STRICTLY BUSINESS: NEWS, SUN, JOURNAL AND SOUTHEAST MISSOURIAN

The newspaper you're reading is the Southeast Missourian.

Other newspapers you scan periodically are probably called the News, the Sun or the Post, maybe the Journal. And that's OK ... most American newspapers have names like these.

In the "Shoe-Me State" alone, you'll find no fewer than 45 Journals, counting the 30 or so publications in the St. Louis Suburban Journals group.

Another favorite Missouri name is News, followed by Sun, and Tribune.

There are more than 1,600 daily newspapers in the United States, and another 7,500 weekly or semi-weekly newspaper publications, and the lion's share of them boast such monikers as News, Sun, Journal and Times.

Check newspaper names in every state, including Alaska and Hawaii, and you'll find News and Advertiser.

On the other hand, a relative handful have names that depart, sometimes startlingly, from the two-dozen or so standards. And, in some cases a good story usually accompanies the exceptions.

Like the Laramie (Wyo.) Boomerang. It was named for a mule.

Then, there's the Boomerang

The Boomerang newspaper was founded in 1881 by Bill Nye. That name may be familiar, he was a well-known literary humorist and author of a book or two, or more.

Ney was also known to imbibe a bit from time to time, and when he did so, he would usually disappear from home. Luckily, he would usually do so with his mule. And the mule, with Nye aboard, always came back.

Because the mule always came back, Nye named him Boomerang. And when Nye started his newspaper, he gave it the same name --Boomerang.

Fans of Superman will have no trouble guessing where the name of the Metropolis Planet came from. The paper was previously known as the Metropolis News, but it took a new name, The Planet, in 1971, when the small Southern Illinois town officially "adopted" Superman.

Metropolis is the only Metropolis in the United States, and once a year the community of 7,200 holds its annual Superman Days, which attracts more than 50,000 to 60,000 visitors over a three-day period.

The Youngstown (Ohio) Vindicator is another novel name. George Kelley, a longtime editorial writer, says that it was founded by one J. H. Odell, a printer who had been "run out" of Beaver Falls, Pa., about the time of the Civil War for the sin of being a Democrat.

When he got to Youngstown, said Kelley, Odell started a newspaper he hoped would vindicate him. That's supposedly where the name came from.

Some papers with unusual names were rooted in another era and then hung on.

The Tiller and Toiler

The Larned (Kan.) Tiller and Toiler was originally founded in Indiana in 1882 by Frank P. McMahon, a supporter of farmers and working men. He took the paper and its name, representing those two groups, to Larned a few years later and the name remained.

Another political organ was the Cecil Whig of Elkton, Md. Editor Donald Henning says that Cecil County, Md., already had a paper called the Democrat in 1841, when supporters of the opposing Whig Party decided to launch a paper of their own. The Whig is still the Whig.

Then, there's the Casket. When the Antigonish (Nova Scotia) Casket was founded in 1852, a "casket" was a box in which a woman kept her precious jewels. As the meaning of the word changed, the newspaper considered a name change but decided to stick with its original name.

It's a name that sticks, said the editor, adding: "I can go into the office of an advertiser in Montreal and he's heard of the Casket."

Some newspapers get their unusual names from the industry of their home communities. These include the Oil City (Pa.) Derrick; the Hereford (Texas) Brand; The Crystal Falls (Mich) Diamond Drill, located in the iron mine country where diamond bits are used as drills. Another mine-oriented country newspaper is the Fairbanks (Alaska) News-Miner.

Chieftain and Gondolier

Others take their names as an offshoot of the names of their communities. The Tecumseh, Neb., newspaper is named for an Indian chief, so its newspaper is the Chieftain. There aren't many canals in Venice, Fla., but it still makes sense that its newspaper is the Sun Coast Gondolier.

Others selected their names for the area covered by news, hence the Southeast Missourian of Cape Girardeau and Southern Illinoisan of Carbondale, Ill.

And, in some cases, the combination of community and newspaper results in a pun, like the De Queen Bee and the Yellville Echo, both in Arkansas. De Queen Bee has since become De Queen Citizen.

Conway, Ark., 30 miles west of Little Rock, calls its newspaper the Log Cabin Democrat. Little Rock? It's the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Some names are less easily explained. Several suburban Detroit newspapers -- at least 10 -- are called Eccentric. The founders of the original Birmingham (Mich.) Eccentric were a group of local bachelors who founded a social club in the pattern of the Explorers, to which Jules Verne's Phileas Fogg belonged in "Around the World in Eighty Days." The Michigan group called its clubs the Eccentrics, hence the newspaper name.

And the Picayune

One of the best-known offbeat names is the New Orleans Times-Picayune. When the New Orleans Picayune was founded in 1837, it sold for 6 cents, the value of a Spanish coin by the same name.

By 1890, the paper's name was well-established. That year, two brothers who had worked for the Picayune, started their own paper in Beeville, Texas. In memory of their former employer, they called it the Beeville Picayune.

There are some other unusual names: The Council Bluff (Iowa) Nonpareil, the Burlington (Iowa) Hawk Eye, Hilton Island (S.C.) Packet, Palatine (Ill.) Harbinger, Henderson (Ky.) Gleaner and the Los Angeles Daily Breeze.

Of course, someone starting a newspaper today and determined to give it an unusual name could follow the example of the newspaper in Wahoo, Neb. The Wahoo newspaper is The Wahoo Newspaper.

B. Ray Owen is business editor for the Southeast Missourian.