The Top 10: Lost Names of Cities

Christiania, Danzig, Rangoon and Verulamium narrowly missed out on John Rentoul’s list of rebranded metropolises

Map of the island city of Tenochtitlan, site of Mexico City, presented to Hernan Cortes circa 1520

We did Dearly Departed Names of Countries two years ago, which prompted a complaint from the Iceland tourist board about one entry, Bejam (well, I thought it was funny). Dan Dennis proposed this companion list of old city names, starting with Peking and Konigsberg (now Beijing and Kaliningrad).

1. Monkchester. Previously called Pons Aelius – Aelius was Emperor Hadrian’s family name – and called Newcastle-upon-Tyne since William the Conqueror’s eldest son, Robert Curthose, built a (new) motte and bailey castle there in 1080. Nominated by Graham Kirby and Alan Robertson.

2. Lygos, dating from the 13th century BC, became Byzantium in the 7th century. Briefly Augusta Antonina in the 2nd century AD; Constantinople, after Roman Emperor Constantine, about 325; and finally Istanbul, which comes from the Greek for “the city”, when Turkey was declared a republic in 1923. Thanks to Robert Boston and Dan Vigodny.

3. Tenochtitlan was founded around 1325 on an island by the Aztecs (above). The Spanish destroyed it in 1521 and renamed it Mexico City in 1585. Robert Boston and Dan Vigodny again.

4. Philadelphia. Before it was named by Ptolemy the Second, ruler of the Egyptian empire in the 3rd century BC, it was called Rabbath Ammon, capital of the Ammonites, and afterwards it was called Amman, now the capital of Jordan. Nominated by Ross Allen and Alan Robertson.

5. New Amsterdam, or Nieuw Amsterdam. The settlement was briefly named New Orange when it was re-occupied by the Dutch in 1673. Now it is New York, not named after the English city but after the Duke of York, who later became James II (and VII of Scotland). James also had the Scottish title of the Duke of Albany, and also lent his name to what is now capital of New York state when it was changed from Beverwijck. Thanks to Alan Robertson again.

6. Titograd. The capital of Montenegro, Podgorica, was named after Tito, president of Yugoslavia, between 1946 and 1992. “Going further back it was known as Ribnica and Birziminium.” Another from Alan Robertson.

7. Saigon. Now Ho Chi Minh City, named after the chairman of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Vietnam in 1976, after the country was united. John Peters.

8. Canton. A bad western attempt to pronounce Guangdong, confusing the province with its main city, Guangzhou, which gave us Cantonese for the food and the third most spoken dialect of Chinese. Ross Allen.

9. Tsaritsyn. Then Stalingrad. Now Volgograd. There are, as Ross Allen pointed out, lots more Russian ones. St Petersburg (which has no “s” in Russian), became Petrograd and Leningrad before reverting to the name of Peter the Great’s capital in 1991.

10. Analamanga. The capital of the Kingdom of Imerina on the island of Madagascar in the 17th century, when it was renamed Antananarivo, now the capital of Madagascar. Alan Robertson.

Hundreds of nominations this week. See if you know the modern names of these runners-up: Breslau, Christiania, Danzig, Edo, Leopoldville, Pressburg, Rangoon and Verulamium. Answers are here. Thanks to Adam Greves‏, Agent Verhofstadt‏, Paul T Horgan, Mary Novakovich, Hot in Cleveland, Jeremy Lawford, William French and Geoffrey Mamdani.

Best of all, though, is that the cities of Samarkand and Timbuktu still exist.

Finally, an honourable mention for Bombay, renamed Mumbai in 1996. Amol Rajan, the former editor of The Independent, decreed that the name change was an Indian nationalist ramp, and that we would continue to call it by its old name.

Next week: Detectives’ Hobbies, such as Sherlock Holmes (violin and cocaine).

Coming soon: Songs Released Consecutively by the Same Artist That Contradict One Another, such as D:Ream’s “UR the Best Thing” followed by “Things Can Only Get Better”.

Your suggestions please, and ideas for future Top 10s, to me on Twitter, or by email to top10@independent.co.uk