# Cities with alternate names **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 11, 2014, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814 "2014-07-11T01:19:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/41 "2014-07-11T18:11:08Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > The capital of the Indian state of Kerala appers on maps by its full official name, > Thiruvananthapuram, but i commonly known, by Indians and outsiders alike, as Trivandrum, Similarly, Visakhapatnam is typically just called Vizag (at least by the Indians I know that live and visit there). ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/42 "2014-07-11T18:25:39Z")
> [@Green\_Bean](#): > > Are you counting things like where the name in English has changed but some people use the old one? Like Beijing/Peking or Mumbai/Bombay. Those came about because standard sets of type were intended for English, and anthropologists wanting to transliterate native names for places found they had problems, because some sounds were a lot more common than they were in English, while others were less common, or non-existent. So they would come up with substitutions. I guess “B” is much more common in whatever Chinese dialect calls the city “Beijing,” and “j” is common as well, letters that the anthropologists trying to set papers to mail back home, kept running out of. “P” I guess wasn’t common, nor was “k” (or maybe “K”), so they used “Peking” for “Beijing.” The people who set up the system knew to look at “Peking,” and pronounce it “Beijing,” but the system got lost. Eventually, there were better methods of printing, or people could use typewriters, and send one copy of a paper back home, and have it typeset and printed there. But old names people were used to persisted. It wasn’t until the information age, that there was the opportunity to correct old errors, and disseminate correct (or, more correct) pronunciations of city names. They’ll probably never call the dog “Beijinese,” though. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/43 "2014-07-11T20:07:07Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > _All_ of London is made up of separate political administrations, many (all?) of which have officers called mayors. London is almost more like a US county than a US city. The City of London is unique in several ways but it’s definitely a part of the administrative entity of Greater London. If you live in the City of London, you vote for the London Assembly and the Mayor of London just like you do if you live in the City of Westminster or the Borough of Lambeth. Okay, I knew that the City of London was not a borough of London and had its own municipal administration. I was not aware it also participated in Greater London Authority. ---
**Author:** ![storyguide3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@storyguide3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/storyguide3)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/44 "2014-07-11T21:27:45Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Those came about because standard sets of type were intended for English, and anthropologists wanting to transliterate native names for places found they had problems, because some sounds were a lot more common than they were in English, while others were less common, or non-existent. So they would come up with substitutions. I guess “B” is much more common in whatever Chinese dialect calls the city “Beijing,” and “j” is common as well, letters that the anthropologists trying to set papers to mail back home, kept running out of. “P” I guess wasn’t common, nor was “k” (or maybe “K”), so they used “Peking” for “Beijing.” The people who set up the system knew to look at “Peking,” and pronounce it “Beijing,” but the system got lost. > > Eventually, there were better methods of printing, or people could use typewriters, and send one copy of a paper back home, and have it typeset and printed there. But old names people were used to persisted. > > It wasn’t until the information age, that there was the opportunity to correct old errors, and disseminate correct (or, more correct) pronunciations of city names. > > They’ll probably never call the dog “Beijinese,” though. Ummm. Is this some sort of whoosh? In case it isn’t, Peking was the Postal Map Romanization of the characters of the city’s name, based on the pronunciation of those characters in southern Chinese dialects/languages. These were the first Chinese that westerners had extended contact with and got the name of the capitol from them. The southerners had more or less retained an older pronunciation of the chracters while Mandarin had drifted to the current Beijing. The “Beijing” romanization became standard when the PRC adopted Pinyin as the standard method to romanize Standard Mandarin. This meant that the standard Mandarin pronunciation was finally being used to romanize the characters. Nothing whatsoever to do with movable type, typewriters, or the information age. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/45 "2014-07-11T22:13:37Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > Shawnee-Mission, Kansas, is a suburban Kansas City urban area with a population of 350,000, but does not exist as any kind of an entity, except as a postal address… It is widely used as a local reference, but actually consists of 15 cities and towns. All of them use Shawnee-Mission KS as their postal address. Somewhat the same with Normandy, Missouri in suburban St. Louis. Normandy is both a city and an area including a bunch of small towns, villages and various unincorporated bits. They all share a ZIP code and a school district, but Normandy is only a small part of Normandy. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2014, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/46 "2014-07-12T01:40:54Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > They’ll probably never call the dog “Beijinese,” though. Nor will there ever be a dish called Beijing duck. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2014, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/47 "2014-07-12T04:40:42Z")
Bainbridge Island, WA, before it was incorporated into a single city, was a collection of townships like Winslow, Rolling Bay and Lynwood Center. Some businesses (like Bay Hay & Feed) still use these old names on their letterhead. The ferry between Seattle and Bainbridge had signs calling it “the Winslow ferry” until surprisingly recently, and many residents still call it that. Reston, VA gobbled up some sparsely-populated prior towns. One of them, Sunset Hills, was in its entirety the A. Smith Bowman Distillery. When its Reston location was still operational (I think they relocated to Fredericksburg in the 90s), it always referred to itself as “Sunset Hills, VA.” Alexandria, VA has some of the most well-defined city limits of any city in Virginia. But its northernmost neighborhoods refer to themselves as “Arlandria” and much of unincorporated Fairfax County directly south and west of it uses “Alexandria” as a mailing address. Neighboring Arlington, technically a county containing one city, still has its neighborhoods referred to as towns (Rosslyn VA, Crystal City VA, etc.). Some of Washington DC’s outer borough residents use the name of the neighborhood/bordering Maryland town in their mailing address (Takoma DC, Chevy Chase DC, Brookland DC, Georgetown DC). This was the correct thing to do until the 1960s, I’m told, when Washington proper was boundaried by Rock Creek and Rhode Island Avenue. Sometime during the LBJ administration, the Territorial Governor position was renamed “Mayor” and everything inside Western, Eastern and Southern Avenues was properly referred to as “Washington.” Home Rule was still a few years off and it’s still far from absolute. A buddy of mine used to run a mail-order business in New Jersey and had “Hell Township” on his letterhead. Turns out you can call your city/town/municipality anything you want as long as you get the ZIP Code right. ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2014, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/48 "2014-07-12T08:23:08Z")
[quote=“RivkahChaya, post:42, topic:692814”] Those came about because standard sets of type were intended for English, and anthropologists wanting to transliterate native names for places found they had problems, because some sounds were a lot more common than they were in English, while others were less common, or non-existent. So they would come up with substitutions. I guess “B” is much more common in whatever Chinese dialect calls the city “Beijing,” and “j” is common as well, letters that the anthropologists trying to set papers to mail back home, kept running out of. “P” I guess wasn’t common, nor was “k” (or maybe “K”), so they used “Peking” for “Beijing.” The people who set up the system knew to look at “Peking,” and pronounce it “Beijing,” but the system got lost. /QUOTE] Minor error in there… Its not the frequency of the usage, its the number of discrete sounds you want to record… you want to record two different B’s, and you notice that chinese doesn’t have any P sounds… so you use P for your 2nd B sound. Maybe you have a P’ if you really want to write P sound P. ---
**Author:** ![Donnerwetter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2014, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/49 "2014-07-12T16:06:50Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > Nor will there ever be a dish called Beijing duck. [The history of Beijing Duck](http://www.ebeijing.gov.cn/BeijingInformation/BeijingsHistory/t1137846.htm) 😉 ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2014, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/50 "2014-07-12T16:12:08Z")
In Indiana, there is a place called Ovid or New Columbus, and its welcome signs say so. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2014, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/51 "2014-07-12T16:30:50Z")
I often call my home town “East Cicero, Illinois.” ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2014, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/52 "2014-07-12T17:25:44Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > The capital of the Indian state of Kerala appers on maps by its full official name, > Thiruvananthapuram, but i commonly known, by Indians and outsiders alike, as Trivandrum, > [@Jas09](#): > > Similarly, Visakhapatnam is typically just called Vizag (at least by the Indians I know that live and visit there). I do gather that the southern half of India is famous / notorious for proper names “as long as your arm”. Another example, the city of Tiruchchirappalli – in Raj times, officially Trichinopoly; and, I understand, usually informally called Trichi. Also Tirunelveli – under British rule, Tinnevelly. The travel writer Dervla Murphy, who spent time in the south of India in the 1970s and mostly loved the area, wrote to the effect of: “I am blessed with neither a good ear nor a good memory, so southern-Indian names are a sore trial to me”. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2014, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/53 "2014-07-13T02:29:08Z")
> [@Donnerwetter](#): > > [The history of Beijing Duck](http://www.ebeijing.gov.cn/BeijingInformation/BeijingsHistory/t1137846.htm) > > 😉 Harumph! What do they know? :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2014, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/54 "2014-07-13T03:57:00Z")
I have a copy of _Esdaille’s Manual of Bibliography_ which includes a list of imprints–i.e., the stated city of publication. Many of the names are Latin translations, or long since disused English renditions (e.g. Treves). Some names soar into the realm of imagination and fancy for no obvious reason, from the perspective of a modern reader, e.g. “Cosmopolis” for Constantinople (almost always fictitious). I suspect this book is in the public domain, so I’ll look into the possibility of posting the list and run it by the mods. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2014, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/55 "2014-07-13T11:03:12Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > I know that a lot of cities in North and Couth America were founded by Spanish colonists or missionaries who gave the original settlements very long names. > > The full name of Buenos Aires, Argentina is " Ciudad de la Santísima Trinidad y Puerto de Santa María de los Buenos Aires." (City of the holy Trinity and port of Holy Mary of the fair winds) > > And the full name of Los Angeles, California is "“El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula” (village of Our Lady the queen of angels of the Porciúncula River). > > Nobody has used those full names in centuries, most likely. Similarly, La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asís, aka Santa Fe NM. For an example of one still actually used a fair amount, El Paso TX is referred to by some Spanish-speaking southwesterners as El Paso del Norte. ---
**Author:** ![JustinC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justinc/32/8083_2.png) [@JustinC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustinC)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2014, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/56 "2014-07-13T11:25:22Z")
**Llanfairpwllgwyngyll** is a large village on the island of Anglesey in Wales. It is alternatively known as, most commonly, **Llanfair PG** or, in full, **Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch**. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2014, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/57 "2014-07-13T13:16:17Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > Nor will there ever be a dish called Beijing duck. > [@Donnerwetter](#): > > [The history of Beijing Duck](http://www.ebeijing.gov.cn/BeijingInformation/BeijingsHistory/t1137846.htm) > > 😉 I’m digging back in my memory to my Beijing trip about 10 years ago, and I wasn’t feeling well\* this particular day, but I’m pretty sure I ordered Beijing Duck at a restaurant. I think this is actually how I came to realize that Beijing and Peking are the same place. \*I was recovering from a nice bout of food poisoning. And hiking up the Great Wall without enough water. In July. ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2014, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/58 "2014-07-13T13:21:25Z")
> [@JustinC](#): > > **Llanfairpwllgwyngyll** is a large village on the island of Anglesey in Wales. It is alternatively known as, most commonly, **Llanfair PG** or, in full, **Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch**. By my understanding, the village’s name was originally, just **Llanfairpwllgwyngyll** : some time during the last couple of centuries, waggish persons obviously with some influence locally, added all the other stuff on, in a spirit of satire of the tendency of not-very-large Welsh villages, to have hugely-long Welsh names. The whole rigmarole does have a meaning – lots of topographical and saints-and-churches stuff. If I understand rightly, the colossally-long name was seized on by locals seeing it as a way of cashing in on the tourist-and-curiosities factor. The village has a railway station, bearing the full long name – generally acknowledged as the rail station with the longest name (without intervening apostrophes) in the world. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2014, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/59 "2014-07-13T14:03:44Z")
That’s what Wikipedia says: > **[Llanfairpwllgwyngyll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llanfairpwllgwyngyll)** > > Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, or Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll (Welsh: \[ɬan.ˌvair.puɬˈɡwɨ̞n.ɡɨ̞ɬ\]), is a large village and community on the island of Anglesey, Wales, on the Menai Strait next to the Britannia Bridge and across the strait from Bangor. Both shortened (Llanfairpwll or Llanfair PG) and lengthened (Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch) forms of the placename are used in various contexts (with the longer form pronounced \[ˌɬan.vair.pʊɬ.ˌɡwɨ̞ŋ.ɡɨ̞ɬ.ɡɔ.ˌɡɛ.rə.ˌχwərn.ˌdrɔ.... ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2014, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/60 "2014-07-13T14:57:47Z")
> [@vontsira](#): > > The village has a railway station, bearing the full long name – generally acknowledged as the rail station with the longest name (without intervening apostrophes) in the world. By apostrophes above, I meant hyphens. Lynne Truss would have my guts for garters… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814.md?page=4)