Exonym and Endonym - Confusion With Renaming

Confusion With Renaming

Exonyms and endonyms must not be confused with the results of geographical renaming as in the case of Saint Petersburg, which became Petrograd (Петроград) in 1914, Leningrad (Ленинград) in 1924, and Saint Petersburg (Санкт-Петербург Sankt-Peterbúrg) again in 1991. In this case, although St Petersburg has a Dutch etymology, this was never a Dutch exonym for the city between 1914 and 1991, just as Nieuw Amsterdam, the Dutch name of New York City until 1664, is not its Dutch exonym.

Old place names, which have become outdated after renaming, may afterwards still be used as historicisms. For example, even today one would talk about the Siege of Leningrad, not the Siege of St. Petersburg, because at that time (1941–1944) the city was called Leningrad. Likewise, one would say that Immanuel Kant was born in Königsberg in 1724, not in Kaliningrad (Калининград), as it has been called since 1946. Sometimes, however, historical names are deliberately not used because of nationalist tendencies to linguistically lay claim to a city's past. As a case in point, the Slovak Wikipedia article on the 1805 Peace of Pressburg does not use either of the city's names then in use (the Slovak Prešporok or the official, that is German, Pressburg), but today's name Bratislava, which became the city's name only in 1919.

The name Madras, now Chennai, may be a special case. When the city was first settled by Englishmen, in the early 17th century, both names were in use. Possibly they referred to different villages which were fused into the new settlement. In any case, Madras became the exonym, while more recently, Chennai became the endonym.

Likewise, Istanbul is still called Constantinople (Κωνσταντινούπολη) in Greek, despite the name having been changed in Turkish (and other languages) between 1923 and 1930 (the name Istanbul itself derives from a Medieval Greek phrase.) Even Constantinople was not its original name, as it was originally officially designated Nova Roma (New Rome) by Constantine I, and before that, it was the Greek city of Byzantion (Greek: Βυζάντιον, Latin: ), named after its founder Byzas.