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Arkham City is a recurring place H. P. Lovecraft's prose - the location of Miskatonic university which hosts the deadly Necronomicon. It is also "famous" for Arkham sanitarium, where end those who had an unfortunate chance to glance at things they shouldn't. But besides these two places, it's a beautiful New England town.

Why then is the infamous psychiatric hospital where maniacs such as Joker or Two-Face spend their time between escapes called the same name? Is it pure coincidence or is there a connection between those two places?

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  • Parson's State Insane Asylum
    – Snoop
    Mar 19, 2016 at 1:44

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Yes, it was.

From Wikipedia:

The Arkham Asylum is named after the Sanatorium in the fictional city of Arkham, Massachusetts, found in many of H.P. Lovecraft's short horror and science fiction stories, the first being "The Unnamable" (1923).

In-universe, though, it is called Arkham Asylum because it was founded by a man named Arkham.

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Yes, from DC Comics editor Jack C. Harris:

One summer, I immersed myself in the dark works of H. P. Lovecraft... It was during a conversation with writer Denny O'Neil, before I had even graduated from college, that I suggested that Batman villains such as Two-Face and Joker should never be housed in a common prison; they should be locked away in an insane asylum. And what better asylum could there be for such maniacs than Arkham, the dark dwelling of the tormented souls from Lovecraft's horrific tales? Denny agreed and used the idea, making Arkham my first contribution to the foundations of the Dark Age of Comics. (It's all there, in Batman #258, [October] 1974, the true first appearance of Arkham Asylum in DC Comics...)

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