'Turin' or 'Torino' - it's all in a name

By David Hein Feb 17, 2006, 13:33 GMT

Canada\'s Joe Thornton (L) looks past aroundGermany\'s Marcel Goc (R) during the Men\'s Preliminary Round Group A game between Canada and Germany at the Turin 2006 Winter Olympic Games, in Turin Thursday 16 February 2006. EPA/VALDRIN XHEMAJ

Sestriere, Italy - Winter Olympic fans may wonder what's going on with coverage of the 2006 Games in Italy.

Depending on where they get their news, the name of the host city keeps changing - sometimes it's 'Turin' and other times it's 'Torino'?

Which is it? Well, actually it's both.

But depending on the legacy of the 2006 Winter Olympics, it may just become solely 'Torino'.

So, let's get the technicalities out of the way.

'Torino' is the Italian name for the city along the Po River. And 'Turin' is the Anglicised version of 'Torino'.

In past Olympics, the host cities went by their English names. But the International Olympic Committee (IOC) chose the Italian version 'Torino' for the 2006 Games after the city's leaders lobbied for the change. So, officially from the IOC and the host Italians - it's 'Torino'.

'We chose Torino to make it Italian,' said Valentino Castellani, head of the organising committee TOROC.

But Castellani said that TOROC doesn't object to the use of 'Turin' - the name Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa and other leading news agencies and newspapers throughout the world are going with.

American media, for example, are split on the name issue.

NBC Universal, which has the US broadcast rights for the Games, reportedly thought 'Torino' sound more exotic than 'Turin'. And the CBS network is using 'Torino' as well.

But the website for MSNBC, NBC's cable news outlet, features Olympic roundups from the Associated Press with 'Turin' as dateline.

Confused yet?

Well 'Torino' isn't the only city known outside Italy by another name. To non-Italians, Roma is Rome; Milano is Milan; and Firenze is Florence. Other examples in Europe include Munich instead of the German Muenchen; Moscow instead of Mockba or Moskva; Kiev instead of Kyiv; and Spain rather than Espana.

A similar debate occurred at the draw for the football 2002 World Cup in Japan/South Korea. The draw took place in the southern South Korea city of Busan - or Pusan, as some called it. Or was it the other way around? Any way, you get the point.

But names don't last forever.

And 'Turin' one day may be as extinct as 'Leghorn' now is. 'Leghorn'?

Sorry, that's the old Anglicized version of the Italian city Livorno.

Other examples include in post-colonial Africa, where the formerly British-ruled Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, and the country's capital Salisbury became Harare. Meanwhile Cote d'Ivoire in West Africa doesn't like being referred to as Ivory Coast.

Could the same happen with 'Turin'?

'Because of the media blitz, I have a feeling a lot of people will start referring to 'Turin' as 'Torino,' ' the senior map editor of the National Geographic Society, David Miller, was quoted in National Geographic News.

There's even a chance that the Games could quite literally put 'Torino' on the world map, Miller said.

'Who knows, if the Olympics make 'Torino' really famous, we may start giving it higher usage. We react to popular media as well as governments and basically evaluate overall usage.'

'Turin' or 'Torino'? Just a meaningless discussion? Well, not exactly.

Maybe a name is not just a name.