Boston

For Little Rock Public Radio, this is Dan Boice, with Naming Arkansas.
Anyone driving through Northwest Arkansas is likely to pass through the lovely and rugged Boston Mountains, and one might wonder why a range of mountains or the city in Stone county is named for a Massachusetts city. The short answer is that nobody knows. There is an unproven surmise that “boston” might be some French expression for a rough road, and another that there was an American Western slang term referring to anything particularly difficult as “a Boston.” But neither of these theories has a shred of evidence. Journalist Ernie Dean offers at least a reasonable explanation, in which the French word “bosse” can mean “an elevated surface,” so “your hill” could be “bosse ton.” The Massachusetts city was named for a town in England, which was itself named for St. Botolph, but it seems likely that the origin for the distinctive New England name of some Arkansas mountains and a town will remain a matter of entertaining conjecture.
For the University of Arkansas at Monticello this is Dan Boice.