Miscellany Playing the Name Game

When a country's name disappears from the map, it is often the result of conquest or collapse. But there is a less violent explanation that proves the pen is at least as mighty as the sword. Perhaps the country has merely changed its name.

The most recent case is Burma, which has just renamed itself Myanma (pronounced Mee-ahn-ma), the name the Burmese, oops, the Myanmans, have always preferred. In April Cambodia, which since 1976 had been known as Kampuchea, became Cambodia again. That was the fifth time in the past 20 years that the country has changed its name. Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the Cambodian resistance leader who is notorious for his own shifting stance on his country, has at least found a way to keep up with its changing names. When he speaks English, he calls the country Cambodia. When he speaks Khmer, he calls it Kampuchea. When he speaks French, he refers to it as Cambodge.

No international laws govern the christening of countries: the label that sticks is determined by the tastes or even the sanity of its rulers. Anti- colonialism, however, is the most common rationale for national renaming. During the 1950s and '60s, anti-colonialism swept through the newly independent nations of Africa. The Gold Coast dubbed itself Ghana, in honor of an ancient African empire that was located hundreds of miles from the modern nation. When the Belgian Congo became independent in 1960, it renamed itself the Republic of the Congo. Eleven years later, President Joseph Mobutu rechristened it the Republic of Zaire. A year later, he took his policy of "authenticity" personally, renaming himself Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Nbgendu Wa Za Banga, which means, more or less, "the all-powerful warrior who will go from conquest to conquest trailing fire in his wake."

Sometimes rulers decide it is best to leave well enough alone. Filipinos have long bristled at the colonialistic implications of calling their country the Philippines, in honor of Philip II of Spain. During the regime of Ferdinand Marcos, there was a campaign to rename the country Maharlika, a native word meaning noble and aristocratic. Plans for the rechristening proceeded apace until an academic pointed out that the word was probably derived from Sanskrit. Fine, its proponents said, Sanskrit is a non- imperialist language. Yes, replied the scholar, but Maharlika was most likely derived from the words maha lingam, meaning "great phallus." That was the end of the campaign.