Is there evidence of a place name originating from an abbreviation or acronym?

Question

I was thinking about the city of Los Angeles and how I rarely refer to it by its full name but rather its abbreviation, LA.

It doesn't seem unbelievable to me that, in a mostly illeterate society, this abbreviation (or perhaps a homophone of it like 'Elay') would evently replace the more difficult to pronounce full name.

Are there any historical examples of an abbreviation or acronym replacing an existing place name?

Answer 1

One famous example in such respect is the name of Pakistan, which however was coined purposedly when it became an independent nation. It comes from an acronym formed from the names of the five northern provinces of British India: Punjab, Afghan Province, Kashmir, Sind, and Baluchistan (see here). The i vowel was inserted for euphonic purposes. However, the word paki also has its own meaning in Urdu ('pure').

Another such artificial creation is the name of Banzare Coast, coming from the name of the British-Australian-New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition that discovered it (see here).

You would probably prefer natural developments to artificial creations. I am sure there are many examples, and I can mention those of two Russian cities. The first is Saint Petersburg, which is commonly known, and effectively called, Piter by the native speakers. Some people call it by the acronym SPb, even if more in writing than in speaking. Another example is the city of Yekaterinburg, which is commonly abbreviated into Ye-burg, also in the spoken language.

City names in the Spanish domains in South America were often derived from quite lengthy phrases having a religious content. Later they underwent spontaneous abbreviation. This is the case of Buenos Aires, a name derived from the former denomination Puerto de Nuestra Señora Santa María del Buen Ayre (at least, according to the popular sources).

P.S. I suppose I don't need to mention Frisco for San Francisco.

Answer 2

There's a wiki list of geographic acronyms and initialisms for this (I should know, since I compiled it) but only a few (if any) qualify as being a replacement name for the longer term. Perhaps sometime in the future New Orleans may officially be changed to NOLA. And I'm unsure if Soweto (South West Townships) and Nemato (Nelson Mandela Township) were originally known by the longer names. There's a couple merged cities in Ontario (Walden and Kenora) that are acronyms of the predecessor cities. Those might qualify. If you count those, there's a section with more merged cities in List of geographic portmanteaus

ETA: Soweto does not qualify. There was a contest in 1959 to name the communities and the judges selected Soweto as a neutral name. (some of the names were quite racist.) So while the name is an acronym, it wasn't of the previous name of the area.

Answer 3

"Tanzania" is a combination of the names of two merged countries, Tanganyika and Zanzibar.

Answer 4

NIODA (A city in North India): New Okhla Industrial Development Area.

MIDHANI (A locality in Hyderabad, South India): Mishram Dhatu Nigam (Hindi words meaning ‘Alloy Corporation’).

Answer 5

"The UK", "The US", "The USA", "The EU" are all more common than the unabbreviated versions.