Why do we change Fiorentina to Florence?

[EverClean]

What's the deal here? Why do some languages change other languages words for cities and countries? I don't get it. We change Deutschland(sp) to Germany, Italia to Italy, Milano to Milan, Espana to Span, etc, etc. London is changed to Londres, England to Inglaterra and Sxcotland to Ecosse. It doesnt seem to make any sense to me. Then there are other places that we choose not to change like Lille or Hamburg. Is there arule for this? Is ot historical? Any other weird and wonderful examples would be gratefully received.

[Peter Pedant]

yeah and while you are at it,
how do the cHinese select their characters for places like London and Manchester ? There are zillions of choices for Man-che-si-ta

[Quizmonster]

There is currently an ongoing correspondence on the Letters Page of The Times about this very topic. I like one of today's contributions which suggests that - if it's politically correct to speak of Mumbai and Beijing rather than Bombay and Peking - it should be equally so to call Glasgow 'Glesca', because that's what the natives call it! Another pointed out that the correct name for the capital of Thailand is not Bangkok but Krung Thep Mahanakhon Mahinthara...followed by fifteen further such words!

[heathfield]

Pronounciation of the original name might be somewhat difficult, as in M�nchen (Munich). Corruption can occur when people at home discuss a foreign place, and the name devolves into something different - Mumbai (Bombay). Linguists can track how languages have evolved over time, through slurred pronounciation and skimming over more akward letter combinations, Scotland, or Scotia - the 't' becomes 'c' in Escocia, the 'first 's' is dropped and 'c' becomes 'ss' in Ecosse.
Mis-spelling by scribes, or misreading of their work can be a reason - (Graupius became Grampian). Or the original name might be ignored and an alternative preferred - (Krung Thep...is called Bangkok because the original name is two lines long!). Lots of reasons, really, and each name has to be examined individually.

[heathfield]

Apologies, QM...Re Bangkok - I must stop making cups of coffee when I'm half-way through typing answers!

[Quizmonster]

No problem, H...easily done.

[kempie]

In regard of the question in the title... is it not ironic that the English Florence is arguably closer to the original Latin Florentia than present-day Italian Firenze (Fiorentina being reserved for its football teams and in phrases to describe the Florentine nature of things)?

[jno]

when we use different names it's usually in cases that go back centuries. Occasional sailors or travellers would turn up in London exclaiming that they'd visited a city called something like Florence; but there wouldn't be anyone else around who'd been there and could give a more exact pronunciation. And sometimes, as in this case, the name would continue to evolve in the host country as well as here.

Names are less likely to change in places that had less contact with Britain (Budapest, say, or Tallinn) presumably because nobody had any reason to use the names at all; and in more modern times we've usually tried to stick with local spellings of names more carefully, even when the locals change them. So now most people say Mumbai instead of Mombay. Not everyone has switched from Rangoon to Yangon, though - I'm not sure why.

[Ginger30]

I like the way Turkey calls India 'Hindistan', which means Turkey country!