Foreign Place Names

[Speicher]

If you visit Innsbruck in Austria, and want to visit the northern part of Italy, some towns have two names.

Bozen or Bolzano - ok

Vitipino has another name, does anyone know what it is? (I don't)

Also Domodossola has a different name if you are in Switzerland. Does anyone know the other name?

 

[Carwash]

If you visit Innsbruck in Austria, and want to visit the northern part of Italy, some towns have two names.

Same is true in Finland - many places have names in both Finnish and Swedish.

Helsinki - Helsingfors
Turku - Åbo
etc

 

[Maz]

i was watching the women's tt yesterday, when a spanish lady with a very long surname came up to the line with a non-competitive time, hugh porter just referred to her as "the spanish rider".

Ah. You mean María González-Fernandez-Quiros-Sanchez-Murcillo-Gutierrez.
"María", to her mates!

 

[Keith Oates]

A long time ago when I first travelled by road from Rotterdam to Amsterdam I kept seeing signs for 'Den Hague' and wondered why I hadn't seen that name before!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Dayvo]

Years ago, when I was hitching around West Germany, and before I knew any German, I thought that 'Ausfahrt' was a bloody large city as there were signs for it everywhere!

 

[Brains]

The classic place for confusion is

Aachen, Aix-la-Chapelle, Aken, Aquis Granum, Oche, Aquisgrán, Aix, Oochen, Axhe

It's a city in the Belgian/Dutch/German border, so no only does each nation have a different name for the city, the Belgans have French, Flemish and Waloon as lanugages.

If you drive on the motorway between Calais and Cologne (or is that Koln?) the city changes names every few miles as you pass through the different language areas.

 

[Brains]

I see Wikpedia have an entire section of cities with multiple names, there are 30 variations for Aachen ! The 9 above are only the local ones.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_exonyms#Belgium

 

[dragon72]

I seem to remember from when I lived in Norway, that, with very few exceptions (eg Tyskland for Germany), Norwegian is very respectful to foreign place names in that they say Roma, Lisboa, London etc. instead of bastardising.

 

[Dayvo]

I seem to remember from when I lived in Norway, that, with very few exceptions (eg Tyskland for Germany), Norwegian is very respectful to foreign place names in that they say Roma, Lisboa, London etc. instead of bastardising.

Indeed!
And apart from the Greeks, Norway is the only country AFAIK that calls Greece 'Hellas'.

 

[TimDanaher]

The classic place for confusion is

If you drive on the motorway between Calais and Cologne (or is that Koln?)...

Köln, actually...

 

[Dayvo]

Is that 'oh dear Cologne'?

 

[snorri]

A long time ago when I first travelled by road from Rotterdam to Amsterdam I kept seeing signs for 'Den Hague' and wondered why I hadn't seen that name before!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Looks as if the signmaker was having an off day, it should have read Den Haag

 

[Brains]

Looks as if the signmaker was having an off day, it should have read Den Haag

In the Netherlands the sign would have read " 's-Gravenhage " that being the correct local spelling of the place we call "The Hague" aka Den Haag

 

[rich p]

Looks as if the signmaker was having an off day, it should have read Den Haag

Den Hague is William Hague's younger brother

 

[snorri]

In the Netherlands the sign would have read " 's-Gravenhage " that being the correct local spelling of the place we call "The Hague" aka Den Haag

So that's why I found that area confusing.