In Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot, the town’s legal name is Jerusalem’s Lot.
Locals commonly shorten Jerusalem’s Lot to “’Salem’s Lot,” dropping the beginning of “Jerusalem” while retaining the apostrophe that signals the contraction. The town is also casually called “the Lot,” but Jerusalem’s Lot is its formal name in the novel’s fictional Maine setting.
The name matters because King uses it to connect the novel with his wider supernatural mythology. He had already written a short story titled “Jerusalem’s Lot,” later published in Night Shift, and the town appears again in the related story “One for the Road.” The novel’s title therefore reflects the town’s nickname rather than its full name.
A common mix-up is writing the book and town simply as “Salem’s Lot.” The 1975 novel is conventionally styled ’Salem’s Lot, with an opening apostrophe, while many film and television adaptations use Salem’s Lot without it. “Salem” alone is not the town’s official name.