Istanbul (Not Constantinople): Difference between revisions

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* The Britannian Empire in ''[[Code Geass]]'', which encompasses a chunk of what used to be [[The British Empire]]. (Notably without Britain itself, but with ''the entirety of the Americas'' to make up for it.)

** He does recognize the language being spoken at the school as French, however.

* Albion for England in ''[[Trinity Blood]]''. The capital is called Londinium, the Latin name for London.

* ''[[Strike Witches]]'' seems to exist in a universe where most European countries kept the names they had as Roman provinces. Britain, for example, is "Britannia". France is "Gallia", Spain is "Hispania", etc. However, some countries have somewhat nonsensical names (Germany is "Karlsland", the Scandinavian countries are "Baltland", and they just got lazy with '''O'''''russia''). Somewhat justified with Suomus, Ostmark, Venazia and Romagna (Finland, Austria-Hungary, North and South Italy), which are based on either historical names for the countries, or the names of the countries in their native languages. Italy, oddly enough, was never unified and Venice still seems to hold some of its territories in Eastern Europe. Liberion is a pun on "Liberty", and is an alternate-USA, and Fuso is the Japanese pronunciation of "Fusang", an ancient Chinese name for Japan. Introduced in other works is "Faraway Land" for Canada, and "Neue Karlsland" for South America. [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/25/StrikeWitchesWorldMap.JPG Here's a map] for reference.

 

== Comic Books ==

* ''[[Batman]]'': Gotham City, since Gotham is an old name for New York. There was a 19th-century book which, playing on American jealousy of European cities which liked to boast about their hundreds of years of history, was a fictional history of NYC, giving it the name "Gotham". Whether or not Gotham City ''is'' New York in the comics has varied through the years; currently, they're different cities in-universe, but writers still play with parallels.

*** Of course as far as [[The Dark Knight Trilogy|Christopher Nolan]] is concerned, Gotham is actually [[The Windy City|Chicago]].

== Fan Works ==

* In ''[[With Strings Attached]]'', in their quest for the first piece of the Vasyn, the four are sent to the city of New Zork on an alternate Earth. Locations there include Crooklyn and Harvem, the latter being the ghetto for the harveys, human-sized intelligent rabbits. The US is called Ameriga; England is Angland. And much to their dismay, though it's 1954, the Beagles have just arrived....

 

== Film ==

* ''The Signal'' is set in Terminus, which used to be the name of Atlanta, Georgia, the city the movie is filmed in.

* In ''Star Wars'', this trope is played straight ludicrously many times with Coruscant, the capital planet of the 25,000-year-old [[The Federation|Galactic Re]][[The Republic|public]]. When the [[The Emperor|Galactic Emperor]] [[Evil Overlord|Palpatine]] takes over, it's renamed Imperial Centre. Later, it's seized back by the rising [[The Federation|New Republic]], which renames it Coruscant again. Then [[The Empire]] takes it back ''again'' under the reborn, [[Grand Theft Me]]-happy Palpatine, followed by yet another New Republic takeover. Next, the [[Alien Invasion|invading]] [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens|Yuuzhan Vong]] rename it Yuuzhan'tar after their lost homeworld. Then the Galactic Alliance, formed from the remnants of the destroyed New Republic, defeats the Yuuzhan Vong and calls it Coruscant again… and THEN Darth Krayt's Galactic Empire takes over. Guess what happens—go on, guess.

 

== Literature ==

* [[Orson Scott Card]]'s ''Alvin Maker'' series is set in an alternate North America. Many names remain familiar, but are in variant spellings, such as "Hio," "Irrakwa" and "Wobbish." All these are originally Native American words, and the familiar forms are transliterations by Francophone explorers. In this world, the Anglophones seemingly got there first, so the transliterations are a bit different.

* In the ''[[Kushiel's Legacy]]'' series by Jacqueline Carey, the maps at the beginnings of the book show that it is Europe. The UK is named Alba, Ireland is Eire, Spain is Aragonia, Germany and the northern lands are Skaldia, Italy is Caerdicca Unitas - Venice, or a suspiciously Venetian city, is [[City of Canals|La Serenissima]] - the Balkans are Illyria, Greece is Hellas, Egypt and the Maghreb is Menekhet, India is Bhodistan, China is Ch'in, Japan is the Empire of the Sun, Jebe-Barkal is Ethiopia and a bit more, The Flatlands are The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, Vralia is Russia and Drujan and Khebel-im-Akkad are different parts of Ancient Persia. France is called Terre d'Ange (literally Land of Angels) but that's because it's the land of [[Mary Sue]]s for [[Backstory]] reasons.

** For that matter, it isn't specified whether all of these are actually [[Washington DC]] under different names. The capital could be located elsewhere.

* Thomas Hardy set all his novels in his native region of southwest England but with most placenames changed; he called it [[wikipedia:File:Wessex.png|Wessex]].

* The ''[[Conan the Barbarian]]'' books and related materials, set in what was constructed to be a feasible vanished age. Scandinavia is not called Jotunheim, but it's called Vanaheim and Asgard, which isn't better. Robert E. Howard claimed things to be the other way around: the different mythological names of people and places he mentions were 'corrupted' over time, becoming the myths we know of today.

* Fiona Patton's ''Tales of the Branion Realm'' is set in an alternate Britain named Branion, with a similar map. Since the series focuses on nobility, many of the original names can be determined from the titles. For example, the heir to the throne is the Prince of Gwyneth (Wales) and Duke of Kraburn. If it wasn't obvious from the map that Kraburn is Cornwall, Kraburn has a major port named Halmouth (Falmouth). The second in line to the throne is the Duke of Yorbourne, which from the map clearly represents York. Other countries include Gallia, Danelind, and Tiberia (home to the Pontiff of a Catholic-analogue religion).

** ''The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump'': This [[Magitek]] novel is set in Angels City, on the coast of the Peaceful Ocean, and just north of the Barony of Orange. On the East Coast of the Confederated Provinces are the District of St. Columba and the city of New Jorvik.

** His more traditional alternate history novels feature this too, mainly for objects—nukes become "exploding-metal bombs" (in the [[Worldwar]]/Colonization series) or "superbombs" and "sunbombs" (Timeline-191), suicide bombers become "people bombs," the Molotov cocktail is the "Featherston Fizz," and the Army's heavily armored frontline combat vehicles are "barrels," not tanks.

** His ''War Between the Provinces'' series is basically a retelling of the American Civil War in the West from Chickamauga on, only with the map reversed (the rebels are in the north), the colors reversed (because indigo is a major rebel product) and with names either given alternates or horrid puns. General Rosecrans is renamed "Guildenstern." Chickamauga is renamed "The River of Death," and Lookout Mountain, "Sentry Peak." Georgia becomes "Peachtree," and Selma, Alabama is renamed "Hayek."

** [[Harry Turtledove]] and Richard Dreyfus do this in ''The Two Georges'' with Boston, Oregon (rejected in real life by a coin flip; you probably know the city as Portland).

* In John Flanagan's [[Ranger's Apprentice]], this is used rather stylishly, for example: Araluen = England, Gallica = France, Celtica = Wales, Hibernia = Ireland, Picta = Scotland, Teutlandt = Germany, Arrida = North Africa (Tripoli or Egypt), Skandia = Scandinavia, Nihon-Ja = Japan, Iberion = Spain, Toscana = Rome/Italy, the unnamed Temujai country = Mongolia (Genghis Khan's name was Temijin), Indus (briefly mentioned in Book 10) probably = India, etc.

 

* For no explained reason, London is "Londinium" in the Adam West-era ''[[Batman (TV series)|Batman]]''. And its police headquarters is New Ireland Yard.

** DC Comics at the time (and mostly to this day, at least for US cities) didn't generally use real city names; apparently, this carried over to TV as well.

* Albion pops up in ''[[Merlin (TV series)|Merlin]]'', though since it's Arthurian legend-based, it's justified.

 

 

* ''[[7th Sea]]'' has thinly veiled Renaissance-Enlightenment pastiches of the British Isles (Avalon), France (Montaigne), Italy (Vodacce), Eisen (Germany/the remnants of the [[Holy Roman Empire]]), Castille (Spain), Ussura (Russia) and Vendel (a combination of several Nordic and northern European states). There's also The Crescent Empire (the Middle East), Cathay (East Asia) and an island chain to represent the Caribbean.

* ''Damnation Decade'', a Green Ronin d20 System RPG based on tropes from 1970's sci-fi TV and movies, renames ''everything'': America gets the slight change to Americo, Gordon Lightfoot and Edmund Fitzgerald get their names swapped, and then it gets weird (Richard Nixon becomes "Stanton Spobeck," for one).

 

== Video Games ==

* The ''[[2027]]'' [[Game Mod|mod]] for ''[[Deus Ex]]'' features the Russian '''Con'''federation.

* The ''[[Quest for Glory]]'' series. Features Spielburg (Germanic town), Mordavia (Transylvania), Silmaria (Greece), Shapeir (Middle East), and Fricana (Africa). Scandinavia is called Jotunheim, but has the justification of having actual Jotuns.

 

== Web Comics ==

* ''Sorcery101'' takes place in an alternate universe, wherein the territory that is our United Kingdom is called Terra, China appears to be called Sipan and the USA and Canada are a single country known as the UPH.

* ''[[Fan Dan Go]]'' is set in an alternate England known as Anglise. Its capital city is Londinium, and the city of Lonchester is rather larger than the [[Real Life]] Lancaster.

 

== Web Original ==

* ''[[Decades of Darkness]]'' has this: Knoxville, TN is the new * US capital Columbia, Equador is northern Brazil, New England is a much more extensive term, and colonial cities across Africa, Australia, Asia and the Americas have different names.

** Also inverted—The government of His Majesty, the Tsar of All the Russias, would like to make perfectly clear that it's Constantinople, not Istanbul.

* In an episode of ''[[Samurai Jack]]'' ("Jack and the Haunted House"), both Jack and the owners of a house he is a guest at refer to Tokyo by its old name, Edo. Justified, of course, as both [[Fish Out of Temporal Water| he and they are from the time period before its name was changed.]]

 

* The city now known as Istanbul was founded as "Byzantion," (often referred to in the latinised form "[[Byzantine Empire|Byzantium]]") and was later renamed "Nova Roma" (New Rome) by Constantine, but people kept on calling it Constantine's City ({{smallcaps|Constantinopolis}}/Κωνσταντινούπολις/Constantinople) until the name stuck. The alternate name "Istanbul" came into use at least a millennium before Turkey finally made it official in 1930. Its origin might come from the Greek "εις την Πόλιν," literally "to the city," and roughly "downtown." It might also simply be a corruption of "-instantinople." Other names include the Slavic "Tsargrad" (City of the Emperor) and the Norse "Mikligarðr" (Big City). In spite of all this, there lingers a popular perception that Constantinople is a Turkish name applied through conquest by the Turks. Even locals get irritated when foreigners call it "Constantinople."

** And Greeks get really irritated, even now, if you call it Istanbul.

[[Category:Naming Conventions]]

[[Category:Alternate History Tropes]]