The Name
The city was named after its founder King Christian IV in 1641. The last element sand refers to the sandy headland the city was built on (see also Lillesand).
The name was written "Christian(s)sand" (for "Christians sand" – meaning en: "Christian's Sand") until 1877 – then, according to an official spelling reform (that changed ch to k), the form was changed to "Kristianssand". (See also the names Kristiansund and Kristiania that were affected by the same reform.) The name was again changed to its present form Kristiansand in 1889.
In 2012, the city's mayor, Arvid Grundekjøn, proposed that the city be renamed Christianssand, arguing that "Kristiansand" is grammatically meaningless and that Christianssand stands for tradition.
Read more about this topic: Kristiansand
Famous quotes containing the words the name, the and/or name:
“You remind me of a child-friend who once wrote to tell me about her sister being married. “Now I will tell you all about Bessie’s wedding.” Then came a long account of bridesmaids, and breakfast, and everything else, except the name of the bride-groom! That of course didn’t matter: the great thing was to get married somehow.”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.”
—John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)
“Name any name and then remember everybody you ever knew who bore than name. Are they all alike. I think so.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)