Dual naming

Dual naming is the adoption of an official place name that combines two earlier names, or uses both names, often to resolve a disagreement over which of the two individual names is most appropriate. In some cases, the reasons are political. Sometimes the two individual names are from different languages; in some cases this is because the country has more than one official language, and in others, one language has displaced another.

In several countries dual naming has only been applied recently, where a colonial settler community displaced the indigenous peoples and started using names in the settler language centuries ago, and efforts have now been made to use names in the indigenous language alongside the newer names, as an act of reconciliation.

Australia

In Australia, a dual naming policy is often now used officially to name landmarks that are of significance to local Indigenous Australians, but for which the most common name is European.[1] For example, the landmark with the Pitjantjatjara name Uluru and English name Ayers Rock is now officially named Uluru / Ayers Rock.[2]

In the city of Adelaide, the Adelaide City Council began the process of dual naming all of the city squares, each of the parks making up the parklands which surround the Adelaide city centre and North Adelaide, and other sites of significance to the Kaurna people (the "Adelaide tribe") in 1997.[3] The naming process, which assigned an extra name in the Kaurna language to each place, was mostly completed in 2003,[4] and the renaming of 39 sites finalised and endorsed by the council in 2012.[5]

New Zealand

Similarly, some places in New Zealand have dual Maori and English names, such as Aoraki / Mount Cook.[6] The practice of officially giving certain New Zealand places dual names began in the 1920s,[7] but dual names have become much more common in the 1990s and 2000s, in part due to Treaty of Waitangi settlements.[6]

Northern Ireland

"Derry/Londonderry" has been used unofficially to circumvent the Derry/Londonderry name dispute, in which Irish nationalists used "Derry" and Ulster unionists use "Londonderry" for the city and county in Northern Ireland. The "Derry stroke Londonderry" spoken form of this has in turn engendered the city's nickname "Stroke City".

Romania

In Romania, the city of Cluj was renamed Cluj-Napoca for political reasons in the 1970s, as the communist government wanted to emphasize the city's Roman origins.[8]

Spain

Another example of the phenomenon can be seen in the name of the capital of the Spanish Basque Country, Vitoria-Gasteiz. This combines the city's Spanish name of Vitoria and Basque name of Gasteiz.

France and Switzerland

The official names of bilingual areas of Alsace, France, and Switzerland also apply. For instance, the German and French Swiss town of Biel/Bienne is the combination of its German name (Biel) and its French name (Bienne).

Finland

In Finland, many towns have two names, one in Finnish and one in Swedish (the two official languages of the country). The two names are considered equally correct but are not used as a formal duality of names.

United States

The Denali–Mount McKinley naming dispute is an example of a dual naming issue in the US.

Border geographical features

A special problem occurs when the landmark lies on the border between two (or more) countries, for example Mount Everest has several different locally-used names.

See also

References
  1. "Principles for the Consistent Use of Place Names" (PDF). Permanent Committee on Place Names, Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping. October 2016. pp. 9, 19. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  2. "Dual Naming". Northern Territory Government. Retrieved 8 July 2017.
  3. Adelaide City Council. "Adelaide City Council Placenaming Initiatives". Kaurna Warra Pintyanthi. University of Adelaide. Retrieved 28 November 2019.
  4. Adelaide City Council. "Kaurna Placename Meanings within the City of Adelaide". Kaurna Warra Pintyanthi. University of Adelaide. Retrieved 28 November 2019.
  5. "Kaurna place naming: Recognising Kaurna heritage through physical features of the city". City of Adelaide. Retrieved 29 November 2019.
  6. "Frameworks of the New Zealand Geographic Board Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa Version 3" (PDF). October 2010. pp. 40–42. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 July 2011. Retrieved 15 April 2011.
  7. "Protocol for Mäori Place Names" (PDF). New Zealand Geographic Board Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa. 14 August 2002. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 May 2010. Retrieved 12 November 2010.
  8. George W. White (1999). "Transylvania:Hungarian, Romanian, or Neither?". In Herb, Guntram Henrik; David H. Kaplan (eds.). Nested Identities: Nationalism, Territory, and Scale. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 275. ISBN 0-8476-8467-9. Retrieved 2008-05-26.
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