Goodbye ‘Calcutta,’ Hello ‘Kolkata.’ What’s in a Name?

To reflect pre-colonial times in India, Calcutta has become Kolkata, Madras is now Chennai and Bombay has become Mumbai. More and more Western newspapers are using the new official names in datelines—the Los Angeles Times made the change Monday. In an eloquent piece in today’s Times, David Lamb wonders what’s lost when such iconic names are tossed into the “historical scrap pile.”

“Confusion is often one of the main products of changing the name of a country or a city,” Lamb writes. “Every Western traveler has heard of Burma and its capital, Rangoon. But mention Myanmar (which Burma became in 1989) and its capital, Yangon, and you’re apt to get a blank stare. The new names never seem as good a fit as the old ones. They don’t conjure up images or bring to mind the words of Graham Greene, Joseph Conrad or Kipling. The dawn still comes up like thunder on the road to Mandalay, but somehow that dawn seemed more romantic and mysterious when the road ran through Burma instead of Myanmar.”

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