A lesbian couple are outraged after the name of their road was changed on Google Maps – to “Fagits Live Here”.

Jennifer Mann and Jodi McDaniel live in a rural area of Canton, North Carolina along with their three children, on a small private road.

The family were shocked to discover last week that the road had been added to a the mapping application – which sometimes gets its data from community inputs – with the offensive name.

Ms Mann labelled the incident a “hate crime”, and told the Citizen-Times: “I just thought, ‘Are you kidding me?’ I tried to contact Google, but I was put on hold forever and ever.

“This day and time, with people and hate, you just can’t live your life.

“We live ordinary lives, just like everybody else. Now it looks like I’m being a target.”

It is not known when or by whom the road – which is not present on most maps – was added to Google Maps. It has since been pulled offline, following media coverage.

Ms McDaniel said: “We just stay to ourselves and live our lives. They just need to grow up.”

She also criticised Google for not spotting the problem sooner, saying: “They’ve got to be able to red flag it.”

Earlier today, Google removed a game uploaded to its Play store, in which users are instructed to kill as many gay people as possible.