It becomes more challenging if there is no longer a link between nickname and official name. That may happen, for example, if people move from one cultural region to another where also other writing sets are used. Take for example my chinese friend 高为民, whose Latin name would be Gao Weimin (family name first), but the moment he works in Europe or the US he is using the Latin variant William Gao. There is no common relation to the name William and Weimin both in Latin or Chinese and it they are no phonetic variants of each other.

Recently, I have read a very impressive book from Dave Eggers, called `What is the What´. It gives you a good insight in one of the current problem areas of the world and how people try to survive there. Achak Denk is one of the so-called Lost Boys from Sudan. During his live in Sudan, in refugee camps and finally in the US he is officially using differnt names. That has nothing to do with purposely trying to mystify his identity, but more with receiving an identity from your environment – at that time and place. He is born as Achak, baptized as Valentino, and later on using the name Dominic or Dominic Arou and  Marialdit. Of course there are people calling him nick names as ‘Sleeper’ or ‘Gone Far’ but at certain periods in his life he is officially using completely different names. This makes automatic matching of persons, or even manual matching, challenging and keeps it interresting.

I would recommend the book to everyone who wants to learn about what is happening in our world, and especially those interested in names (don’t forget to study all the names in the last Section of the book).

I have looked at the location using Google Maps. Normally you expect that a street consists of one thoroughfare. But in this case the street, named “Kraakweg”, consists of three different parts, which are clearly not in one direct line. I have indicated it with 1, 2 and 3. Number 4 indicates another street, but with almost the same name “De Kraak”.

To make things even more confusing. The “Kraakweg” used to be called the “Stenenkamerseweg”. The “Stenenkamerseweg” still exists, but is more than one kilometer from the “Kraakweg”. Double streetname signs are used in this area. So if your are not familiar with the neighbourhood you are completely left out in the dark whether you are at the “Stenenkamersweg” or at the “Kraakweg”.

Photo taken by Ruben Schipper. Residents have been complaining over and over about the confusing situation and roadsigns. Hopefully now it will be settled for once and for all.

The UN’s expert committee on names is expanding standardisation efforts in order to to make it easier to find your way in an increasingly globalized world. The most prominent examples of these efforts are the change from Bombay to Mumbai and of Peking to Beijing, thus re-installing the correct names from a pre-colonial era. But the toponymic name battle still has some major challenges. Some examples…

Naming places can be a potentially dangerous decision. The former Yugoslav republic which is now called  Macedonia, was actually close to war with neighbouring Greece, because Greece feared an annexation attempt of its northern province, also called Macedonia. Officially, the UN calls the country the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia or FYROM. Fact is, however, that nobody in Macedonia actually uses that name…

After the collapse of the former Soviet Union, a large number of countries changed the names of their cities in order to revert to pre-communist times. For example, the city Tashkent is now called Toshkent. It seems that this is only a small change, but for the people in Uzbekistan it makes all the difference.

In South Africa, which has 11 official languages, one can imagine the naming confusion as well.  Is it Cape Town, Kaapstad or eKapa? Standardisation still has a long way to go. In the meantime, we should consider knowledgeable solutions to solve this problem.  If we can cope in Brussel/Bruxelles and in Aachen/Aken/Aquisgràn/Aix-la-Chapelle, we should also be able to cope in the rest of the world.