Egopolis: Difference between revisions

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Many a self-aggrandizing dictator has not been satisfied merely with building entire factories to produce busts and portraits of himself. For these rulers, the ultimate statement of their power has been to name or [[Meaningful Rename|rename]] entire towns after themselves. Don't be surprised if there's a big [[Our Founder]] statue in the central plaza or entrance. Or both.

 

 

Is a common trait of a [[Villain World]]. The renamer is likely to be [[The Caligula]] or [[The Generalissimo]]. Tends to lead to [[Please Select New City Name]] a generation or so later...

 

 

Compare [[Conspicuous Consumption]] and [[Airstrip One]].

** Interestingly, there is a town in Ohio called "Ohio City", but it's not a state capital.

* The unofficial name of Gliese 581 g (the first exoplanet widely believed to be capable of supporting Terragen life) is Zarmina's World. In a slight variation of this trope, Zarmina is named not after the discoverer (Steven Vogt) but rather after his wife.

** To be fair, he ''founded almost all'' of those cities rather than renaming them from something else.

*** Actually, that is exactly the opposite of what Alexander did. All of the known sites he 'founded' cities on already had important centres or capitals on that spot. It was actually his successors, in particular the Seleucids, who founded cities on virgin territory.

*** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvRWUCfAPs0 There is also this]

* Subverted with Emperor Hadrian, who traveled throughout the entire Roman Empire, commissioning buildings and civil works projects wherever he went. Many of those cities renamed ''themselves'' Hadrianopolis in order to enjoy the emperor's favor. Played straight with Antinoopolis, the city he founded in memory of his dead lover.

** Lenin's home town was renamed Ulianovsk, after his real surname, Ulianov. It hasn't been changed back.

** Tsarskoye Selo, or "Village of the Tsar", is now "Pushkin", after Aleksandr Pushkin, who was not a dictator but instead a famous poet.

** The Battles of Stalingrad and Leningrad in World War II were so vicious and bloody at least in part because of Stalin's Egopolis tendencies; as well as the tactical advantages they offered the Germans (near-completely unfettered access to the oilfields of the Caucasus, in the case of Stalingrad), it would be a great propaganda coup for the Germans (and subsequent blow to the Soviets) for the cities named after their glorious leader and the founder of their glorious worker's paradise both to fall. Stalin, of course, was not going to let that shit go unopposed. Result? Eighteen-odd months of vicious street-fighting so determined that every individual room in every house would be bitterly contested in the former, and a protracted siege that resulted in daily bombardments and the citizenry eating their own dead in the latter.

*** A Russian joke:

{{quote| A general is asked about a specially magnificent medal on his chest. "Ah yes, I got that for my part in the battle of Volgograd. It was presented to me by Volgin himself."<ref>Don't you love [[Russian Humor]]?</ref>}}

* [[Useful Notes/Dominican Republic|Dominican]] dictator [[Rafael Trujillo]] did this a ''lot'', going as far as changing the capital city's name from Santo Domingo to Ciudad Trujillo.

* Byzantium was originally named after a king named Byzas. After the Roman Emperor Constantine made it the new capital, its name was officially changed to New Rome, but everyone referred to it as Constantinople (Constantine's City). Now it's [[Istanbul Not Constantinople|Istanbul, not Constantinople]], and it's [[They Might Be Giants|nobody's business but the Turks]].

** It wasn't actually renamed Constantinople until after Constantine died. And Nova Roma (New Rome) was never the official name, just a reflection of Constantine's desire for it to be as prestigious as Rome had been at the height of the Roman Empire.

* Queen Victoria. Various locations in the former Empire, especially Canada, Australia and Africa. Mind you, she didn't choose any of them herself: as with other instances of places named after English or British royals, it's usually the discoverer who chooses the name, and most chose Victoria because they sincerely ''wanted to'' name something after her, because they respected her.

*** Charlotte being named after the current queen must have made the [[The American Revolution|Battle of Charlotte]] a bit more humiliating.

** [[Denver]] was named after an early governor of Kansas Territory, James W. Denver.

* About half the geographic locations in New South Wales and Tasmania were named after NSW Governor Lachlan Macquarie, mostly by Macquarie himself.

** Another fun fact; you can actually tell approximately how old any particular street in Sydney's (Named after Lord Sydney, of Course) CBD is by its name; almost all of Sydney City's streets are named after an English Politician or Monarch contemporary to the time the street was built (With the exception of Elizabeth; they were talking about the first one, not Her Majesty Liz Windsor.)

** Semi-averted with the Canadian province of Alberta, which was to be named in the honour of Princess Louise, one of Victoria's daughters and the wife of the Governor General of Canada. However, Louise requested that the name also honour her father, Prince Albert, so instead of her first name, one of her other surnames, Alberta, was used instead.

*** It would have also been confusing to have a Louisiana in Canada!

* Williamstown, Massachusetts and the college it contains, Williams College, are named after the same man, Ephraim Williams, who left his estates to Massachusetts in his will on the condition that they use them to build a school, and that the school and the town its in both be named after him.

* Herod the Great had a pleasure palace/small city created for himself and called it Herodium.

* An unintentional one for [[Barack Obama]]: there is a small city in Japan called Obama, which was founded long before he was even born and is etymologically unrelated to his name. They did erect a statue of him and churn out merchandise related to him after he became known as the presidential candidate/president.

** In 1949 in former Czechoslovakia the town of Zlín was renamed to Gottwaldov after the first communist (or, using terminology of the day, "worker") president Klement Gottwald. It was changed back immediately after the Velvet Revolution.

** Screw mere cities, Saudi Arabia is this applied to a ''whole country'' -- it is named after its ruling dynasty. It would be like Britain being called Windsorland.

* The Belgian city of Charleroi (Charles-king) is named after the famously imbred Charles II of Spain, ruler of the Spanish Low Countries when the initial fortress was constructed. The celebrated king was inglorious enough that most of the locals are persuaded the city takes its names from either or both of the much more prestigious Charlemagne and Charles V von Habsburg, both raised in the Low Countries. The same Charles V also named a Belgian fortress Philippeville in honour of his son; and his sister Mary of Hungary christened Mariembourg after herself when she was governor of the Low Countries.

[[Category:This Trope Name References Itself]]

[[Category:Egopolis]]