About

Wauconda, Illinois is a town about 40 miles north of Chicago that is frequently sarcastically mistaken for the fictional country of Wakanda from the Marvel superhero franchise Black Panther due to their phonetic similarities.

Origin

Wauconda, IL was formalized in 1849 and named after an indigenous chief whose name translated to 'spirit water.'"^[1]

On February 16th, 2018, the film Black Panther premiered in the United States, popularizing the fictional country of Wakanda, the film's main setting. The following week, The Hollywood Reporter published a story on the effect the film's popularity had on the town. In the report, the town officials said that since the film's release, they received prank phone calls that reference the film (shown below).

Spread

On February 23rd, 2018, the connection between Wauconda and Wakanda was discussed on a segement for the morning talkshow Good Morning America. When posted to YouTube, the segment received more than 55,000 views (shown below).

Final Four

On April 6th, 2019, Texas Tech played Michigan State in the semi-finals of the National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball tournament. When announcing the players, many online were struck by Wauconda-resident Matt Mooney, who played for Texas Tech.

Twitter user @DonteStallworth posted a video of the announcment. THe post recieved more than 630 retweets and 2,700 likes in two days (shown below).

“Wakanda,” Illinois pic.twitter.com/hS3mZ8PCag

— Donté Stallworth (@DonteStallworth) April 7, 2019

Following the post, others joked about the name of the town on Twitter (examples below).

That day, Twitter published a Moments page on the response.^[2]

Search Interest

External References