[arrowsmith]

> It’s also really fascinating talking to people who stayed in South Vietnam after. The entire system is reset.

It took me a while to appreciate the significance of renaming Saigon to Ho Chi Minh City. I've lived in HCMC (although I'm not Vietnamese) and the renaming is actually controversial to this day, although most Vietnamese know better than to speak up about it.

Basically, imagine if Russia conquered Ukraine and then renamed Kyiv to "Vladimir Putin City".

[refurb]

> It took me a while to appreciate the significance of renaming Saigon to Ho Chi Minh City.

The interesting thing is that locals continue to use "Saigon" in everyday conversation. It seems like the government decided that wasn't a fight worth having.

Someone told me that several government agencies still use "Saigon" as well on logos and such.

The interesting thing is that "Saigon" came from the French occupation. The Vietnamese ruling under the French renamed it "Sai Gon", and the French used "Saigon". Before the French arrived, it was called Gai Dinh.

[skhr0680]

Historically, I think it's akin to when Russia conquered Russia and renamed St. Petersburg to Leningrad

[arrowsmith]

Stalingrad, Léopoldville, Karl-Marx-Stadt, Constantinople. Many such cases!

[LtWorf]

> Constantinople

I think it's not the same if you build a new city :)

[arrowsmith]

Didn't he rename the existing city of Byzantium?

[bgnn]

He did not. He renamed it as New Rome.

The name Constantinopolis came after him. It was often just referred as polis. The name Istanbul is derived from "eis tan polis" (to the city) used as a common phrase during Byzantian times. Turks kept using this old names as Konstantiniyye (Constantin's city in Arabic) Istanbul, both only referring to the walled part of the city till mid-20th century.

[lr1970]

> Basically, imagine if Russia conquered Ukraine and then renamed Kyiv to "Vladimir Putin City".

This is really a poor analogy. Kyiv is the birthplace of ancient Russia (Kyiv Rus) and for both Ukrainians and Russians it is like Jerusalem for Jews and Arabs. It is easier to imagine renaming Moscow into Zelensky City than Kyiv into Putin.

[ernst_klim]

That's a strange historical revisionism in Ukraine. Traditionally, Rus history is considered to begin with Ladoga, then Rurik moved to Novgorod, and only later his successors moved to Kiev.

Saying that one true Rus is Kiev and not Novgorod or Moskow is rather a modern Ukrainian national myth. All and neither were true Rus.

[philwelch]

Also the Rus were Norse warlords who conquered those lands.

[LakesAndTrees]

Except Ukraine is a sovereign nation - much like Russia (which in today’s form does not hold any reasonable claim to Kyiv) - and renaming either nations capital city to satisfy some man’s thirst for legacy would be equally vulgar. The analogy holds pretty well, from where I’m standing.

[arrowsmith]

It’s a good analogy because to rename Ukraine’s capital city after its conqueror would be a gigantic “fuck you” to the people of Ukraine, rubbing salt into the fresh wounds of their conquest, which is exactly what North Vietnam did to the South.

You’re just doing the typical HN thing of responding to an analogy by pointing out differences that are irrelevant to the point of the analogy.

[sandworm101]

>> capital city after its conqueror would be a gigantic “fuck you” to the people

As how most every port city in North America is named by whatever western explorer first put it on a map? From Botany Bay to Vancouver, Los Angeles and even Virginia USA, placenames are pulled from the culture of the conquerors. Only when one gets into the hinterlands do local names appear.

[simplicio]

Eh? There's a ton of Native American place-names on the East Coast? Including at least three States.

[selectodude]

What white man is Chicago named after?

[sandworm101]

Well, you touch on a pattern: costal cities are named by European explorers on ships. Wikipedia states that the first use of "Chicago" was by the explorer La Salle, who was on foot. Explorers on foot are much more likely to use names derived from local language, Canada/Kanata being probably the most famous example. But areas mapped and explored by explorers on ships (ports/mountains and such) are generally given European names.

[rightbyte]

That is interesting. Any idea of why that is?

[woodruffw]

Manhattan?

[mantas]

And then Muscovites stole Rus name and tried to pretend they’re the leaders of pan(east)slavism. Probably one of the reasons for the outgoing war. Moscow wants to be the real Kiev. The only way is to destroy it.