes its name from a warehouse, built for the Mediterranean and Canary Islands fruit trade.
金絲雀碼頭的名字取自一間倉庫，倉庫是爲地中海和金絲雀島嶼水果貿易而建的。

Hainault
海諾特站
This unusual name comes from the Old English ‘Hyneholt or ‘Henehout’ and means ‘wood belonging to a religious community’.
這個不同一般的名字來自古英語的Hyneholt或者Henehout，意爲“宗教社區的樹木”。

Hanger Lane
漢格巷站
The lane is named after Hanger Hill. hanger comes from the Old English hangra, ‘a wood on a slope’.
這條巷子根據漢格山命名，"漢格"來自古英語hangra，意爲“斜坡上的樹林”。

Swiss Cottage
瑞士小屋站
This area owes its unusual name to a local inn. The Swiss Tavern, built in 1803-4, was in the style of a Swiss chalet – later renamed to the humbler Swiss Cottage.
這塊地區名字獨特是因爲當地的一家小旅館。“瑞士酒店”建於1803至1804年間，是瑞士小木屋風格，“瑞士小屋”這個名字要低調很多，是後來重新命名的。

Turnpike Lane
登碧裏站
It’s a historical term for a toll gate, though was originally a spiked barrier – thus a sense of pikemeaning ‘a spiked staff or stick’.
收費站史稱"登碧裏"，儘管最初指帶刺的障礙物，因而pike有“帶刺柺杖或棍子”之意。