Towns that aren't referred to as their legal name

[index]

Ventura, CA (San Buenaventura) and Webster Springs, WV (Addison) come to mind, but I don't know of any else.

[Scott5114]

Pryor Creek, Oklahoma is near-universally called Pryor, even on maps and signs.

New Cordell, Oklahoma is also near-universally just called Cordell, because there's nothing left at Old Cordell.

[bwana39]

Garland City AR is usually just referred to as GARLAND.

[Bruce]

The Town of Krupp, WA is usually referred to as Marlin, the name of its post office. Both names are displayed on signage for the town of around 49 people.

[SkyPesos]

Bangkok is officially named "Krung Thep Maha Nakhon".

[gonealookin]

Wikipedia's article suggests that Waimea, on a saddle in the northern part of the Big Island, is referred to as "Kamuela" only by USPS, but in practice those two names seem pretty interchangeable.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

Den Bosch ('s-Hertogenbosch), Netherlands. Also Den Haag (The Hague), now almost universally used instead of 's-Gravenhage.

[GaryV]

Jenison, MI is only the name of the post office. It is part of Georgetown Twp. But everyone calls it Jenison.

[SP Cook]

Webster Springs, WV (Addison) come to mind...

Berkeley Springs WV is legally Bath, WV.    Coalton WV is legally Womelsdorf. 

[mgk920]

- Fontana, WI (official name - Fontana On Geneva Lake, WI)

- Los Angeles, CA - (I won't even begin with the city's official name)

Mike

[flan]

Canton City, ND, is almost always referred to as Hensel, even on official state maps.

[IowaTraveler]

Jewell, Iowa's official name is Jewell Junction, even though I've only ever seen it referred to as Jewell on signs and maps. I only found out about it when I was doing this city naming game and was really confused that it wasn't accepting Jewell.

[catch22]

- Fontana, WI (official name - Fontana On Geneva Lake, WI)

- Los Angeles, CA - (I won't even begin with the city's official name)

Mike

I'll do it.  I remember having to learn (and pronouce) this in Spanish class in high school.

"El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula"

[Dirt Roads]

Webster Springs, WV (Addison) come to mind...

Berkeley Springs WV is legally Bath, WV.   

And both of these are county seats...  ...and both names got changed by the Postal Service...   ...which brings in another twist.

Not only did the Postal Service give the town Bath the name of Berkeley Springs P.O. because the name Bath was already used to describe the residents of most all of what was then Bath County, but the Commonwealth did the same thing when Morgan County separated from Berkeley County in 1820.  Thusly, Berkeley Springs is the official county seat of Morgan County, West Virginia.  But the same didn't happen with Addison.  We are not exactly why the Postal Service gave Addison the name of Webster Springs P.O., but a plausible reason was that there was a post office in the Addison Heights community of what when (then) Alexandria County, which had been in Virginia at the time of the founding of the Postal Service.  But this wasn't a problem for the Commonwealth, which also incorporated Webster County in 1860... with the official county seat of Addison.  Today, many of the county documents claim an address of the more commonly used name of "Webster Springs".

[Dirt Roads]

And once-upon-a-time:  The town of Gallipolis Ferry, West Virginia was once incorporated and officially known as Gallipolis, the same name as its larger sister city across the river in Ohio.  But the post office there has always been Gallipolis Ferry, and apparently the locals called it the same.  There's another one in Mason County that is even more unusual:  The town of Ambrosia was once known as Brosia, but the post office there was named Ambrosia.  This location was never incorporated, and the locals just simply gave up and called it what the Postal Service said it was.

[Henry]

The capital of China is officially named Peking, but for several years, it has been called Beijing instead.

[Dirt Roads]

Another once-upon-a-time:  The town of Pennington Gap, Virginia was chartered as Pennington but the Postal Service (and everyone else) still called it Pennington Gap.  In 1985, the old charter was repealed by the General Assembly and reincorporated the way that the locals call it.

[Dirt Roads]

One here in North Carolina:  The railroad town of Marsden in Beaufort County was the hub of the old Norfolk Southern Railway, but the town was officially named Chocowinity.  As the railroad lost its luster (and most of its customers), the town lost its taste for the railroad name.  But the few old-timers left still call it Marsden, as the town was named after one of the railroad financiers (who eventually took control and became its president).

Fun fact:  The old Norfolk Southern Railway was leased by the Southern Railway, which purchased the line outright in the mid-1970s.  And lo-and-behold, the Southern merged with the Norforlk & Western Railway to become (yup!) Norfolk Southern Railway again.  This angered folks that were connected with the old Norfolk & Southern (as the locals called it), and they sued the holding company to try to keep the old railroad name from being reused.  The lawsuit was dropped when it became obvious that the new Norfolk Southern still owned the full rights to the old name for the Norfolk & Southern.  But someone apparently got their revenge, as the corporate headquarters unveiled the new marble sign which proudly read Norfork Southern Railway.  The mega-railroad corrected the marble slab several weeks later.

[kphoger]

The capital of China is officially named Peking, but for several years, it has been called Beijing instead.

Officially?  According to whom?

[formulanone]

The capital of China is officially named Peking, but for several years, it has been called Beijing instead.

Officially?  According to whom?

Huh, I always thought it was 北京. Differences in Romanization of characters over the years. The US doesn't have an office of orthographic reform, but some other countries do.

It occurs with Japanese, too. For example, the invasive plant we call "kudzu" is actually kuzu. I'd go as far as to say it probably happens all the dang time when foreign words enters the lexicon of other languages, and changes to fit the speech patterns and accents of that language.

[GenExpwy]

The city (not village) of Grosse Pointe Shores MI is officially named "Village of Grosse Pointe Shores, A Michigan City" .

The capital of China is officially named Peking, but for several years, it has been called Beijing instead.

The official name of that city is 北京 ("Northern Capital" ), which has not changed. Peking is the older Wade—Giles transliteration of those characters, Beijing (or Běijīng) is the newer Pinyin transliteration.

[hotdogPi]

Apparently Manchester-By-The-Sea, MA is usually referred to as just Manchester by locals, but I haven't been there (except through on MA 128), so I can't confirm. Where I live (well, Reading; it rarely gets referred to at all where I actually live), it sometimes gets its full name to distinguish it from the more important Manchester NH, but "Manchester Mass" is just as common.

[Max Rockatansky]

Angels Camp, California is often referred to by its nickname "Frogtown."

[CNGL-Leudimin]

In Spain many towns are officially [first name] de [last name], but are colloqualy referred to with their first name. I took that to my advantage once, in which I used Alcolea (del Pinar) to confuse a relative who works at a kindergarten in Alcolea (de Cinca).

[roadman65]

Salt Lake City is sometimes referred to "Salt Lake"  on guide signs in both Nevada and Utah.