# 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:** 5
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/81 "2014-07-21T06:28:33Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > Cologne is just the Anglicization of Koln, much like Munich:Munchen, Vienna:Wien, etc. Nitpick: “Cologne” is not an anglicisation; it’s French. One of the features of English is that it quite often adopts, as the English name of a city in country A, the name of that city in the language of country B. Thus the Italian city of Firenze is called, in English, by its French name, Florence. Same goes for Roma, Milano, Venezia and several other places. The Austrian city of Wien, by contrast, is called by its Italian name, Vienna. München is referred to by its French name, Munich. For Berne, a German-speaking city in Switzerland, the English use the French name (Berne); for Genève, a French-speaking city, they use the Italian name (Geneva). And so forth. ---
**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 21, 2014, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/82 "2014-07-21T08:59:01Z")
Does Monaco have more than one city, or do Monaco and Monte Carlo refer to exactly the same boundaried entity? ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/83 "2014-07-21T09:19:54Z")
Monaco, the country, consists of one municipality, also called Monaco. The municipality, in turn, is divided into a number of wards, one of which is Monte-Carlo. There are currently 11 (I think) wards, but at one time there were only three, of which Monte-Carlo was much the most signficant, and Monte-Carlo was sometimes used to refer to the entire country. Monaco, in Italian, is also the name of the German city that English- and French-speakers call Munich, and it’s possible that this contributed to the use of Monte-Carlo to refer to the entire principality. ---
**Author:** ![Ispolkom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e47774/32.png) [@Ispolkom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ispolkom)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/84 "2014-07-21T17:51:03Z")
Many cities in Eastern Europe have changed names as they changed nationality. Lviv, in western Ukraine, has in the last hundred years also been called L’vov, Lwow, and Lemberg. ---
**Author:** ![Kartoffel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Kartoffel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kartoffel)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/85 "2014-07-21T20:19:21Z")
People from Cologne/Köln call it Kölle (it’s a sort of nickname). Barmen and Elberfeld merged about 90 years ago and now they are called Wuppertal (a completely new name, like when two companies merge). However there are still people who were born in Elberfeld or Barmen. In 1990, Karl-Marx-Stadt was renamed (back) Chemnitz. Finally, a funny airline has been renaming tiny villages close to its main airports to promote them as tourist destinations: the town of Stansted is now known by “Continental” Europeans as “London”, while Hahn, inhabited by 178 people, has become “Frankfurt”. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/86 "2014-07-21T20:23:59Z")
Portsmouth (England) is widely known colloquially as ‘Pompey’ - to the extent that official organisations use the term, for example: [https://www.portsmouth.gov.uk/ext/health-and-care/health/healthy-pompey.aspx](https://www.portsmouth.gov.uk/ext/health-and-care/health/healthy-pompey.aspx) [http://portsmouth.anglican.org/pompeychimes](http://portsmouth.anglican.org/pompeychimes) ---
**Author:** ![Kartoffel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Kartoffel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kartoffel)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/87 "2014-07-21T20:26:29Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > for Genève, a French-speaking city, they use the Italian name (Geneva). And so forth. Nitpick: the Italian name of Geneva is “Ginevra” (which is btw the same as the Italian translation of Guinevere, so Italians tend to think that Lancelot was in love with a Swiss lady). ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/88 "2014-07-21T21:34:46Z")
Every Chinese city I can think of has an archaic name from some other era, which is often used by marketers and others trying evoke a romantic image. ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/89 "2014-07-21T23:10:43Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > Cologne is just the Anglicization of Koln, much like Munich:Munchen, Vienna:Wien, etc. > [@UDS](#): > > Nitpick: “Cologne” is not an anglicisation; it’s French. > > One of the features of English is that it quite often adopts, as the English name of a city in country A, the name of that city in the language of country B. Thus the Italian city of Firenze is called, in English, by its French name, Florence. Same goes for Roma, Milano, Venezia and several other places. The Austrian city of Wien, by contrast, is called by its Italian name, Vienna. München is referred to by its French name, Munich. For Berne, a German-speaking city in Switzerland, the English use the French name (Berne); for Genève, a French-speaking city, they use the Italian name (Geneva). And so forth. In my view, one of the oddest anglicisations of Continental place-names, is the English version – Leghorn – of the Italian port of Livorno. For all I know, via some intermediate language; and suggestions by some, taken on board, that it may have to do with the city in question being (sorta-kinda) on the Ligurian Sea (hence the g): still seems rather bonkers, to me. A thing I’ve always liked re European-continental-name-swopping-and-switching: in France, there are two towns – on the river Rhone south of Lyon, less than 100 kilometres apart – called Vienne, and Valence. Also the French names of the cities, respectively, of Wien / Vienna in Austria, and Valencia in Spain. Ah, well – as whatsisface memorably wrote – “What’s in a name?” ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/90 "2014-07-22T02:22:45Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > Cologne is just the Anglicization of Koln, much like Munich:Munchen, Vienna:Wien, etc. I believe all of these are mistaken. If I recall correctly, “Cologne” and “Munich” come to English from French. “Vienna” comes to English from Italian. Both “Cologne” and “Köln” derive from “Colonia Agrippina.” “Munich” and “München” both derive from “ad Munichen.” “Wien” and “Vienna” both derive from “Vindobona.” So in none of these cases was the German name merely Anglicized. And in at least two cases, the name is independently derived from the original Latin name. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2014, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/91 "2014-07-24T14:06:39Z")
> [@Wallaby](#): > > In Australia, the city of Wagga Wagga is always called just Wagga (pronounced ‘Wogga’). Although it is an abbreviation, I have never heard anyone refer to it by the full double-barreled name. > > Confusingly, almost every other ‘repeat’ name in Australia - Woy Woy, Grong Grong, Bong Bong, Mullum Mullum, Gin Gin, Terrick Tererick, Gol Gol (I’m not making any of these up, and there’s a lot more) - will be called by its full name. There’s a somewhat similar phenomenon in the Cleveland, Ohio area - suburb names with two words are often reduced to one. Shaker Heights becomes “Shaker”, Rocky River becomes “Rocky”, Pepper Pike becomes “Pepper”, and so on. This seems more common with wealthy suburbs than those that are more middle class, as if it’s a way to signal you’re part of an in-crowd of sorts. Nobody says they live in “Middleburg” instead of Middleburg Heights, or “Seven” instead of Seven Hills. Unrelated: Cleveland has what I think are some of the most bucolic and/or sonorous suburb names in the Anglosphere New World, with Johannesburg a close second. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/92 "2014-07-25T08:57:31Z")
[Cantabrigia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantabrigian) for Cambridge (UK). ---
**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 25, 2014, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/93 "2014-07-25T09:07:39Z")
And similarly for Oxford: > **[University of Oxford](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxonian)** > > The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in continuous operation. It grew rapidly from 1167 when Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris. After disputes between students and Oxford townsfolk in 1209, some academics fled north-east to Cambridge where they establ The universit... ---
**Author:** ![qazwart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/5fc32e/32.png) [@qazwart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qazwart)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2014, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/94 "2014-09-19T01:59:35Z")
> [@installLSC](#): > > But does anyone still use Constantinople in everyday usage? Well, not every day usage, but when a Jewish divorce document is written in Istanbul, the city is still referred to as _Constantinople_ in that document. Under Jewish law, a divorce document must refer to the place where the divorce took place as the same name as all previous divorce documents in that community. It was done to prevent the divorce document from being challenged by someone claiming that such a town doesn’t exist because the name was changed. By taking legal precedent set by the first document, there’s no question where the divorce took place. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2014, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/95 "2014-09-19T02:48:57Z")
> [@Flywheel](#): > > Conversely, the resort town near Machu Picchu is officially called Machupicchu, but everyone calls it Aguas Calientes to avoid confusion. If you don’t know where you’re going, you could accidentally end up in hot water. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2014, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/96 "2014-09-19T02:51:55Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Similarly, La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asís, aka Santa Fe NM… “The Royal Town of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi” > [@AHunter3](#): > > … > 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. “The Pass of the North”, or, more colloquially, “North Road”. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2014, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/97 "2014-09-19T02:55:49Z")
What about Tokyo and Edo? Does anyone still call it Edo? ---
**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:** [September 19, 2014, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/98 "2014-09-19T03:40:15Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > What about Tokyo and Edo? Does anyone still call it Edo? Not that I’m aware of. Never in English anyway. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2014, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/99 "2014-09-19T05:45:47Z")
Thais often abbreviate by taking _final_ syllables rather than _initial_ syllables. Thus Nakhon Sawan has the nickname Khon-Wan. (An English-language tour guide refers to it as Nakhon Nowhere. :smack: ) ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2014, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814/100 "2014-09-19T07:15:02Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Confusingly, the city of London and the City of London are two different places. [In case anyone’s curious about all this (City of) London business.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-with-alternate-names/692814.md?page=4)