Enjoy DISH Cable TV Programming in Alpharetta, GA

Alpharetta might have been named after the heroine of a parlor song called "The Blue Juniata" from the 1800s. In the song, a Native American girl named Alfarata sings about her relationship with her warrior love while she's walking the banks of the Juniata River. The songwriter was Marion Dix Sullivan, who specialized in ballads and hymns and was one of the first-documented American women to write a hit song.

Today, metrics like Billboard rankings and copies sold factor in to a song's hit status, but back then it was really just how many people knew the song and how often they sang it at parties. That's what a parlor song was—a song that someone was bound to suggest to the next accomplished young woman at the piano, just like someone's bound to request "No Scrubs" at Old School Night at Cordell's. It didn't hurt that Mark Twain mentioned the song and its star status in his autobiography.

Whether "The Blue Juniata" is the source or not, the name Alpharetta gives a lyrical and wistful air to this lovely Atlanta suburb. And 160 years later, the city gives to the name as much as it gets, with a flourishing IT economy, increasingly diverse population, and mind-blowingly modern developments, like Avalon. For more music-themed history and other content, watch MTV and VH-1 on DISH Network, or keep your TV diet simple with a steady stream of drama. You can catch Big Brother with an America's Top package from DISH or Bigg Boss when you choose an international plan.