The city of Lompoc is located in Santa Barbara County in California. There is an effort being made to change the city’s name from Lompoc to “Lompokemon”. This could be a brilliant way to encourage tourists to visit the city. It also could easily be the reason why the town gets laughed at as this story gets passed around the internet.
The name change from Lompoc to “Lompokemon” was a request that was on the agenda for the city’s most recent City Council meeting. The request was removed from the agenda at the last minute because the city wants to get permission from Nintendo to use the name “Lompokemon”.
They are asking Nintendo for permission, instead of Niantic, because Nintendo owns the trademark for Pokémon. The City Council is not going to move forward on anything until they receive approval to do so from Nintendo. If Nintendo approves of the “Lompokemon” name, the request for the name change would be brought back to the City Council (where it will either be approved of or refused).
As such, many things are unknown. It is not clear exactly how long Lompoc would be officially named “Lompokemon”. It could be for a weekend, or maybe for an entire week.
I suppose if the result of the name change is a huge boost in tourism, the new name could stick around until Pokémon GO loses popularity. Maybe they could put together a walking tour that takes people to all the PokéStops and PokéGyms. The city of Lompoc has a lot of murals – and public art tends to end up as PokéStops.