Novi: the town probably named by a Roman numeral

Nobody can prove how Novi got its name, and that’s half the fun. The favorite local explanation: it was stop “No. VI” — toll gate six on the Grand River plank road, or the sixth stagecoach stop out of Detroit, or simply the sixth township platted in this corner of Oakland County — and the number on the sign, “No. VI,” fused into a word. Historians quibble over which version holds up (the township was named in 1832, before the toll road existed), but every version ends the same way: a name you’ll find nowhere else on earth.

Fittingly, the uniquely named town became metro Detroit’s most international suburb. Novi is home to the largest Japanese community in Michigan — Japanese officials affectionately call it “Little Tokyo” — thanks to decades of automotive and engineering firms posting families here, drawn by the schools and kept by the welcome. That means genuinely excellent Japanese groceries, bakeries, and restaurants alongside the Twelve Oaks retail sprawl everyone knows. A town named by a numeral, fluent in two languages — Novi is more interesting than its freeway exits let on.