Constantinople or Istanbul what do you call it?

[Pope Joan]

I will not honor Constantine, because he killed Christianity.

[Mirkana]

I call it Istanbul, but I think it should be called Byzantium. It was the original name, and it sounds cooler.

[Geniasis]

I call it Istanbul, but I think it should be called Byzantium. It was the original name, and it sounds cooler.

Nah man, that was like name #3.

[Arumdaum]

I call it Istanbul. Like how I call New York New York and not New Amsterdam.

[Republicke]

All this thread has done is assured that certain hitherto unpolarized people will forevermore respond angrily to the question "Where/what is Istanbul/Constantinople?" and will start debating the semantics of it the very second an acquaintance innocuously informs them that they'll be vacationing in the region.

We will be those guys that attend public lectures in which "Constantinople" or "Istanbul" might crop up, and we'll be the ones who raise our hands to make that oh so necessary clarification...

The extremity of our views will lead strangers to presume some kind of racist or historical linkage to the site in question, and when we start talking in strained tones of "Byzantion and Lygos" as the "real original names" townhalls will be evacuated en masse.

[Dazchan]

I call it Constantinople because...coming from a Greek family, you kind of have to...

Really? Greeks "have to" call cities by incorrect names and make themselves sound ignorant about the world?

[Baltenstein]

Κωνσταντινούπολη is the only name there is for Istanbul in the Greek language.

How about Ιστάνμπουλ?

Is only used to describe under which name the city is known internationally.

[Geniasis]

I call it Constantinople because...coming from a Greek family, you kind of have to...

Really? Greeks "have to" call cities by incorrect names and make themselves sound ignorant about the world?

When you've essentially created the foundation for Western Civilization for thousands of years, you really have to go the extra mile to balance your net contributions at 0.

[Rumbria]

It's Istanbul now, and to call it Constantinople shows little more than a failure to accept change

[The Archregimancy]

I call it Constantinople because...coming from a Greek family, you kind of have to...

Really? Greeks "have to" call cities by incorrect names and make themselves sound ignorant about the world?

That's entirely unfair on two counts. Kal may not be right about many things, but he's right about the sentence quoted above.

1) It's hardly unique for a city to be called one name in one language, and another name in another. That Welsh-speakers, for example, refer to "York" as "Caer Efrog" - a name the city hasn't been called by its residents for some 1500 years - doesn't make the Welsh sound ignorant about the World; it merely signals that they still use an older name in their own language. This is hardly unique. Many Transylvanian towns have three names: one each in Romanian, Hungarian, and German; Sibiu, for example, is also known as Hermannstadt (German) and Nagyszeben (Hungarian). Thus "Konstantinúpolis" in Greek, and "Istanbul" in Turkish; or indeed "Carigrad" in Slovene, "Mikligarður" in Icelandic, or "Tsarigrad" in Bulgarian. Do you consider Slovenes, Icelanders and Bulgarians to be ignorant about the world?

2) The senior hierarch of the Orthodox Church, who resides in Istanbul, is still known as "The Patriarch of Constantinople" in both formal and informal usage, even in English. As most Greeks are Orthodox, it is wholly appropriate for them to refer to 'Constantinople' when discussing ecclesiastical matters in either Greek or English.

[Deep Fried Salmon]

I call it Constantinople by habit.
I blame video games.

[Nexus Corp]

I call it Constantinople because...coming from a Greek family, you kind of have to...

Really? Greeks "have to" call cities by incorrect names and make themselves sound ignorant about the world?

Only ultra nationalists with a complex about the period of Ottoman rule.

[Kazomal]

Really? Greeks "have to" call cities by incorrect names and make themselves sound ignorant about the world?

That's entirely unfair on two counts. Kal may not be right about many things, but he's right about the sentence quoted above.

1) It's hardly unique for a city to be called one name in one language, and another name in another. That Welsh-speakers, for example, refer to "York" as "Caer Efrog" - a name the city hasn't been called by its residents for some 1500 years - doesn't make the Welsh sound ignorant about the World; it merely signals that they still use an older name in their own language. This is hardly unique. Many Transylvanian towns have three names: one each in Romanian, Hungarian, and German; Sibiu, for example, is also known as Hermannstadt (German) and Nagyszeben (Hungarian). Thus "Konstantinúpolis" in Greek, and "Istanbul" in Turkish; or indeed "Carigrad" in Slovene, "Mikligarður" in Icelandic, or "Tsarigrad" in Bulgarian. Do you consider Slovenes, Icelanders and Bulgarians to be ignorant about the world?

2) The senior hierarch of the Orthodox Church, who resides in Istanbul, is still known as "The Patriarch of Constantinople" in both formal and informal usage, even in English. As most Greeks are Orthodox, it is wholly appropriate for them to refer to 'Constantinople' when discussing ecclesiastical matters in either Greek or English.

This.

Also, Greeks and Turks and brothers, we have to be jerks to each other.

[Nexus Corp]

Really? Greeks "have to" call cities by incorrect names and make themselves sound ignorant about the world?

That's entirely unfair on two counts. Kal may not be right about many things, but he's right about the sentence quoted above.

1) It's hardly unique for a city to be called one name in one language, and another name in another. That Welsh-speakers, for example, refer to "York" as "Caer Efrog" - a name the city hasn't been called by its residents for some 1500 years - doesn't make the Welsh sound ignorant about the World; it merely signals that they still use an older name in their own language. This is hardly unique. Many Transylvanian towns have three names: one each in Romanian, Hungarian, and German; Sibiu, for example, is also known as Hermannstadt (German) and Nagyszeben (Hungarian). Thus "Konstantinúpolis" in Greek, and "Istanbul" in Turkish; or indeed "Carigrad" in Slovene, "Mikligarður" in Icelandic, or "Tsarigrad" in Bulgarian. Do you consider Slovenes, Icelanders and Bulgarians to be ignorant about the world?

2) The senior hierarch of the Orthodox Church, who resides in Istanbul, is still known as "The Patriarch of Constantinople" in both formal and informal usage, even in English. As most Greeks are Orthodox, it is wholly appropriate for them to refer to 'Constantinople' when discussing ecclesiastical matters in either Greek or English.

1 - Fine when speaking another language but we are speaking English here so its irrelevant.

2 - Makes them sound caught in the past and trying to get up people's noses to boot.

[Baltenstein]

1 - Fine when speaking another language but we are speaking English here so its irrelevant.

You're the only one here who thinks we're only talking about Istanbul's name in the English language, buddy.

[Nexus Corp]

1 - Fine when speaking another language but we are speaking English here so its irrelevant.

You're the only one here who thinks we're only talking about Istanbul's name in the English language, buddy.

Not specified in the OP, old bean.

[Baltenstein]

You're the only one here who thinks we're only talking about Istanbul's name in the English language, buddy.

Not specified in the OP, old bean.

Given who the OP is, it's abudantly clear that he was not thinking about the English language in particular.

[The Archregimancy]

1 - Fine when speaking another language but we are speaking English here so its irrelevant.

2 - Makes them sound caught in the past and trying to get up people's noses to boot.

1) It's not irrelevant; Kalasparata is an ethnic Greek whose family presumably speaks Greek as well as English. It's therefore by no means unreasonable for them to call the city by its Greek name. His apparent insistence on calling it Constantinople outside of that context is perhaps a little on the nationalistic side, but since Dazchan's post referred to Greeks as "ignorant" for calling a city by an "incorrect" name without any further qualification, or recognition that the city is indeed called "Konstantinúpolis" in Greek, the point stands.

2) His official title under Orthodox canon law is "Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch", as it has been since the Patriarch of Constantinople was officially recognised as such by the First Council of Constantinople in 381 AD. It would be impossible to change his formal title within Orthodoxy without a full Ecumenical Council to change canon law. His title would remain the same even if the Turks eventually succeed in their implicit long-term goal of pushing the Patriarchate out of the city. It is therefore entirely legitimate for any English-speaking Orthodox Christians - whether Greek, Russian, Antiochian, or other - to refer to 'The Patriarch of Constantinople' in specifically ecclesiastical matters; and all of the ones I know indeed make a distinction, referring to 'Constantinople' in matters of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, but 'Istanbul' when referring to anything else related to the modern city.

[Kalaspia-Shimarata]

I call it Constantinople because...coming from a Greek family, you kind of have to...

Really? Greeks "have to" call cities by incorrect names and make themselves sound ignorant about the world?

We don't have to but you don't want to know what happens to the person who doesn't...It's not physically bad but it makes you fell extremely guilty and embarrassed

[North Suran]

Really? Greeks "have to" call cities by incorrect names and make themselves sound ignorant about the world?

We don't have to but you don't want to know what happens to the person who doesn't...It's not physically bad but it makes you fell extremely guilty and embarrassed

I don't believe in pandering to historically-based sour grapes.

[Baltenstein]

Kalasparata, you are not helping, re file. The Archregimancy just perfectly explained the contextual justification of why Greeks and/or Orthodox Christians continue to call the city Constantinople.
You make it sound like they only do so because of ultranationalist pressure.

[North Suran]

Kalasparata, you are not helping, re file. The Archregimancy just perfectly explained the contextual justification of why Greeks and/or Orthodox Christians continue to call the city Constantinople.
You make it sound like they only do so because of ultranationalist pressure.

Nationalism is most certainly a factor in the name remaining the same, outwith religious matters.

[Kalaspia-Shimarata]

You make it sound like they only do so because of ultranationalist pressure.

That is actually ONE of the reasons why do...

[Baltenstein]

You make it sound like they only do so because of ultranationalist pressure.

That is actually ONE of the reasons why do...

No, it's not! You think Greeks would suddenly collectively start to call the city Ιστάνμπουλ if, say, Karatzaferis wasn't around anymore?

[The Archregimancy]

Kalasparata, you are not helping, re file. The Archregimancy just perfectly explained the contextual justification of why Greeks and/or Orthodox Christians continue to call the city Constantinople.
You make it sound like they only do so because of ultranationalist pressure.

Nationalism is most certainly a factor in the name remaining the same, outwith religious matters.

Perhaps nationalism is indeed one factor; but nationalism need not necessarily be ultranationalism. And again, the Greeks are not the only people to have kept their older name for the city after the Turkish Republic officially changed the name to 'Istanbul'. Even if nationalism is one of the reasons behind linguistic conservatism in nomenclature - something which is hardly unique to Greeks (Turks, after all, still refer to the Crimean city of Simferopol by its Tartar and Ottoman name Akmescit) - that's still not ignorance per se; and nor, as I keep pointing out, is it in any way linguistically unprecedented.