[OSM-talk] Should we map former endonyms?

[Chris Helenius]

How are historical place names from annexed countries regarded? Or put in
another way; when does a name no longer exist?

In the case on Finland, which lost Karelia to Russia in the 1950s, hundreds
of place names were translated and are now officially Russian, with the
Finnish population gone.
Former place names could nevertheless be of historical value (e.g. to see
the geographical extent of the language), as physical historical features
are.

The question is, does a name disappear when it is no longer used? Larger
cities are still called by their Finnish names in a Finnish context, so
would towns and villages be any different? Or when they are deserted?

There is also the unignorable issue of geopolitics, as there are still
tensions between the countries.
There is no shortage of geographical naming disputes (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Geographical_naming_disputes),
and wikipedians themselves had a row over geographical names. (
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/02/05/China_Japan_Wikipedia_War_Senkaku_Diaoyu?page=full
)
I can imagine how the naming could be seen having a political agenda.

For what it's worth, my agenda is only historical, although I can't shrug
off my national bias.
Before I go and add name:fi= place-names, I'd like to hear what the
community thinks of this.

Chris Helenius
___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

Re: [OSM-talk] Should we map former endonyms?

[Martin Raifer]

I would say that it depends:

* If the name is still regularly used to name a place (for example in  
newspapers, etc.), use name:*

* If the name has become out-of-use, use old_name:*
* If the name is still used by locals, use loc_name:* or reg_name:*

A somewhat similar situation than what you described can be found in  
Trentino in Northern Italy which used to be part of the Austro-Hungarian  
Empire until WW1. Before that, places had bilingual names in both Italian  
and German – nowadays the German names have largely become out of use. But  
there are some exceptions like the capital, some valleys and mountain  
ranges, …. Also, some German-speaking people from towns near to the border  
are still calling nearby towns of Trentino by their former names.



The question is, does a name disappear when it is no longer used?


I would say that a name almost never disappears. Instead, only its  
qualification can change: from commonly-used/official to a (local) exonym  
to a historic name (… maybe even to a point where it is almost completely  
forgotten).



My 2 cents from somebody who just happens to live in a region with some  
quite interesting place-naming situations ;)

Martin

___
talk mailing list
talk@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk