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by snogglethorpe 4335 days ago
"Tokyo" replaced "Tokio" in about 1930: http://chronicle.nytlabs.com/?keyword=tokyo.tokio ["Tokyo" is somewhat closer to the Japanese pronunciation]

"Muslim" replaced "moslem" in about 1988: http://chronicle.nytlabs.com/?keyword=moslem.muslim [Apparently for good reason: http://hnn.us/article/524 ]

"Peking" was replaced by "Peiping" in 1930, but it was back to "Peking" in 1962, and then finally changed to "Beijing" in 1985: http://chronicle.nytlabs.com/?keyword=peking.beijing.peiping
3 comments
oska 4335 days ago
The history of, and explanations for, the varieties of names for Beijing ('northern capital') is so complex and detailed that it gets its own wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Beijing

See also [1]: Bosat Man, Backhill/Peking/Beijing (1990), which is not currently included as a reference in the above wikipedia article.

[1] http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp019_peking_beijing....

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DanBC 4335 days ago
Constantinople vs Istanbul shows a nice clean switch: http://chronicle.nytlabs.com/?keyword=constantinople.istanbu...

Burma vs Myanmar is messier http://chronicle.nytlabs.com/?keyword=burma.myanmar

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pessimizer 4335 days ago
That one is a bit controversial because 'Burma' was changed to 'Myanmar' by the military dictatorship.
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levosmetalo 4335 days ago
Why would that be controversial? State changed it's official name and newspaper started to call it by its new name.
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cynicalkane 4335 days ago
To the Burmese, the word "Myanmar" represents the oppressive and insane dictator who overthrew a democratic society to institute a communism that nobody wanted, keeping Burma in the dark ages for decades. One of the dictatorial general's feats as he rose to power was quashing civil unrest and rival communist movements among the minority tribes of Burma, and "Myanmar" is the name of the majority ethnicity. You can understand that people remain a little sore about the name change.

"Burma" is an English corruption of the Yangonese word for "Myanmar", but to the Burmese democratic movement--and the many minority tribes--the word represents an ethnicity-neutral name for the entire country.

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selectodude 4335 days ago
A lot of people didn't consider the military junta to be a legitimate government, and as such, couldn't have changed the name of the country.

Even wikipedia still calls the country Burma.

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NAFV_P 4335 days ago
Tokyo used to be called 'Edo'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edo

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