Show SLOW TO CHANGE NAMES OF CITIES Americans Not Prone to Make Alterations Since the nonstop aviators a from this country landed by the Golden GoldenHorn GoldenHorn GoldenHorn Horn It has bas dawned on most of us for tor the first time that the Turks have been changing the name of ot their great grent metropolis We Ve may have heard of ot Stamboul but never dreamed we would have bave to say Istanbul We Ve learned of It as Constantinople Constantinople Constantinople Con Con- the name the Romans gave o to what the Greeks called Byzantium Byzantium Byzantium By By- and In our secret thoughts It probably always will be Constan Constan- After the fall tall of the Russian monarchy monarchy monarchy mon mon- archy St St. Petersburg became Petrograd Petrograd Petro- Petro grad only to be later as Leningrad all of which was to be expected c from the mania of ot the BolshevIks Bolsheviks Bolsheviks Bol Bol- for tor uprooting everything connected with the old regime Then the Norwegians changed the name of to Oslo that of ot the old national capital across the bay China followed the fashion an an when the capital of the rep republic tb- tb lic lie was transferred to Peking PekIng Pe Pe- king became In spite of our reputation for tor change the United States has bas displayed displayed dis dis- dis played a sui surprIsIng permanence In InthIs Inthis inthis this respect Our urban nomenclature nomenclature ture lure derived not only from the English Eng lish the French the Spanish and the Indians but from the classics and any other stray books that might have ha been rend read by our more lettered city founders has bus persisted with little modification Sometimes the names were difficult of ot pronoun- pronoun elation or calculated to Inspire levIty levity lev lev- ity sty but the original christening has generally held We might have ha re renamed renamed renamed re- re named New Orleans for Thomas Jefferson or St. St Augustine for Andrew An drew Jackson JacLson as the English altered the name of New Amsterdam to New NewYork NewYork NewYork York when they drove e out the Dutch D During the war we even resisted the patriotic pressure to give the capital of ot North Dakota a name less sag Bug of though we yielded on the point of sauerkraut at nt least for the duration of hostilities But Bismarck remained Bismarck Bismarck- k and sauerkraut again became sauerkraut sauerkraut sauer sauer- kraut after a spell as ns liberty cab cab- cab cab- bage However It may satisfy the ex exIgencies ex x of nationalism or local pf poll poll- lI- lI tics we hope for the sake of our learned hard-learned store of geographical knowledge that other countries too will wIIl leave their city names as us they are New New York Herald Tribune |