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Please Select New City Name
Due to a large number of political events, certain city names have become politically incorrect and have been changed. Not all the locals like it though. A Soviet-era joke has an older Russian filling out a form:

Where were you born? St. Petersburg. Where did you go to school? Petrograd. Where do you live now? Leningrad. And where would you like to live? St. Petersburg.

It's not always for political reasons though - some Chinese place names have simply been changed due to a new method of transliterating their "real" names - neither "Peking" nor "Beijing" is an entirely accurate way of representing the Chinese word, but the new version is closer (Some would say that "Peiching" would be closer than either. Others wouldn't. Such is the problem with moving between languages, isn't it?  *).

Often a form of Meaningful Rename.

Notable examples:

Africa
  • After the independence, many major cities of Madagascar changed their names to Malagasy-sounding ones. There were several distinct reasons though:
    • The city already had a Malagasy name but the French colonists translated it. Examples: Antananarivo (Tananarive), Mahajanga (Majunga) and Toliary (Tuléar)
    • The city already had a Malagasy name but the French colonists created another one from scratch. Example: Toamasina (Tamatave)
    • The city was founded by europeans but gained a Malagasy name with time. Examples: Antseranana (Diego-Suarez), Taolańaro (Fort-Dauphin) and the small city of Mahavelona (Hopeful Point, then frenchified as Foulpointe)
    • Aversions: the French administration never bothered to translate or change the names of the major cities of Fianarantsoa and Antsirabe, and on the other side the main city on the island of Nosy Be is still Hell-Ville as of now despite a Malagasy name (Andoany) existing.
  • Pretoria may change its name to Tshwane in the near future, but the change is controversial.
    • Pretoria is presently the name of the primary city of the municipality of Tshwane. Some politicians insist on renaming the city, but in a country with 11 official languages (seriously,) each with their own name for the city, what would they call it?
    • This is not the only city to experience a theoretical name change. Ask someone where 'Bela-bela' is and you'll get a blank look at best, but Warmbad is fairly well known. Many other examples exist in South Africa.
      • In Durban, the city management embarked on a politically driven campaign to rename all of the streets in the city. Which all of the citizens promptly ignored. At present the renamed streets have signposts displaying both the new and the old names, and on some the new names have been spraypainted over or removed.
  • Several African and Asian cities/countries adopted more "local" sounding names after the British left.
    • Salisbury in Southern Rhodesia became Harare in Zimbabwe.
    • Northern Rhodesia became Zambia, though the major city was already Lusaka.
    • The Belgian Congo became Zaire after gaining independence, but reverted to "Democratic Republic of the Congo" in 1998.
    • Bechuanaland became Botswana. In The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency TV adaptation Grace references this when complaining the office does not have a computer.
  • Likewise:
    • Dahomey => Benin
      • Confusingly unrelated to the historical Kingdom of Benin, which was in what's now Nigeria; given how Dahomey and Benin were neighbours and sometimes came into conflict, this is a bit like Germany renaming itself "France".
    • Gold Coast => Ghana
    • Ivory Coast => Côte d'Ivoire
      • Which just means "Ivory Coast" (well, Coast of Ivory, if you wanna be nitpicky about it) in French.
      • It's still "Ivory Coast" in French. No possessives means that any time you want to show ownership, you use "de," but it doesn't mean you should translate it as "of."
    • Upper Volta => Burkina Faso
    • Ubangi-Shari => Central African Republic
    • Abyssinia => Ethiopia
    • Tanganyika and Zanzibar => Tanzania
      • Justified, in that Tanganyika was a seperate territory from Zanzibar, and Tanzania was adopted when they became a single country.
    • South-West Africa => Namibia
  • Colonies tend to get rid of their master's name on independence, although frankly that's about as much because the old names have become inaccurate as that the locals don't like them.
    • British East Africa => Kenya
    • Spanish Sahara => Western Sahara
    • Spanish Guinea => Equatorial Guinea
    • Portuguese Guinea => Guinea-Bissau

Australia / Oceania
  • Bendigo in Victoria, Australia was officially named Sandhurst in the 19th century. However, all attempts to use "Sandhurst" failed and the government eventually gave up and let it be known as Bendigo.
  • New Hebrides => Vanuatu
  • Not a city, but the island/state Tasmania in Australia, was named after the first European to see it, Dutchman Abel Tasman. However, Tasman originally named it Anthony van Diemen's Land after his patron and when it was controlled by the British it was shortened Van Diemen's Land. 200 years after Tasman named it, it was renamed Tasmania after him.
  • German-named places in Australia had their names changed during the war (in 1917) as well. Some changed back (like Hahndorf, SA, which temporarily became Ambleside), others didn't (Blumburg became Birdwood, SA)
    • Bismarck cbecame Collinsvale, TAS.
    • The ultimate example: Germantown in New South Wales was renamed Holbrook after the captain of Australia's first submarine. It is well known now for having a full-scale model of a submarine, several hundred kilometres from the nearest coast.
  • Melbourne was originally called Bearbrass, for some reason.
  • There were a number of places and landmarks given back their Aboriginal names in the 1970s and 1980s, most notably Uluru, aka Ayer's Rock.
  • There's apparently a debate going around in New Zealand about whether to rename Wangarei Whangarei. Usually this would change the pronunciation in Maori, excepting that the local iwi have their 'wha' the same as 'wa' unlike the rest of Maoridom.
  • Similar to the Uluru example above, part of many Treaty of Waitangi settlements with Maori iwi in New Zealand involve giving various landmarks an official Maori name in addition to the official English one. One of the most famous examples is Mount Cook, which is now officially Mount Cook/Aoraki

Americas
  • Hull/Gatineau, Quebec. As with Pretoria/Tshwane, the old central city is still officially Hull, the metropolitan region (or at least that part of it on the Quebec side of the river) once commonly called "Hull", is officially Gatineau.
  • A goodly raft of the towns in Nunavut and in Nunavik (northern Quebec), formerly with English or French names, have had their names changed (or changed back) to Inuktitut names. For example, what used to be Frobisher Bay is now Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut. (The change was made a number of years before the creation of Nunavut.)
  • New Nieuw Amsterdam was founded in 1609 in the banks of the Hudson river, in the island of Mannahatta. Later, when the Second Anglo-Dutch War was settled in 1674 by the Treaty of Westminster, the Duke of York from England gained control of New Amsterdam and renamed it New York City; Mannahatta was anglicized as Manhattan.
    • That explains the series.
    • The various boroughs of New York used to be cities in their own right, with only Manhattan being New York City, until they consolidated in 1898.
  • In one example that might be considered Political Correctness Gone Mad, the name of the county in which Seattle, WA sits in was changed in 2005 from King county (named after William King, vice president of the US at the time of the county's inception), to King county (named after Martin Luther King Jr., who visited Seattle in 1961.)
    • This was probably because William King's most notable political legacy before his 45-day vice presidency was defending slavery in the Senate.
    • Seattle itself was originally named New York-Alki ("New York Someday," in Chinook Jargon)
  • Kitchener, Ontario received a new name in 1916 (the middle of World War One), when enough people complained about a Canadian city named "Berlin".
    • In an inversion, another town in Ontario, managed to successfully resist a similar attempt during WWII to have its name changed to Winston Ontario. The town's name? Swastika. As an interesting aside, rumor has it that famous Nazi-sympathizer Unity Mitford was conceived there & her family owned a silver mine in the area.
      • Kitchener was known as (New) Berlin since German American loyalists settled there after the revolution, it wasn't later German immigrants who gave it the name, which was the reasoning for changing it. Kitchener was the head of the Empire's military at the time. Swastika was named way before WWII and the name had a different meaning than the symbol, which was also originally a good luck symbol.
      • And there's now a CBC Sit Com titled The Good Germany, about the town council of the fictional town of Germany, ON. The title is referenced in a World War Two-era banner in the council's meeting room.
  • There used to be a US town called Swastika.
    • According to Google Maps and That Other Wiki, there is a town in the Adirondacks called Swastika.
  • There used to be an area in Texas called "Dead Nigger Creek," which was eventually changed to the ever-so-slightly less offensive "Dead Negro Draw."
  • During the 1890s, the U.S. Postal Service began standardizing spellings by dropping the "h" from town names ending in -burgh; this policy relented in The Fifties and many communities have claimed their "h" back. It can take decades for all the signs to change, however.
  • Colonies tend to get rid of their master's name on independance.
    • British Honduras => Belize
    • British Guiana => Guyana
    • Dutch Guiana => Surinam
  • When Fort William and Port Arthur, Ontario merged, they changed their name. Everyone just called the area "The Lakehead" anyway, so of course they named it "Thunder Bay". You see, there was a vote, and both "Lakehead" and "The Lakehead" were on the ballot next to Thunder Bay. Oops.
    • More of the same when the city of Galt merged with Preston and Hespeler - resulting in the city of Cambridge, Ontario.
  • In Ontario, the colonial settlements of York, Bytown, Johnstown and Scott's Mills are the thriving cities of Toronto, Ottawa, Cornwall and Peterborough, respectively.
  • There is a city named Buffalo, Texas. When the Dallas Cowboys played the (New York-based) Buffalo Bills in the Super Bowl, the town changed its name to Blue Star for a week to match the Cowboys' logo. When the same cities met for the NHL championship a few years later, they changed the name to Green Star.
  • Orange County, Florida (after which Orange County, California was named, believe it or not), was originally named Mosquito County. It was renamed Orange County when it became the center of the state's citrus industry.
    • In the late 70's, a street in Orange County, Florida, North Nowell Street, was once renamed Lamar Street, for then County Commissioner (and now Florida State's Attorney) Lawson Lamar  *, for no better reason than Lamar wanted a street named after him. So unpopular was this switch with the locals that they kept knocking over the street signs (in one case, a horde of teenagers descended upon every street sign in the neighborhood with sledgehammers). After replacing the sign for the thirtieth time, the county got the message and restored the street's original name. Lawson Lamar was not amused.
      • Lamar tried the same trick with a County Park in Orange county a couple of years later, with similar results. Lawson Lamar is generally seen to be a Jerk Ass by the people of Orange County, Florida.
      • North Beach in Burlington, Vermont was renamed "Bernie Sanders Beach" by the city council for about a day and a half before Sanders himself asked that it not be renamed for him.
  • Many places in Texas use the last name of prominent historical figures, Houston, Austin and Dallas being the big three examples. After the Civil War, because many of these people were officials or soldiers under the Confederate government, there was pressure from the North to change the namesakes and the fact that some of the place names where after people who sided with the Union and fought aginst Texas regiments. So while some counties and have the same names to reduce confusion as much as possible, their historical meaning can be confused at best and a bitter subject for arguments involving both slavery and a corrupt occupation government at worst. For example, Walker County can claim at least three different namesakes, besides the one we're all familiar with.
  • Many Chicago neighborhoods started out as suburbs, and got absorbed. Most of the street names were retained in the process. At the time this happened to Bucktown in the 1800ds, it was a German enclave, so the streets had German names: Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Rhine, and so on. Then, World War I happened. Most would (eventually) get changed to the names of English authors.
  • Atlanta, Georgia started off as Terminus and then became Marthasville before becoming Atlanta.
    • In Cobb County in suburban Atlanta, you can find Nickajack Creek, Nickajack Park, and Nickajack Road. [[This Troper]]'s grandparents recalled that nobody named "Nickajack" ever lived in the area, and the original name was something that sounded a bit like "Nicka Jack" but was much much less polite.
  • Sort of happened to Guadalajara, Mexico, which was founded four times: the first became a small town called Nochistlán, the second became a borough called Tonalá, the third became another small town called Tlacopán, and the fourth became Guadalajara itself. (And for the record, it's named after the small 80,000-people city of Guadalajara, Spain, and Guadalajara, Mexico is home to almost 5,000,000 people).
  • Clark, TX, became DISH, TX, because the DISH Network offered the inhabitants free satellite TV for 10 years. I don't even know whether to laugh or cry.

Eastern Europe
  • St. Petersburg became Petrograd when World War I began (the government thought the name sounded too German, even though it was actually from Dutch owing to Peter the Great's peculiar fondness for the Netherlands), then Leningrad with the rise of the Soviet Union, and reverted to St. Petersburg shortly before its collapse. The surrounding oblast (province) is still called "leningradskaja", however.
    • Königsberg became Kaliningrad after the Russians took it from the Germans. It never had a Russian name, so they leave it as it is for now.
      • Before it was Königsberg, it was Królewiec, though that's Polish.
      • That was the name the Poles used, but before the Germans founded it, the area belonged to the Old Prussians, who are Balts, not Slavs.
    • Kinda bad example since it's still Russian.
    • Nizhnyj Novgorod became Gorkij in 1929 (after the novelist), then reverted to the older name and the oblast actually changed name with it. Curiously enough, the auto-maker GAZ (from Gorkij Avtomobilnyj Zavod, "Gorkij automobile factory") was founded in 1922 as NNAZ, and was obviously renamed with the city, but has not reverted to the original name.
      • Probably because their logo incorporates a gazelle, which is also the name of their biggest post-Soviet seller.
    • Similarly, Tsaritsyn became Stalingrad and after de-Stalinization in 1961 became Volgograd, though there is a civic movement to restore the Stalingrad name (really.)
      • It's probably because of the Battle of Stalingrad, which everyone remembers by that name and which they're proud of.
    • Yekaterinburg was known as Sverdlovsk between 1924 and 1991, the oblast retaining that name. When it featured in Airwolf under the then-current name, Silent Hunter had to reach for his atlas- and go to the index.
    • Tsarskoye Selo ("Village of the Tsar") became and remains "Pushkin", after the great Russian poet.
  • Of course the prize probably goes to the main city of western Ukraine: Lemberg -> Lwów -> Львов (L'vov) -> Львів (L’viv) within less than ninety years.
    • The spelling of the capital of Ukraine (Kiev or Kyiv) is also a Flame War issue.
    • Ukraine is often referred to in older sources as "the Ukraine".
      • This mirrors a similar dispute in Russian and Ukrainian over which preposition should be used - Slavic languages have two words that both roughly translate to "in" but have subtly different meanings, and for historical reasons Ukraine tends to be referred to by the one that usually connotes a region within a country rather than a country in its own right. This quite closely mirrors the semantic issues around the use of "the" in English.
  • Just about everywhere in western Poland (formerly eastern Germany), Kaliningrad Oblast (formerly northern Prussia), and western Ukraine and Belarus (formerly eastern Poland) have had at least one nameswap in a long, dark history of systematic ethnic cleansing:
    • Breslau -> Wroclaw
    • Danzig -> Gdansk (this name change has notoriously caused flame wars on The Other Wiki - the talk page contains eleven archives and still has the argument going on.)
    • Stettin -> Szczecin. My throat!
      • That's not really that hard when you think of it as "Shchetsin." Granted, "shch" is a bit difficult, but just practice it a bit and you should be fine.
    • In the fifties Katowice was renamed Stalinogrod after Stalin... Which spawned numerous jokes since "Kat" is Polish for an executioner/torturer/murderer. This may have been why the name change didn't stick - whether the Communist official who proposed the name change did so in order to facilitate these jokes is unknown. To add to the confusion, in Imperial Germany times, it was also known as Kattowitz.
      • And on the subject of Imperial Germany, several cities in western Poland reverted to their Polish names in 1918 when Poland regained its independence.
    • Oświęcim held that name for most of the history, being in the middle bit of Poland which Stalin and his predecessors only ethnically cleansed a little. Its name in German is far more infamous - Auschwitz.
    • "Königsberg" (meaning "King's mountain") became "Kaliningrad", ie "Kalinin City", named after the figurehead president of the USSR Mikhail Kalinin, and is the only place in former Commieland still named after a Commie. Many of the locals prefer "Kyonig".
      • In the future history of Transhuman Space, the Kaliningrad oblast gains independence - the country so formed is named Königsberg, but the city remains Kaliningrad.
  • The capital of Montenegro, Podgorica, was known as Titograd in the days of Communism.
    • Many, many other examples. Due to his cult-like status, everything had "Tito's" (Titovo) as an adjective in Montenegro and Serbia. Titovo Uzice? Uzice. Titograd is just a shorter version of "Tito's city". Now, almost all of the names are Tito-free.
  • After becoming part of Czechoslovakia following Austria-Hungary's dissolution, the city of Pozsony/Pressburg became the more Slavic-sounding Bratislava. Slavic names were given to many other cities in formerly Hungarian territories that became parts of Slovakia and Romania.

Western Europe
  • Norway have got a few examples. Upon the independance of Norway in 1905, the new capital city of Christiansted was renamed Oslo. Bergen used to be Bjřrgvin, Trondheim was Nidaros and Oslo was Kristiania. Funnily enough, the church areas around the two first still carries the same name and there is a discussion in Oslo about renaming the center back to Kristiania.
  • Most place names in Ireland are anglicisations of the original Irish names (ie. Dublin = Dubh Linn or 'Black Pool'). Although still referred to by their English names, towns and villages today have signs at the entrances that give both the Irish and English placenames.
    • Around the time of the formation of the Irish Free State, Kingstown and Queenstown were renamed Dún Laoghaire and Cobh. King's county and Queen's county were renamed County Offaly and County Laois.
      • What is now Dún Laoghaire had actually already been anglicised to 'Dunleary' when it's name was changed to 'Kingstown' in 1821.
    • Similarly, Philipstown reverted to Daingean, Maryborough to Portlaoise, Bagenalstown to Muine Bheag. Also, many landmarks were renamed for patriots and rebels.
  • The Greek island of Lesbos may be getting a name change soon, if only for the fact that people who live there won't have to be called Lesbians.
    • Though, of course, that is where the name came from originally.
      • The politically correct word to refer to inhabitants of Lesbos is "Lesvonian", not "Lesbian", much like it's not polite to call people from Scotland "Scotch" or people from China "Chinamen".
      • Well I guess it wouldn't work to call them Lesbonian.
  • This town had been contemplating a name change, at least in part because Anglophone tourists keep stealing the town sign. The residents refused a name change though, and so they decided to just have theft-resistant town signs.
  • Chemnitz, Germany was called Karl-Marx-Stadt from 1952 to 1990. No prizes for guessing what part of Germany it's in.
  • This also applies to streets. One particular example from Havering, a borough of London- a street had its name changed after the councillor it was named after was convicted for paedophilia.
    • Penny Lane in Liverpool was named after a 18th-century slave trader of that name, not the coin. The fact that the area was sung about by The Beatles is likely the only thing causing the name to be kept.
    • Ahem. This is a pretty decisive one.
  • Wolfsburg, Germany was originally officially named Stadt des KdF-Wagens ("[[ City of the Strength-through-Joy Car]]"); most non-officials of the era just called it die Autostadt, which became the name of a large auto museum downtown. Also, in 2003 it was temporarily renamed "Golfsburg" (after the car not the game, just in case you hadn't guessed...)
  • One of the most controversial city re-namings in Western Europe is this troper's native city. It has been recorded in the annals of history as Daire Calgaigh, Daire Coluimb Coille, Doire (its current name in the Irish language), Derrie and eventually Londonderry. The city council brought a case to the High Court in 2006 that the city's legal name should be changed to Derry - the council legally changed its name from Londonderry City Council to Derry City Council in 1984 - but were ruled against by the presiding judge because the city's Royal Charter was drawn up in 1662 under then name Londonderry. Most locals use "The Maiden City" or "Stroke City" (popularised by another native of the city, radio broadcaster Gerry Anderson, whose show is broadcast from the place and is referred to on-air as "Derry stroke Londonderry") to avoid alienating the other side of the political divide - but, to be honest, nearly everyone this troper knows, Catholic, Protestant, atheist or Jedi, still calls it Derry.

Asia (could be further sorted)
  • India:
    • Mumbai: Formerly Bombay.
      • Somewhat controversial, as Bombay is not an Indian city colonised by Europeans, but rather a city built by the Portuguese from scratch - and anyway, everyone still calls the associated film studios "Bollywood", not "Mollywood".
    • Kolkata: Formerly Calcutta.
    • Kozhikode: Formerly Calicut.
    • Chennai: Formerly Madras.
      • In fact Madras and Chennai were the names of two neighbouring villages that were the core of the large city that has grown up around them; it's just that post-independence India preferred to use the name of the other one that the Raj had used.
  • China has lots of cases that look like name changes, although in fact, most of the names have stayed the same in Chinese. The apparent change is due to either the new transliteration system, or due to the government mandating the use of standard Mandarin for placenames rather than local languages/dialects.
    • Beijing (formerly Peking) is the most obvious example of the new transliteration system coming into effect.
      • And before that, Peking was Peiping ("Northern Peace"), which was a change in the actual name and not just the romanization. (This Troper will get his coat now...)
    • Guangzhou: Formerly Canton, which is derived from the Portuguese rendition of the local name for the province (Guangdong) in which the city sits.
    • Xiamen: Formerly Amoy, a local name which got displaced by its quite different-sounding (although still related) Mandarin equivalent.
    • Other examples of the "different attempt at writing the same basic name" type are Xian, Tianjin, and Qingdao (formerly Sian, Tientsin, and Tsingtao, respectively). Xinjiang Province (formerly Sinkiang), and Sichuan Province (formerly Szechuan) are just a few more examples. There are countless others.
  • Ho Chi Minh City: Formerly Saigon, a name still used by a lot of the locals, the name was changed after The Vietnam War.
  • Constantinople changed to Istanbul (Meaning just "The city"). No one can say why they changed it, but people seem to just like it better that way.
    • Besides, why it got the works is nobody's business but the Turks.
    • Before it was Constantinople, it was Byzantium.
    • And between being called Constantinople and Byzantium it was briefly officially named New Rome, but everybody just called it Constantinople (Constantine's City) and it stuck.
  • Revolution City, a suburb of Baghdad constructed in 1959, was later renamed Saddam City after the Baathist revolution, and since the 2003 overthrow of Saddam has become known as Sadr City.
  • Myanmar and Thailand, entire countries whose names changed from Burma and Siam, respectively. The former change is highly controversial, with several governments and the opposition not accepting it.
    • Burma/Myanmar also changed the name of the city of Rangoon to Yangon.
  • Likewise:
    • Trucial Coast => United Arab Emirates
    • Levant States => Syria + Lebanon
    • Persia => Iran (in this case reflecting local usage)
  • Colonies tend to get rid of their master's name on independance.
    • British North Borneo => Sabah
    • Dutch East Indies => Indonesia
    • Portuguese Timor => Timor Leste
  • The city of Bangkok had its name changed back in the late 1700s. Nobody outside Thailand seems to have noticed yet.
  • Singapore - formerly Temasek.
  • Tokyo - Used to be called Edo, renamed when the capital moved there from Kyoto, which was done for several political reasons. Tokyo means "eastern capital" in Japanese. The period of time after it became the center of power but before it was the official capital is often known as the Edo Era.
  • An ongoing example is what to call the land that was Palestine up until 1948. Palestinians will refer to the whole thing (including what's now Israel) as Palestine; certain Israelis will refer to the whole thing (including the areas under dispute) as "the Land of Israel" and no matter what you call it, it has political overtones.
    • That's actually an Older Than Feudalism story, since the name Palestine comes from a forced name change by the Romans, who wanted to erase the name of the ones who revolted against them twice. They chose to rename Judea in honor of some people who were gone for centuries by then.
  • Ceylon => Sri Lanka
  • Taiwan is referred in all official documents of the political body ruling it as "The Republic of China", but there have been pushes of varying seriousness to remove all references to that term.

Examples in Fiction:

  • Translation-based example; Naruto 's hometown is called "Konoha(gakure no Sato)" in the English manga and "(Hidden) Leaf Village" (or "the Village Hidden In The Leaves") in the anime dub; the other ninja villages are treated similarly, while non-Ninja town names are left in Japanese.
  • Traveller: The New Era gives us an example involving planets - the Reformation Coalition gave several of its planets new names relating to its philosophy of hope and rebirth, to make the point that the Imperium (the source of the former names) was gone and not coming back.
  • Likewise in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, Coruscant was renamed Imperial Center during the Empire and reverted to its traditional name under the New Republic.
    • And, until the prequels let us know how George Lucas pronounces it, many fans pronounced "Coruscant" with two hard c's.
    • According to my dictionaries, the standard American and British pronunciations of coruscant, coruscate etc. have two hard c's, so the fans can hardly be blamed. George Lucas is plainly coruscating on thin ice...
  • In the backstory of The Lord Of The Rings, the city of Minas Ithil ("Tower of the Moon") was renamed Minas Morgul ("Tower of Black Sorcery") when it was overrun by the forces of Sauron. In response, its sister city, Minas Anor ("Tower of the Sun") was renamed Minas Tirith ("Tower of Guard").
    • Also from The Lord Of The Rings, the Dwarven citadel of Khazad-dűm ("Dwarf City", roughly) was known as Moria ("Black Pit") after the demonic Balrog awoke and drove the Dwarves out (The inscription on the Western door using the name "Moria" before it was coined was a slip of Tolkien's).
      • That is debatable, because the terms are in two different languages - Khazad-dűm is Dwarvish, while Moria is Elven. Still makes you wonder why the dwarves would use the elvish term on their front door...
      • Then the name should have been "Hadhodrond", which was the Elvish name for the place before the collapse.
      • The front door was entirely in Elvish, so it was probably unavoidable. So of course the question becomes why the front door was entirely in Elvish.
      • Probably because, at the time it was made, the Dwarves were in friendly relations with the Elves, and thus made sure the door facing the Mirkwood could easily be identified and opened by them?
      • The door was made by a dwarf, the spell, by an Elf.
      • Alternate interpretation : the door was made during the peak of elven cultural domination, when Sindarin would have been spoken by dwarves and Numenorians alike as the de facto trade/diplomatic language. Then the elves dwindled, so did the dwarves, the age of Man got kickstarted and Westron took over as the common language. Which would make the elves... French ?
  • In Power Rangers RPM, through a variety of clues as to location, fans have deduced that at some point between now and Twenty Minutes Into The Future, Boston changes its name to Corinth.
  • Strugatsky brothers novel "It is hard to be a god", mentions a lot of villages being given more upbeat names in hopes of reforming them. It sounded like the attempt wasn't successful.
  • One of Private Eye`s stock parodies is of an African tin-pot dictatorship called "Rumbabwe, formerly British Rumbabaland" (referencing Zimbabwe and Bechuanaland/Botswana). There are also less frequent parodies of other name changes, such as the Soviet ones.

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