History Main / IstanbulNotConstantinople

->''"Even old New York was once New Amsterdam!\\
Why they changed it I can't say\\
People just liked it better that way."''

*** As far as [[Film/TheDarkKnightSaga Christopher Nolan]] is concerned, Gotham is actually [[TheWindyCity Chicago]].

** Not all of these qualify. Nippon is actually the official proper name for modern Japan ''in Japanese''. See Real Life below.

** Like many odd Mormon words, this is derived from Joseph Smith's "Reformed Egyptian", and supposedly means "Honeybee" (a Mormon symbol of industry and industriousness). However, the only actual Ancient Egyptian term resembling "Deseret" is "dšṛt" (Ancient Egyptian used no vowels; "deshret" is the most common reconstructed pronunciation). It means "Red Land", i.e. the desert[[note]]The similarity to English "desert" is entirely coincidental[[/note]] that surrounds the Nile Valley[[note]]"Kemet" - "The Black Land", or civilized Egypt[[/note]]. So--desert. Which is most of "Deseret".

* In 1850 there was a proposal to add an enormous state called "Deseret" to the United States. It stretched all the way from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Congress decided to admit California instead, cut Deseret down to half its proposed size, and renamed it "Utah." Its capital, Great Salt Lake City, would have a much less radical name change a few years later.

* Egypt is originally called "Misr" (from an archaic word meaning "capital" or "civilization"; compare Hebrew ''Mitzrayim'') in Arabic. Morocco is called "Al-Maghreb" ("The Country of the Sunset"). Arabic language itself adapts some country names in a very particular fashion: for example, Venice is called "Al-Bunduqia" (approximately "The Hazelnut," for reasons that remain unclear; either way, "hazelnut" came to mean "bullet" and eventually "musket or rifle" ), and "al-Yunaan" (from "Ionia") for Greece for starters. The trope namer town is called "Al-Qusṭanṭiniyyah" (now "Isṭanbūl"). Most countries are rendered in the feminine (adding an -a suffix) like "Firansa", "Esbania", "Bolanda" (Poland; Arabic has no "p" sound), "Amriika", probably under a combination of Latin/Romance influence and an old tradition that prefers to give names of regions feminine names unless the name is also an Arabic masculine word (e.g. Morocco--Al-Maghrib, which is the Arabic word for "sunset" and is masculine in that usage). Correspondingly, those names that don't end in "a" are still usually considered feminine and are assigned the definite article ("al-", equivalent to "the"): al-Siin (China), al-Yaban (Japan), al-Sawiid (Sweden), al-Maksiik (Mexico), al-Brasiil (Brazil)... Peculiarly, there is one country that ends in "a" and also has the definite: al-Nimsa, the Arabic word for Austria, which arrived in Arabic at the end of a long chain of meaning mutation and borrowing: originally from ''nemets(y)", a Slavic term for "mute", which became a Slavic term for "foreigner", which was narrowed down to mean "German", which the Turks took as "Nemce" meaning "Austrian" because those were the Germans they had the most, um, [[BattleOfLepanto extensive]] [[SiegeOfVienna contact]] with, and then borrowed to al-Nimsa (for no apparent reason) by the Arabs.

* In the ''StarWarsExpandedUniverse'', this trope is played straight ludicrously many times with Coruscant, the capital planet of the 25,000-year-old [[TheFederation Galactic Re]][[TheRepublic public]]. When the [[TheEmperor Galactic Emperor]] [[EvilOverlord Palpatine]] takes over, it's renamed Imperial Centre. Later, it's seized back by the rising [[TheFederation New Republic]], which renames it Coruscant again. Then TheEmpire takes it back ''again'' under the reborn, GrandTheftMe-happy Palpatine, followed by yet another New Republic takeover. Next, the [[AlienInvasion invading]] [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Yuuzhan Vong]] rename it Yuuzhan'tar after their lost homeworld. Then the Galactic Alliance, formed from the remnants of the destroyed New Republic, defeats the Yuuzhan Vong and calls it Coruscant again… and THEN Darth Krayt's Galactic Empire takes over. Guess what happens—go on, guess.

** ''The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump'': This MagiTek novel is set in Angels City, on the coast of the Peaceful Ocean, and just north of the Barony of Orange. On the East Coast of the Confederated Provinces are the District of St. Columba and the city of New Jorvik.

** And Greeks get really irritated, even now, if you call it Istanbul. In the Greek Wikipedia, the city is still called Κωνσταντινούπολις.

** And Yuzovka [[hottip:* :After the Welsh industrialist named Hughes who funded its founding]] --> Trotsk [[hottip:* :Possibly, for a little while in 1923; if it ever happened, it would be after Leon Trotsky]] --> Stalino [[hottip:* :after Josef Stalin]] --> Donetsk [[hottip:* :After the Seversky Donets River on which it lies.]]

* The Literature/{{Chrestomanci}} books have a fair few more. World 12A in ''Literature/CharmedLife'' has Atlantis (North America); in ''Literature/ConradsFate'' the Series 7 worlds have Ludwich instead of London, the Thames is the Little Rhine, the Low Countries are Frisia, and Moscow is Mosskva. Though in Series 7, Britain is part of continental Europe...

*** This is its own subclass of this trope. Practically everyone who makes "Earth, but with magic" makes "Remus won." the turning point. So Reme, the Reman Empire, etc. The Literature/{{Chrestomanci}} series by Creator/DianaWynneJones is another example.

** The confusion was legitimate, since 'Cathay' originally referred to the land of the Khitan, a Mongol Tribe that dominated most of Northern China and Manchuria before they were kicked out by another tribe, the Jurchens. Since Northern China was the eastern terminus of the Silk Road, and had previously been dominated by said Mongol tribe under the name of the 'Liao Dynasty', the name stuck in Europe as referring to all of China until the Europeans reached the country through sea routes. The remnants of the Liao moved into Central Asia and founded a rather large empire there, also referred to Cathay, henc ethe confusion.

** Don't forget "United Indiastan", an India / Pakistan gestalt. Or the "Enclave of the Bear".

* In the ''KushielsLegacy'' series by Jacqueline Carey, the maps at the beginnings of the book show that it is Europe. The UK is named Alba, Ireland is Eire, Spain is Aragonia, Germany and the northern lands are Skaldia, Italy is Caerdicca Unitas - Venice, or a suspiciously Venetian city, is [[CityOfCanals La Serenissima]] - the Balkans are Illyria, Greece is Hellas, Egypt and the Maghreb is Menekhet, India is Bhodistan, China is Ch'in, Japan is the Empire of the Sun, Jebe-Barkal is Ethiopia and a bit more, The Flatlands are The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, Vralia is Russia and Drujan and Khebel-im-Akkad are different parts of Ancient Persia. France is called Terre d'Ange (literally Land of Angels) but that's because it's the land of {{Mary Sue}}s for {{backstory}} reasons.

* In ''StarWarsExpandedUniverse'', this trope is played straight ludicrously many times with Coruscant, the capital planet of the 25,000-year-old [[TheFederation Galactic Re]][[TheRepublic public]]. When the [[TheEmperor Galactic Emperor]] [[EvilOverlord Palpatine]] takes over, it's renamed Imperial Centre. Later, it's seized back by the rising [[TheFederation New Republic]], which renames it Coruscant again. Then TheEmpire takes it back ''again'' under the reborn, GrandTheftMe-happy Palpatine, followed by yet another New Republic takeover. Next, the [[AlienInvasion invading]] [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Yuuzhan Vong]] rename it Yuuzhan'tar after their lost homeworld. Then the Galactic Alliance, formed from the remnants of the destroyed New Republic, defeats the Yuuzhan Vong and calls it Coruscant again… and THEN Darth Krayt's Galactic Empire takes over. Guess what happens—go on, guess.

* In ''StarWars'', this trope is played straight ludicrously many times with Coruscant, the capital planet of the 25,000-year-old [[TheFederation Galactic Re]][[TheRepublic public]]. When the [[TheEmperor Galactic Emperor]] [[EvilOverlord Palpatine]] takes over, it's renamed Imperial Centre. Later, it's seized back by the rising [[TheFederation New Republic]], which renames it Coruscant again. Then TheEmpire takes it back ''again'' under the reborn, GrandTheftMe-happy Palpatine, followed by yet another New Republic takeover. Next, the [[AlienInvasion invading]] [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Yuuzhan Vong]] rename it Yuuzhan'tar after their lost homeworld. Then the Galactic Alliance, formed from the remnants of the destroyed New Republic, defeats the Yuuzhan Vong and calls it Coruscant again… and THEN Darth Krayt's Galactic Empire takes over. Guess what happens—go on, guess.

* In ''StarWars'', this trope is played straight ludicrously many times with Coruscant, the capital planet of the 25,000-year-old [[TheFederation Galactic Re]][[TheRepublic public]]. When the [[TheEmperor Galactic Emperor]] [[EvilOverlord Palpatine]] takes over, it's renamed Imperial Centre. Later, it's seized back by the rising [[TheFederation New Republic]], which renames it Coruscant again. Then TheEmpire takes it back ''again'' under the reborn, GrandTheftMe-happy Palpatine, followed by yet another New Republic takeover. Next, the [[AlienInvasion invading]] [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Yuuzhan Vong]] rename it Yuuzhan'tar after their lost homeworld. Then the Galactic Alliance, formed from the remnants of the destroyed New Republic, defeats the Yuuzhan Vong and calls it Coruscant again… and THEN Darth Krayt's Galactic Empire takes over. Guess what happens—go on, guess.

* ''Risk 2210 A.D.'' makes a number of renamings, from the good (Republique du Quebec) to the gratuitous (New Avalon). Scandinavia is called Jotenheim. The classic name is, of course, the east Africa-encompassing 'Ministry of Djibouti.'

* ''The Signal'' is set in Terminus, which used to be the name of Atlanta, Georgia, the city the movie is filmed in.
* In ''Star Wars'', this trope is played straight ludicrously many times with Coruscant, the capital planet of the 25,000-year-old [[TheFederation Galactic Re]][[TheRepublic public]]. When the [[TheEmperor Galactic Emperor]] [[EvilOverlord Palpatine]] takes over, it's renamed Imperial Centre. Later, it's seized back by the rising [[TheFederation New Republic]], which renames it Coruscant again. Then TheEmpire takes it back ''again'' under the reborn, GrandTheftMe-happy Palpatine, followed by yet another New Republic takeover. Next, the [[AlienInvasion invading]] [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Yuuzhan Vong]] rename it Yuuzhan'tar after their lost homeworld. Then the Galactic Alliance, formed from the remnants of the destroyed New Republic, defeats the Yuuzhan Vong and calls it Coruscant again… and THEN Darth Krayt's Galactic Empire takes over. Guess what happens—go on, guess.

* OrsonScottCard's ''Alvin Maker'' series is set in an alternate North America. Many names remain familiar, but are in variant spellings, such as "Hio," "Irrakwa" and "Wobbish." All these are originally Native American words, and the familiar forms are transliterations by Francophone explorers. In this world, the Anglophones seemingly got there first, so the transliterations are a bit different. As for New Amsterdam, it never became New York.

* ''Job: A Comedy of Justice'': Creator/RobertAHeinlein has a lot of fun with this as the two protagonists get shunted from alternative earth to alternative earth.

* Fiona Patton's ''Tales of the Branion Realm'' is set in an alternate Britain named Branion, with a similar map. Since the series focuses on nobility, many of the original names can be determined from the titles. For example, the heir to the throne is the Prince of Gwyneth (Wales) and Duke of Kraburn. If it wasn't obvious from the map that Kraburn is Cornwall, Kraburn has a major port named Halmouth (Falmouth). The second in line to the throne is the Duke of Yorbourne, which from the map clearly represents York. Other countries include Gallia, Danelind, and Tiberia (home to the Pontiff of a Catholic-analogue religion).

* ''Airborn'' is an AlternateHistory where the biggest change is the rise of [[ZeppelinsFromAnotherWorld airships]] as the major form of long-distance transportation. The history only diverges from ours in the early 20th century or so, but one of the changes is the renaming of Vancouver (supposedly the airship capital of the world) as Lionsgate City.

* Kim Stanley Robinson's ''The Years of Rice and Salt'', where the plague killed off most of the Christian population of Europe, leading to Arabic/Chinese/Japanese/etc place names such as Yingzhou for North America, al-Alemand for Germany, Skandistan for Scandinavia, Nippon for Japan and so on.
* CharlesStross's ''Merchant Princes'' features alternate versions of our earth, which people with a certain genetic trait can travel between.

** His more traditional alternate history novels feature this too, mainly for objects -- nukes become "exploding-metal bombs" (in the WorldWar/Colonization series) or "superbombs" and "sunbombs" (Timeline-191), suicide bombers become "people bombs," the Molotov cocktail is the "Featherston Fizz," and the Army's heavily armored frontline combat vehicles are "barrels," not tanks.\\

** His ''War Between the Provinces'' series is basically a retelling of the American Civil War in the West from Chickamauga on, only with the map reversed (the rebels are in the north), the colors reversed (because indigo is a major rebel product) and with names either given alternates or horrid puns. General Rosecrans is renamed "Guildenstern." Chickamauga is renamed "The River of Death," and Lookout Mountain, "Sentry Peak." Georgia becomes "Peachtree," and Selma, Alabama is renamed "Hayek."
** Creator/HarryTurtledove and Richard Dreyfus do this in ''The Two Georges'' with Boston, Oregon (rejected in real life by a coin flip; you probably know the city as Portland).

* Dan Simmons has a few of these in his duology ''Illium'' and ''Olympos''. Thousands of years have changed Ulan Bator in Ulanbat, and a mishandle black hole has made Paris into Paris Crater.

* Michael Pryor's ''The Laws Of Magic'' series takes this approach to a faux-Victorian era Europe - England is Albion, Germany is Holmland, France is Gallia (and its capital city is Lutetia) and so on.

* MichaelMoorcock uses this trope a lot in his alternate-universe and time-travel stories. One in particular, the empire of Granbretan (Great Britain) in the Hawkmoon books, is used as a TakeThat against certain aspects of his birthplace.

** Many cities have some very different names in different languages, even ones that don't border on it. For instance Germany's westernmost major city Aachen is called Aix-la-Chapelle in French, Aken in Dutch, Flemish and Afrikaans, Achenas in Lithuanian, Ahene in Latvian, Aquisgranum in Latin, Aquisgrana in Italian, Aquisgrà in Catalan, Aquisgrán in Spanish, Aquisgrano in Portuguese, Akwizgran in Polish, Akisgran in Basque, Cáchy in Czech, Oochen in Letzeburgisch (the language of Luxembourg), and Oche in the local German dialect.

* The ''HisDarkMaterials'' series by PhilipPullman executed this very impressively, using many alternate etymologies and extending to objects in addition to lands. Includes Anglia (England, although England, English and "Brytain" instead of Britain are also mentioned. Scotland also exists but it's not addressed whether it's the same country as England in that universe), Muscovy (Russia), Nippon (Japan), skraelings instead of Inuit, the Peaceable Ocean, and The Country of Texas in New Denmark. This also applies to objects such bas atomcraft, naphtha lamps, gyrocopters, anbaric lights ("electric" comes from a word for "amber"), and chocolatl (which is closer to the original Aztec word). Scandinavia ''is not'' Jotunheim, (it's called the Scandinavian Empire instead!) and the Svalbard archipelago is still the Svalbard archipelago (but it's an independent kingdom controlled by [[BearsAreBadNews armoured bears]]). Lapland is also mentioned as possibly independent with a population of witches.

* This comes up at least once in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedRevelations'' given the setting (i.e. ''Constantinople itself''), naturally.
** Specifically, the game is set shortly after the Ottomans occupied the city. Most still call it Constantinople, but offhand references are made to some young people starting to call the city Istanbul.

** Some examples of French names for places better known in English by English names: Amérique (America), Angleterre ("Angles-Land", England), Cornouailles (Cornwall), Douvres (Dover), Ecosse (Scotland), Edimbourg (Edinburgh), les Etats-Unis (the United States), les îles Anglo-Normandes ("the Anglo-Norman Islands", i. e. the Channel Islands), Londres (London), les Malouines (the Falkland Isles, named after the French seaport of Saint-Malo, although "îles Falkland" also is used), Nouvelle-Ecosse ("New Scotland", Nova Scotia, part of the old French colony Acadie), pays de Galles ("Country of Wales"), la Tamise (the Thames), Terre-Neuve ("New Land", Newfoundland).

* Some other examples of English place-names sounding slightly or not so slightly different from the form used in the place itself. The forms frequently are taken from French or Latin, while in some cases they reflect older forms that have fallen into disuse: Albania (Shqiperia), Antwerp (Antwerpen), Athens (Athinai), Austria (Österreich), Bavaria (Bayern), Berne (Bern), Brittany (Bretagne aka "Little Britain"), Brunswick (Braunschweig, derived from the original name Brunswich), Burgundy (Bourgogne, via German Burgund), Camperdown (Kamperduijn), Cologne (Köln, from Colonia Agrippina via French), Constance (Konstanz), Copenhagen (Köbenhavn), Crimea (Krym), Dunkirk (Dunkerque), [[{{Hamlet}} Elsinore]] (Helsingör), Flanders (Vlaanderen), Flushing (Vlissingen), Geneva (Génève), Genoa (Genova), Germany (Deutschland), Ghent (Gent), Heligoland (Helgoland), Jutland (Jylland), Lake Constance (Bodensee), Leghorn (Livorno), Lisbon (Lisboa), Marseilles (Marseille), Milan (Milano), Moscow and Muscovy (Moskva), Munich (München), Naples (Napoli), Norway (Norge), Nuremberg (Nürnberg), Ostend (Oostende), the Palatinate (die Pfalz), Poland (Polska, probably via either German "Polen" or French "Pologne"), Prague (Praha, via German "Prag"), Prussia (Preußen), Rome (Roma), Saint Petersburg (Sankt-Peterburg), Saxony (Sachsen), Seville (Sevilla), Spire (Speyer), Sweden (Sverige), Turine (Torino), Tuscany (Toscana), Ushant (Ouessant), Venice (Venezia, via French "Vénise"), Vienna (Latin Vindobona, French Vienne), Vistula (Wisla, preferring the Latin name), Warsaw (Warszawa), Zealand (Sjaelland, the one in Denmark), Zealand (Zeeland, the one in the Netherlands, after which New Zealand is named).

* ''Comicbook/{{Batman}}'': Gotham City, since Gotham is an old name for New York. There was a 19th-century book which, playing on American jealousy of European cities which liked to boast about their hundreds of years of history, was a fictional history of NYC, giving it the name "Gotham". Whether or not Gotham City ''is'' New York in the comics has varied through the years; currently, they're different cities in-universe, but writers still play with parallels.
*** Of course as far as [[Film/TheDarkKnightSaga Christopher Nolan]] is concerned, Gotham is actually [[TheWindyCity Chicago]].
** There's also [[Comicbook/{{Superman}} Metropolis]].

Popular choices are alternate etymologies (eg. ''Allemannia'' for ''Germany''), older names (''Yamato'' for ''Japan''), alternate names (''Albion'' for Britain or ''Columbia'' for the ''USA'', but then you have to make up something else for Colombia and British Columbia), names in the local tongue (''Kartvelia'' for the country ''Georgia'', ''Nippon'' for ''Japan''), things from local mythology (''Jotunheim'' for ''Norway''), possible corruptions and derivatives (''Drontheim'' instead of ''Trondheim'', though this one [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trondheim#Toponymy actually happened]]), and just taking the easy route and swapping some letters around.