Talk:List of Asian regions with alternative names

This page was proposed for deletion by Eugene-elgato (talk · contribs) on 6 May 2010 with the comment:
This article is hopelessly ambitious and noone has even come close to achieving what it has set out to do. It is fair to say its goals are to list the many name changes and differences that have beset Asian places, e.g. things like Myanmar and Burma, Beijing and Peking, Chennai and Madras, or Λευκωσὶα and Lefkoşa. Instead it has taken a handful of places and allowed editors to put whatever rendering they know in arbitrary languages that may not significantly differ.
It was contested by Angr (talk · contribs) on 6-11-2010 with the comment:
cf. List of European regions with alternative names and our similar lists for city and country names. Needs to go through AFD for full discussion.

Propose Deletion

I propose this article be deleted; it does not do what it sets out to do. The purpose would seem to have been to bring together instances of the following kind of situation from the Asian continent: The place called Βυζὰντιον was named Νὲα Ῥὼμη when it became the capital of the Roman Empire in 330. Then was named Κωνσταντινοὺπολης in honor of the first Christian Roman Emperor, and finally İstanbul by Turks who heard Greeks saying "Εὶς την πὸλην". On the other hand, this article just collects arbitrary languages rendering the respective names even where it is not significantly different. So what's the point? Eugene-elgato (talk) 16:59, 5 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is just a partial translation dictionary! What has Spanish got to do with Siberia anyways? 76.66.193.224 (talk) 03:24, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That each language has names for foreign places, adapted to its own phonology, may occasionally be interesting but we don't need hundreds of examples. —Tamfang (talk) 23:56, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

which of them are alternatives

To me, the word alternatives means available choices. When speaking English I don't choose between the Greek and Estonian names of Bengal, so what's "alternative" about them?

If the list is trimmed to the regions that have two or more names from which one might genuinely choose, it's left with:

Anatolia = Asia Minor
Borneo = Kalimantan
... that's it.

I might leave in Cashmere (an obsolete spelling of Kashmir), since it is preserved in a common noun and that's kinda interesting; and there's a place for the native and Chinese names of Tibet, since they're not obviously closely related to the word Tibet. But that's all! —Tamfang (talk) 23:56, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That seems reasonable to me. Furthermore, since this is English Wikipedia, the alternatives should exist in English. I will re-write the lead section to spell this out and remove examples that obviously violate the inclusion criteria. We will then have a well-defined basis on which to add more examples. Cnilep (talk) 19:43, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]