What's in a name?

[gurnemanz]

Quite a lot according to 50,000 people who have signed a petition, asking Mr Putin to change Volgograd back to Stalingrad on the 70th anniversary of the Germans' surrender there. Among those who signed is the 89-year-old Pyotr Alkhutov, a veteran of the campaign (one of three dozen who survived from an initial contingent of 5500 men). 70 years ago he had been designated to guard the captured Field Marshall Paulus.

A momentous battle and a very interesting article in today's Indie

[MrGongGong]

In the same spirit anyone up for renaming a place in the UK ?

[teamsaint]

all the place names that have been gentrified.
"Hamble Le Rice" can return to being Hamble, as it has been for as long as anybody can remember, for example.

Southampton International Airport back to Eastleigh.

"Lee on the Solent" back to Lee on Solent.

"Royal" Wootton Bassett didn't need rebranding.

[JFLL]

They ought to go back to the original name, Tsaritsyn, which despite appearances has nothing to do with tsars – although inevitably associated with them, which presumably led to the renaming by the Bolsheviks – but derived from the name of the Tsaritsa River, a tributary of the Volga, itself apparently from Turkic sari ‘yellow’ plus an uncertain second element.

I must say I don’t in general hold with renaming places or streets. It seems to me wantonly destructive of historical tradition and, from a practical point of view, sometimes has to be reversed when regimes change, as in Central and Eastern Europe. Most of our place-names go back at least a thousand years and are a valuable link with the past.

[Lateralthinking1]

KitKat Crescent is now back to Bootham Crescent. Time for The New Arsenal Ashburton Grove Emirates Stadium to be Highbury.

[cloughie]

KitKat Crescent is now back to Bootham Crescent. Time for The New Arsenal Ashburton Grove Emirates Stadium to be Highbury.

Should Millwall follow the Philharmonia and revert to The Den. Why do we have so many name changes of football grounds - Huddersfield's seems to change every other year!

[Alain Maréchal]

Why do we have so many name changes of football grounds

I rather think the answer, as with so many things, is money. If you put up enough cash you could probably have the Royal Opera House, or part of it, named after you. On the other hand surely that's such a ridiculous idea that it couldn't possibly happen.

Sometimes street names cry out to be changed. There were many Boulevards du Marechal Petain (justified in view of his early career) until the Etat Francais fell, whereupon a suitable alternative name was required. They usually another Marechal de France to keep down the cost of rebranding.

I object to name changes that destroy collective memory. If a pub was called 'The Gallow Tree' there was probably a good local reason for it, and to call it 'The Centipede and Broccoli' erases local history.

[Il Grande Inquisitor]

I rather think the answer, as with so many things, is money. If you put up enough cash you could probably have the Royal Opera House, or part of it, named after you. On the other hand surely that's such a ridiculous idea that it couldn't possibly happen.

[EdgeleyRob]

KitKat Crescent is now back to Bootham Crescent. Time for The New Arsenal Ashburton Grove Emirates Stadium to be Highbury.

That's better Lat.

[Ferretfancy]

I visited Volgograd in 2011, and I can't say that I'm surprised at the wish to return it's name to Stalingrad. The point is that the city is in many ways a vast memorial to the battle and the sacrifices the Russian people made. I think it's this association, rather than any glorification of Stalin which prompts the feeling.
The colossal monument, Mother Russia, which is bigger than the Statue of Liberty, dominates the landscape and overlooks the river, and nearby there is a spectacular museum and a huge three dimensional diorama of the climax of the battle.
Even in the largely rebuilt city centre you cannot escape the sense of the past, one of the department stores was once the headquarters of the German high command.

If you want to experience the sense of historical tragedy, go to Volgograd rather than Moscow or St Petersburg

[ardcarp]

Puddletown (Dorset) back to Piddletown, please. Now Queen Victoria's dead, we surely don't have to worry whether she'd be amused or not?

[Pabmusic]

Puddletown (Dorset) back to Piddletown, please. Now Queen Victoria's dead, we surely don't have to worry whether she'd be amused or not?

Nice idea, but how do we persuade all those De'aths or Bothams to start pronouncing their names differently?

Then we could start using apricock again instead of the euphemistic apricot. Or indeed, persuade the Americans to drop rooster, white meat and drumstick in favour of the original cock, breast and leg; or to return to titbit from the odious tidbit.

As for the renaming of Volgagrad, perhaps it doesn't matter as much as we might think. Stalingrad is known to most people from the terrific struggle in WW2 - not for its connexion with Stalin's name. It is that that would be remembered, I guess, and I doubt that anyone would suggest that it were done out of homage to Stalin. It would be different if the battle hadn't taken place - rather as it would if some town were to be renamed Hitlerstadt.

This is, I suppose, the problem of naming things after recent historic figures - look at how many places have been renamed after the Jimmy Savile scandal. We have no idea who Beormund or Snotta were, and the people of Birmingham and Nottingham can rest easily in their beds.

[Sir Velo]

Puddletown (Dorset) back to Piddletown, please. Now Queen Victoria's dead, we surely don't have to worry whether she'd be amused or not?

Interesting; but then how did Piddletrenthide (sic) get away with it?

Nice idea, but how do we persuade all those De'aths or Bothams to start pronouncing their names differently?

There is an amusing incident in William Dalrymple's "In Xanadu" in which the author is asked by a Pakistani whether he likes "Bottom". After expressing due dismay and registering a certain amount of unease as to what might befall him, his interlocutor continues, "do you think Bottom is as good as Imran?"

[Richard Tarleton]

I must say I don’t in general hold with renaming places or streets.

It's amazing how many new housing estates have roads with (often wildly inappropriate) birds' names - Lapwing Crescent, Osprey Drive etc. - the bird book is the first port of call for developers and council officials.

And in the spirit of other suggested changes, bird books could revert to the original Anglo-Saxon "whitearse" for "wheatear".

[ahinton]

It's amazing how many new housing estates have roads with (often wildly inappropriate) birds' names - Lapwing Crescent, Osprey Drive etc. - the bird book is the first port of call for developers and council officials.

There's one called Tippett's Meadow not far from me, though the absence of a nearby Bush Crescent, Rubbra Close or Rawsthorne Drive - not to mention Berkeley Square - suggests strongly that Grove was not "the first port of call for developers and council officials" in Herefordistan...