Talk:List of European regions with alternative names

Something is wrong
90% of the entries are not "alternative names", but rather alternative spellings or slight differences in pronunciation. So following the current habit this list may contain vast majority European toponyms. Therefore I suggest to make one of the changes: mikka (t) 18:31, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) Rename into Alternative spellings for European regions
 * 2) Leave here only places with truly alternative names, moving nonnotable spelling differences into wiktionary, where they truly belong. See, e.g., Poland or England.

I completely disagree. These differences are not at all just a matter of spelling. This List of European regions with alternative names resembles in format and concept a number of other very successful pages (e.g. List of European cities with alternative names, List of European rivers with alternative names, List of country names in various languages, and others). I strongly recommend against any of mikka's suggestions. Pasquale 19:06, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree with Pasquale's comments. Olessi 19:19, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

You both miss my second point. The place of these entries (and all articles you mentioned) is in wiktionary, and each individual place article must have a link to the wiktionary, where the named in all languages will be present. It this way the information will be more visible and hence better maintainable. Currently it strikes as undermaintained. mikka (t) 19:31, 31 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I still completely disagree. The wiktionary has a completely different function than a list. There are lots of such lists in the Wikipedia and I completely fail to understand why mikka should pick on this one list. In particular, I find this List of European regions with alternative names very useful, as I am sure dozens of other Wikipedia users and contributors do as well. If mikka has no use for it, he can simply ignore it and leave it alone. Pasquale 17:21, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

(This article was recently cited as a reason not to delete List of Asian regions with alternative names.) Pasquale, what do you mean by "successful"? All of these articles – and their reciprocals, from Afrikaans exonyms to Welsh exonyms – consist almost entirely of cumulative evidence for the trivial and obvious fact that each language adapts foreign names to its own phonology. And every time someone proposes deleting any of them (or pruning them to what's not trivial) the first response is it's not the only one! Does the world need lists of translations for place-names more than it needs lists of translations for spices or engine parts? — It's sad that the genuinely interesting variations get lost in all this clutter. —Tamfang (talk) 04:32, 13 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Still waiting. —Tamfang (talk) 18:08, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I have provoked one or two users to reply on exonym list talk pages that yes they do refer to such listicles, but they did not go so far as to say for what purpose they so refer. —Tamfang (talk) 22:53, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Guyenne
Guyenne has a separate entry in this list. At the same time it is merely a redirect to Aquitaine, where it is listed as a historical name. Something does not play here. Since, I have no idea about the region, I am leaving this to exterts for proper handling. mikka (t) 20:28, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Either the line for "Guienne" in this list must redirect to the "Aquitaine" entry, for a full list of synonyms.
 * Or there is another Guyenne, then Guyenne must provide dismbiguation, rather than to be a redirect, and a separate line (or, rather, two lines: Guienne1 and Guienne2) in this list is fully justified.
 * Or Guyenne is not the same or not exactly the same as Aquitaine (I mean a significant difference, rather some variations in borders), then this must be commented as well.

Clarifications
Since I believe I am responsible for adding most of these regions' names, I would like to say that my policy has always been to have the current best-known name in English match the title of the corresponding Wikipedia article. I added all the Swedish regions in July 2004. At that time, the names did match the titles of the corresponding articles. All the articles on the Swedish regions used to have titles with English names identical to their Latin names (this may in fact be the official Swedish government policy). However, recently, some user decided that the articles' titles should all be changed to the Swedish names. But since it may be the case that the official Swedish policy is to encourage an English usage that matches the Latin names, no one has bothered to alter the listings in this List of European regions with alternative names. Of course, they all get redirected.

As for the Aquitaine/Guyenne problem, I originally added that region in August 2004, and put the Guyenne forms under the same heading as Aquitaine, precisely because, in the Wikipedia, Guyenne is redirected to Aquitaine. Then in October 2004, Slawojarek added a separate listing for Guyenne, but left the Guyenne doublets under Aquitaine as well. That's the way it stayed until today. Today, Aldux (and not I, as some who like to engage in futile sarcasm seem to think, without actually checking the history) removed the Guyenne-type forms from Aquitaine. When I noticed the removal, I immediately restored them, but then I realized the Guyenne-type forms were listed under a separate entry, and so I undid my restore. The name Guyenne is historically the same as Aquitaine, as both are derived from Latin Aquitania, however, it has had a somewhat different usage in history, meaning that at times in history the two terms applied to the same region, and at other times to adjacent but different regions. There are other such complex cases, e.g. Pomerania/Pomerellia, Saxony/Lower Saxony, and several more. (In any case, I fail to see why this problem should so preoccupy someone who's advocating for this article's deletion.)  Pasquale 21:12, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I am preoccupied with order and consistency. The problem with Aquitaine/Guyenne is precisely of the same character as with list vs. wiktionary case: you allow two places for the same thing, and information will inevitably begin to diverge and even contradict to each other, unless you sit day and night to syncronize random additions to one or another page. If Gyenne is the same as Aquitaine, then one of them must redirect to another one, rather than to have a piece here and a piece there. mikka (t) 23:56, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

On the usefulness and purpose of this article
I have posted an extensive Explanation about the usefulness and purpose of this article on Mikkalai's talk page, should anyone be interested. Pasquale 00:40, 15 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Mikkalai's talk page has apparently been deleted (and recreated) since then; it doesn't show history back that far. Could you repeat it where one might read it? —Tamfang (talk) 18:08, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Revert explanation
I reverted one edit from Pasquale because it is not true that "Alto Adige" is used in English only when quoting the Italian name, see for example these links:, , or also this google search and this google scholar search.-- Suppar  luca  12:42, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I beg to disagree. The English name of this region is and always has been "South Tyrol". "Alto Adige" is purely Italian, not English. (If anything, it would have to be Upper Adige, as in Upper Austria, Upper Palatinate, Upper Silesia, etc.) Supparluca's position is clearly motivated by nationalism and therefore unacceptable. Pasquale (talk) 14:43, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * "Alto Adige" is an English name just like "Milan", "Genoa", "Vienna" and "Ravenna". The fact that some names are identical to the Italian names doesn't mean they aren't English. I proved that the name "Alto Adige" is commonly used in English (it was and it is), just follow the links. If you prove that it isn't used in English, I'll side with you.-- Suppar luca  08:19, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I am sorry, but the links you provided are meaningless. The intent of this article (I know because I started it) is to provide a list of traditional names of historical regions (e.g. Bavaria, Burgundy, etc.) not a collection of current official names of administrative units. The two concepts are radically different and often don't match at all. You have only shown that Alto Adige occurs in English in reference to the current official Italian name of the administrative unit corresponding to the Province of Bolzano-Bozen. If you prove that it's used in English as the traditional name of the historical region of South Tyrol, I'll side with you. Pasquale (talk) 14:20, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
 * What do you mean with historical? The name "South Tyrol" didn't exist before 1918, because this province didn't exist (the name "Alto Adige" was invented during the Napoleonic occupation - anyway, my version put both names on the same level). And also: "This article attempts to give all known alternative names for all major European regions, provinces, and territories.-- Suppar luca  14:44, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Exactly. And then it says: "This article does not offer any opinion about what the "original", "official", "real", or "correct" name of any region is or was. Regions are listed alphabetically by their current best-known name in English, which does not necessarily match the title of the corresponding article." The operative words here are: "current best-known name in English". I have lived for more than 35 years in an English-speaking country and have had plenty of opportunities to discuss this region with native speakers of English. I assure you most English-speakers would draw a blank if they heard "Alto Adige" (two non-English words), but they would know what you're talking about if you said "South Tyrol". I challenge anyone to maintain otherwise. Ergo, "South Tyrol" is the current best-known name in English. Would an English-speaker say "Riesling and Gewürztraminer are the best-known wines from South Tyrol" or "Riesling and Gewürztraminer are the best-known wines from Alto Adige"? What do you think? In any case, my version leaves "Alto Adige" in place with a reference to "South Tyrol". Isn't that enough? Pasquale (talk) 20:48, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Furthermore, by saying "because this province didn't exist", you show once again that you're thinking of the current administrative unit (or province). This article deals with names of geographical regions independently of their status as administrative units of any country (as the regions and provinces of Italy). For example, Valtellina is not listed here because it more or less matches the administrative unit called Province of Sondrio, but because it is the name of a historical region called "Veltlin" in German, "Veltline" in French, and "Vuclina" in Romansh. Notice, by the way, that Valtellina and Province of Sondrio are separate articles in the Wikipedia, as they should be. (The collapsing of "South Tyrol"/"Alto Adige"/"Upper Adige" with Province of Bolzano-Bozen is an anomaly.) Does this clarify the meaning of "historical region" (as opposed to administrative unit) for you? Pasquale (talk) 21:08, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Finally, the system of départements put in place during the Napoleonic period (and still used in France) was specifically designed to do away with the traditional names of historical regions and relied mainly on river names; that is why that département was called "Haut Adige" during the Napoleonic period. You will not find any names of Napoleonic départements in this list, precisely because they are not traditional names of historical regions. Pasquale (talk) 21:55, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I said that what you call the "geographical region of South Tyrol" was born together with the province of Bolzano, so I didn't understand why you implied that "South Tyrol" is the name of an historical region while "Alto Adige" is the official name of an administrative unit. It's your opinion that "South Tyrol" is the current best-known name in English; I get 21 hits for "Alto Adige" in google news and 14 for "South Tyrol" . Speaking of wine, "[...] has a pinot nero from the Alto Adige (2006 Suditroler Blauburgunder, $50) that drinks like a charming burgundy." .-- Suppar  luca  08:21, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
 * All right, I am not fully convinced, but I've decided to concede this point. After all, it is not that important to me personally, and no one else has spoken up. I admit that "Alto Adige" seems to get a greater number of hits on Google with exact English phrases such as "wines from Alto Adige" vs. "wines from South Tyrol", or "history of Alto Adige" vs. "history of South Tyrol", etc. Of course, frequency of usage on the Web does not tell the whole story (for example many of those hits may be from official Italian government Web sites, which makes the whole argument rather circular), but nonetheless it's a fact. So, I have restored your "Alto Adige or South Tyrol" under A and added a cross-reference under S. I hope that is satisfactory. Pasquale (talk) 17:18, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Seems fine. Though it's not clear why the entry under "A" should include the name "South Tyrol", given the cross-reference under "S" (which rightly doesn't include "Alto Adige"). People looking for "South Tyrol" would go directly to "S" anyway.-- Suppar luca  07:42, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Alto Adige or South Tyrol
@ User:Pasquale: "current usage" you say??? how do you then explain the adding of something like: "Bolcāno-Bozena" which gets 1 google results, which is coincidently this page exactly? or how about: "Aşağı Tirol" which gets 5 google hits and 3 of these are the same as this page here, and the Turkish wikipdedia states that "Aşağı Tirol" is actually not South Tyrol, but the North Tyrolean "Tiroler Unterland" ; on the other hand you throw out the French "Tyrol du Sud", which generates 46,600 google hits! ; "Alter Ades" and "Adesc Aut" are simple translations and I do not think we will also translate Albert Einsteins name into Albert Onestone??? if you google "Alter Ades" you get 225 hits, but most of them are in Latin, because Alter ades is Latin (Alter= Others and ades "to be here"); "Oberetsch" was used by the Italian government, but by nobody in the German speaking world and in my view is the only valid addition to this list, as it actually was once used officially and still gets over 500 google hits. Therefore I reverted your edit as it adds incorrect information and removes very valid information. I suggest you will only add the purportedly "used" names if you have some clear references that show, that they are actually used and correct. (After some thought I also added "Adesc Aut" as it seems that it is used to describe the region of "Trentin/Adesc Aut"). --noclador (talk) 23:54, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I beg your pardon! What edits? I did not make any edits. I simply reverted the page to its previous longstanding state, after you made a number of unverified edits. Please do not use Google as a guideline, because, as I repeat, the number of Google hits is irrelevant to this article. What is the sense of using Google, if, as you yourself admit, you get totally irrelevant results like Latin phrases meaning "another you are present"? The fact that you had not previously contributed to this article made your sudden obsession with the Alto Adige or South Tyrol entry suspect, and possibly indicative of a POV interest. I suspect you know nothing or next to nothing about the Dolomitic Ladin dialects in question, and you don't understand that there is no single Dolomitic Ladin language, but a number of divergent dialects, in which "High Adige" can be expressed in such different forms as Adesc Aut and Alter Ades (again, if you think you can locate these local dialect forms by looking up Google, you are clearly off the track). Also, you don't seem to understand that the forms are listed in alphabetical order, i.e., you haven't even bothered to read the introduction to the article. As for the specifics, Aşağı Tirol and Bolcāno-Bozena had been added respectively by qualified Turkish and Latvian contributors, however I have removed them for the time being, given your insistence that they are spurious. As for the rest, French Tyrol du Sud and Spanish Tirol del Sur were already listed as variants. Did you not see them? If you bother to read the discussion above, you will see that I supported the primacy of South Tyrol in English usage, arguing against  Suppar luca  who claimed that "Alto Adige is an English name just like Milan, Genoa, Vienna and Ravenna". We reached an amicable settlement that seems to work for everyone. Nonetheless, whether you like it or not, Alto Adige alphabetically precedes South Tyrol in all of the languages listed, so you are going to have to live with that.  Pasquale (talk) 17:02, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * longstanding state doesn't mean that we should not improve, correct or expand an article
 * I came to this article, because we are in the process of cleaning out POV nonsense added by two editors (user:Icsunonove and user:Supparluca and IP's related to them) to all kinds of South Tyrol related articles (i.e. a Czech noble family that moved from Tyrol to Bohemia in 1270, was changed to have come in 1270 from the Province of Bolzano-Bozen... or edits like this, , , , and much more and much worse) I can understand that my sudden appearance here might look suspicious, but as said above I had a reason to come here.
 * I am a bit annoyed by the suggestion that I don't know the differences of the Ladin dialects. I worked for a year for the head of the Union Generela di Ladins dla Dolomites and am currently working with the Micurà de Rü to get the Ladin wikipedia off the ground. As a linguist you are more qualified to write about languages, but I am well aware of the differences between the Ladin dialects. The removal of Adesc Aut is done at the request of the head of the Micurà de Rü, because according to him it is not Ladin but "un nome storpiato italiano". (the POV warriors added Adesc Aut with the claim, that the Ladins used it for centuries and Tolomei took Alto Adige not from the French Haut Adige, but from the Ladin Adesc Aut... I checked back with the Micurà and after their answer proceeded to remove it where necessary)
 * I didn't see the above discussion with user:Supparluca, but now that I have I must say I fully agree with your edits and reasons ,
 * as you correctly pointed out I mixed up the alphabetical order - I wanted to keep the variations of one language all together.
 * I suggest we move the list of names from A to S, because as you pointed out: "Alto Adige is not used in English, except when quoting the Italian official name; the most common English name should be listed here" - which in English is definitely South Tyrol
 * I'm a bit confused by your edit here: - ei and eis, I was thinking about removing them, but I'd rather let you do it in case they were added erroneous (on a side note: user:Mai-Sachme is a linguist from Bozen and one of the dozen editors currently working to undo the damage done to articles by the aforementioned POV campaign - we are all a bit stressed, as there are thousands of edits to check for their veracity)
 * as for Aşağı - I looked to the Turkish wiki and it stands for Lower or Down i.e. Niedersachsen, Niederösterreich, Down quark, Güney on the other hand stands for South . As for Bolcāno-Bozena: Bolcāno is the Lativan translation of Bolzano; I have no idea where Bozena comes from; but I doubt anyone would translate the artificial name Bolzano-Bozen. As far as I know the term in Latvian is Dienvidtirole.
 * --noclador (talk) 17:18, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your feedback. (1) I was aware of the POV battle being waged on the Wikipedia by some users bent on expunging the term "South Tyrol" from the history books, but not of how extensive it was. Thank you for pointing that out. (2) My apologies for suggesting that "you know nothing or next to nothing about the Dolomitic Ladin dialects". Obviously, you are a lot more informed on the subject than I assumed. Furthermore, if you have worked or are currently working with local organizations such as the Union Generela di Ladins dles Dolomites and the Istitut Ladin Micurà de Rü, you will undoubtedly have access to more updated information. However, in my opinion, the fact per se that those Ladin names are mere translations of the official Italian name is not necessarily grounds for their removal, since the same holds true for all similar forms, such as Polish "Górna Adyga", Spanish "Alto Adigio", etc. The question is: Do those forms really exist (even if only as translations of "Alto Adige") or not? I absolutely agree they should be removed if they are spurious. If they do exist at all, they should probably be specifically identified (e.g. Gherdëina, Fascian, Badiot, Fodom, or whatever). I will try to investigate this myself, but, as I repeat, you may have access to more updated information than I. (3) I have reversed the primary vs. secondary listing of South Tyrol / Alto Adige, restoring it to what it was prior to the controversy with Supparluca. (4) It certainly makes sense to keep the variations of one language all together, if they have roughly equal standing, while the separate listing with "variant in" should be used for clearly secondary forms. That is, of course, why "Oberetsch" is listed separately and identified as a "variant in German [once used by Italian government])". So, basically, the French and Spanish forms need to be investigated, of course in a non-POV way, in order to determine if one or the other is primary in current usage. (5) Thank you for pointing out my typos ("ei", "eis") in List of European rivers with alternative names. I think I had been searching the page for "Eisack" while in edit mode, and those characters were accidentally entered in the page. Ouch! (6) Thank you for clarifying the difference between "Aşağı" and "Güney" in Turkish. Clearly, "Aşağı" is erroneous here. (7) You are absolutely right about Bolcāno-Bozena. It clearly is only a forced Latvian adaptation of the artificial name Bolzano-Bozen. Even if it occurs at all in Latvian usage (the Latvian Wikipedia only gives "Bolcāno" ), it refers to the city and not to the region. The region, by the way, according to the Latvian Wikipedia, is called in Latvian "Alto Adidže" or "Dienvidtirole" . Pasquale (talk) 17:02, 23 February 2009 (UTC)


 * 1) It was extensive - now we are trimming the excess.
 * 2) Apology accepted. I asked the head of the Istitut Ladin Micurà de Rü what the correct Ladin name for South Tyrol is and his answer was a bit surprising for me: "é un po'paradossale, ma non esiste un nome ladino." He told me that the institute uses either Sudtirol or Alto Adige - but far more often Sudtirol. I suspect that the name Adesc Aut was translated recently by the homepage http://www.noeles.net/ when they translated the name of the region - most homepages using the term Adesc Aut make reference to noeles,... I informed the Micurà de Rü, which as you know is tasked with preserving the Ladin language, and they told me that they will call noeles and tell them to drop Adesc Aut. Also the Micurà de Rü is currently creating a map with all Ladin toponyms of the Badia Valley and most of the Gardena Valley - as soon as I can get my hand on a copy, I will use it to update all Ladin toponyms accordingly.
 * 3) Perfect :-)
 * 4) hmm, altough google is by no way a scientific tool, I think it can give a rough indication of the frequency a term is currently used: i.e. Tirol del Sur 39,400 hits - Alto Adigio 2,030 hits (if we take auf the region the number falls to 119 hits for Alto Adigio) - so in my view "Alto Adigio" is currently a seldom used variant; with French it is pretty much the same: Tyrol du Sud 45,200 hits - Haut Adige 3,660, but the French Haut Adige is probably the most important name variant; it was the first official name change of the area and it was the precursor to all other Adige variations - so even if today it is seldom used, historically it is one of the most important names and we need to treat it accordingly.
 * 5) You're welcome.
 * 6) I have no idea what the correct name in Latvian is, but we can put both in the list, as they are both used on the Latvian wiki (although I think Alto Adidže is just a half done transliteration). --noclador (talk) 15:50, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

זיבנבורגן
I changed זיבּענבּורגען to זיבנבורגן because that would be the current spelling. זיבּענבּורגען is old orthography, as can be seen by the בּ (in current othography, it wouldn't have a dagesh) and the ע is not used in these places any more. For reference, see Modern English-Yiddish Yiddish-English Dictionary by Uriel Weinreich, page xxii. I also changed the transcription, because it has to be the standard system-YIVO system-on Wikipedia. Shikku27316 (talk) 01:30, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

genuine alternatives
I stripped out the most obvious adaptations of the same names to different phonologies, and these remained.

The word alternative implies choice. No one writing about Basque issues chooses between il-Pajjiżi Baski (Maltese) and Tír na mBascach (Irish). —Tamfang (talk) 19:44, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Anybody counted how many of these regions there are in Europa?
I know there is the Europa of the Nations - the European Union. But there is here in Brussels also a building called the Committee of the Regions aka "COR" - www.cor.europa.eu - "the European Union's assembly of regional and local representatives". It further reads "The CoR has 350 full members and the same number of alternate members."; so how many regions has this article listed? The letter "A" had some 25 regions listed. Just an estimation, I gamble there are some 525 regions listed here? Happy counting :) Thy --SvenAERTS (talk) 00:05, 1 May 2017 (UTC)