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Rat Trap in Westmoreland is one among several communities across Jamaica with weird names. For the residents of this rural community, the name Rat Trap has a magnetic pull, which helps to bring much laughter and sparks lively conversations whenever it is mentioned.

Ruel Cunningham, 92, who lives in Belvedere Mountains, said that the name Rat Trap did not come about because of any infestation of houses by field rodents, and that the community does not have a history of any unusual presence of rats.

Instead, the senior said that The Rat Trap, which is actually a square, got its name from the antics of James McKenzie, who built and operated a tiny grocery shop in there during the 1870s and 1880s.

Cunningham said that he heard that when persons asked McKenzie what he was doing at the time of building his shop, he responded saying: "It's a little rat trap mi setting".

McKenzie is said to have called his shop a 'rat trap', as it attracted patronage from persons living in the square and from the adjoining communities of Belvedere Mountains and the wider Kew Park.

Today, a welcome sign erected by the members of the Kew Park Police Youth Club serves as the only identification of the community's name. The sign is also evidence of how proud the members of the community are of its weird name.

"It has been centuries now that the community has been named as Rat Trap. I don't think we will ever agree to change it. Yes, it is weird, but we love our Rat Trap community name," Cunningham told THE WEEKEND STAR.

Michelle McKenzie-Dolly, 52, the great-granddaughter of James McKenzie, concurred with Cunningham that the community's name is weird but she too has no desire for it to be changed.

"Personally, I would not support changing the name, especially since it has my family legacy tied to it," McKenzie-Dolly said from her adopted home in Toronto, Canada. "I have never heard anybody suggesting a new name, we love the name."

McKenzie-Dolly said that the little shop that her great-grandfather referred to as Rat Trap was located near their family home.

"An assortment of baked products from my grandmother's brick oven was sold in that shop my great-grandfather had built, along with other grocery items," McKenzie-Dolly said, while revealing that the story about her great-grandfather's shop being a rat trap has to do with its size.

"It was very tiny. They said it was not much bigger than a rat trap," she said, adding that it had a sort of magnetic pull.

"Whether or not you want to buy from Mr Mac (James McKenzie), you had to show up there anyway because of his sweet mouth and charisma," McKenzie-Dolly said.

She said the area is really Rat Trap Square, as opposed to the district or community of Rat Trap.

"Over time, the general community has taken on the name to say that they live at Rat Trap, but technically, the only people who live at Rat Trap are those who live right in the square," McKenzie-Dolly said.

Millicent Ulett is one of the proud residents of Rat Trap. "We love the name of our community ... . The name may be weird, but it nice and it helps to bring out a smile on the faces of many people from other communities," she said.

"When I go to the bank and those places and tell them that I live in Rat Trap them always laugh at me, but I find it amusing too, so it doesn't worry me. It's original and I would not change it," said Ulett, who has followed McKenzie's footsteps by establishing a shop in Rat Trap.