I have noticed something unusual…or maybe not, about the French and their use of old names to countries or cities and not the said country’s desired change of name. For example: I know in the USA, we now refer to the large Indian capital city as Mumbai, not Bombay, which it was called for hundreds of years. According to trusty wikipedia, Mumbai officially changed its name to Mumbai in 1996…In fact Bombay was a name imposed upon by the Portugese in the 16th Century, and Mumbai has deep Indian roots as a word. Yet the French still, up to today’s paper reporting the atrocious killings there this week, as Bombay. 

Another example: Peking or Pekin–now known as Beijing. Throughout the entire olympics it Pekin this and Pekin that. No, I thought…Beijing! On a quick wiki search I see that in fact the name Peking originated from French missionaries in the country 400 years ago…so that could be one reason for the holdover, and also that Peking is still recognized by Chinese postal authorities, but that Beijing is otherwise the new name..apparently this capital has changed names frequently.

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