What's In A Name?

By Jeff Chu, Ishaan Tharoor

In India last week, the high-tech boomtown of Bangalore was wiped from the map. No, it wasn't hit by a nuclear attack or a natural disaster. Instead, the city simply ditched its British colonial--era moniker in favor of Bengalooru, which, in the local Kannada language, means "town of boiled beans." Other big Indian cities have already taken new names--Bombay is now Mumbai and Madras became Chennai. According to Kannada writer and Bengalooru advocate U.R. Ananthamurthy, such moves are a long-overdue reassertion of local identity. "It was the colonizer who changed the name first," he says.

India's cities aren't alone in rebranding themselves, and there can be all kinds of reasons for doing so. Here is a tour of a few other places around the world that have gone through--or are considering--changes of identity.

South Africa Dozens of communities traded Afrikaner names for indigenous ones after apartheid ended. For instance, Pietersburg became Polokwane ("place of safety") in 2002. The government is pondering a proposal to change the capital, Pretoria, named for an Afrikaner hero, to Tshwane, for a precolonial chief.

Iraq After Saddam Hussein's ouster, many local leaders sought to erase part of his legacy. One prominent example: the sprawling, poor Baghdad neighborhood of Saddam City became Sadr City. The name honors Shi'ite leader Muqtada al-Sadr's father, a revered cleric who was killed during Saddam's regime.

U.S. Welcome to Materialism, U.S.A. In 1999, Halfway, Ore. (pop. 337), became Half.com for a year after a start-up gave the town $100,000 and 20 PCs. And last November, Clark, Texas (pop. 394), was rebranded DISH after the satellite-TV network agreed to give 10 years of free service to the town's 55 homes.