It took me a while to appreciate the significance of renaming Saigon to Ho Chi Minh City. I've lived in HCMC (although I'm not Vietnamese) and the renaming is actually controversial to this day, although most Vietnamese know better than to speak up about it.
Basically, imagine if Russia conquered Ukraine and then renamed Kyiv to "Vladimir Putin City".
The interesting thing is that locals continue to use "Saigon" in everyday conversation. It seems like the government decided that wasn't a fight worth having.
Someone told me that several government agencies still use "Saigon" as well on logos and such.
The interesting thing is that "Saigon" came from the French occupation. The Vietnamese ruling under the French renamed it "Sai Gon", and the French used "Saigon". Before the French arrived, it was called Gai Dinh.
I think it's not the same if you build a new city :)
The name Constantinopolis came after him. It was often just referred as polis. The name Istanbul is derived from "eis tan polis" (to the city) used as a common phrase during Byzantian times. Turks kept using this old names as Konstantiniyye (Constantin's city in Arabic) Istanbul, both only referring to the walled part of the city till mid-20th century.
This is really a poor analogy. Kyiv is the birthplace of ancient Russia (Kyiv Rus) and for both Ukrainians and Russians it is like Jerusalem for Jews and Arabs. It is easier to imagine renaming Moscow into Zelensky City than Kyiv into Putin.
You’re just doing the typical HN thing of responding to an analogy by pointing out differences that are irrelevant to the point of the analogy.
As how most every port city in North America is named by whatever western explorer first put it on a map? From Botany Bay to Vancouver, Los Angeles and even Virginia USA, placenames are pulled from the culture of the conquerors. Only when one gets into the hinterlands do local names appear.
Saying that one true Rus is Kiev and not Novgorod or Moskow is rather a modern Ukrainian national myth. All and neither were true Rus.