Big Butt Mountain refers not to one summit but to five distinct mountains across western North Carolina. The name uses “butt,” an older corruption of “butte,” reflecting local naming traditions in the southern Appalachians rather than any unusual feature of the terrain. Two of these peaks lie partly in Buncombe County, on the county lines with Haywood and Yancey. Others stand in Haywood County within Great Smoky Mountains National Park, in Macon County, and along the North Carolina–Tennessee border in Madison and Greene counties. Together, they show how regional place names often grew from local usage and older geographic terms.