First Turkiye, next India? The curious process of changing the name of a country

And, of course, spelling matters too. You might remember that shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year, the Ukrainian government insisted that its capital city be transliterated as Kyiv, not Kiev, to reflect the Ukrainian tradition, not the Russian.

So, how do you change the name of a whole country? First of all, you’ll need to formally inform the UN, and advise how to write the new name in the UN’s six official languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish). Next, is often the pricey undertaking of replacing all your flags, official documents such as passports, ID cards, and driving licences, as well as documents related to international treaties, causing headaches when argumentative countries insist on a renegotiation, because the original was agreed with Country X not Country Y. This can all take time – just ask Sri Lanka, where references to Ceylon lingered on official documents, currency and websites until as late as 2011.

After that? Well, some changes are more successful than others. 

In India and around the world, many still refer to Mumbai as Bombay, and several of its institutions – the Bombay Stock Exchange and the Bombay High Court – retain the old name. 

Likewise, you won’t hear anyone in North Macedonia refer to it by the name it adopted in 2019: the change – from Macedonia – was done solely to resolve a dispute with Greece, which has a province of the same name, and get around a Greek veto on its joining of NATO.