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Comment by pmontra | Hacker News Reader

Maybe for the same reason the names of famous cities (especially if already famous in the past) are translated into foreign languages.

Examples.

Roma is Rome in English and Milano is Milan.

London is Londra in Italian but Manchester is Manchester and Liverpool is Liverpool.

Livorno (a small Italian town where English poets liked to spend their time) is Leghorn.

Aachen (a German city that used to be the residence of Charlemagne) is Acquisgrana in Italian.

Nobody has been translating city names anymore but Londra is going to stay. Aachen is not very famous but probably Acquisgrana is even less so. I should check current history books of schools.

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> Maybe for the same reason the names of famous cities (especially if already famous in the past) are translated into foreign languages.

They're not translated as much as they are derived from the same etymons used by the languages spoken there. Italian Acquisgrana or French Aix-la-Chapelle derive from Latin Aquis {capella, grana, villa}. The only properly official name most cities had throughout Europe was in Latin rather than any vernacular, including in areas where non-Romance languages were spoken such as German, English, Polish and so on.

I still want someone to explain how Firenze got rendered as Florence.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/Florence

> The city name is from Roman Colonia Florentia, "flowering colony," either literal or figurative, and became Old Italian Fiorenze, modern Italian Firenze.

https://italyinview.com/italian-places/italian-cities/floren... elaborates:

> The Romans were the founders of Florence. Realizing the importance of a thoroughfare towards the Po plain, Ceasar in 59 B.C. ordered the establishment of a colony on the north bank of the Arno. The foundation is thought to have taken place in the spring, during the Floral Games, or Ludi Florales: hence the name Florentia, which was given to the city. Flora was the goddess of flowers and gardens, and the mother of spring in Roman mythology. Tuscan dialect turned the Latin Florentia into Fiorenza — a name which is to be found on Renaissance frescoes, and which was later shortened to Firenze.

Ceasar also founded Florence?? This guy... :)

> Old Italian Fiorenze, modern Italian Firenze.

That I can follow.

> Florentia, [...] became Old Italian Fiorenze

Still lost. I know accents are thick and an ex used to wax poetic about the fluidity of names, especially at the intersection of thick regional accents and illiteracy. But this one is still a bit of a stretch.

As another comment pointed out what needed explanation - if anything - is that Florentia got rendered as Firenze.

Well or Londra? The Romans called it Londinium, so you might expect the modern Italian to be ..(I'm no expert on how Italian has modified endings).. 'Londinia' or 'Londino' or something.

It's Londres in French which seems related, I wonder where they came from though.

Londres is a special case. The /r/ was added in French (and I assume Italian) because London was otherwise clumsy to pronounce.

The Greek word is, in fact, "Λονδίνο" (Londino).

How about the German city of Stuttgart rendered as Stoccarda(FR) or Estugarda(PT) but not in other languages... no idea why.

The city we call Antwerp in English is known as Amberes in Spanish.

When you know that the French name is Anvers it makes a little more sense.

Maybe Anvers is derived from Amberes: https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anvers#cite_note-espagnol-5

Anversa in Italian.

By the way, Leuven (Belgium) is Lovanio even if I hardly heard that translated name until they hosted the UCI World Championship in 2021.

It's Stoccarda in Italian too.

My understanding - but I could be wrong - is that the local name of Milan through history only became Milano recently.

The latin name was Mediolanum. Apparently it comes from Celtic Medhelan, in the middle of the plain, and it should be a common name also on the northern side of the Alps (any French person can confirm?). I googled a bit to find when the name switched from Latin to Italian with no success. You could check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Milan but I suggest to give a look at the Italian version of the page with more maps, if you're interested in that sort of things.

> I googled a bit to find when the name switched from Latin to Italian with no success.

That isn't the kind of thing that happens at a particular point in time. It's a process that takes hundreds of years.

I was thinking about the name in Lombard - Milan - which is the same name used in some other European languages. But I don’t know when Italian became the main language in the region.

Just like the name in the local language is also the one used across Europe for Turin - by the way.

Biala is known as Zuelz to German speakers.

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