Why can’t a country (or city, or anythung) choose what others call them?
We call it Timor Leste instead of East Timor. We call it Cote d’Ivoire instead of Ivory Coast. We call it Kyiv instead of Kiev. We call it Russia instead of USSR. All of these are names chosen within the last 50 years or so.
A lot of the “traditional” names are just historical holdovers from a very long time ago. If we encountered them for the first time today, we probably would use their chosen name. If tomorrow they said they wanted to be referred to as Deutschland or Nippon, we’d probably accept that and start calling them by those names.
Why can’t a country (or city, or anythung) choose what others call them?
We call it Timor Leste instead of East Timor. We call it Cote d’Ivoire instead of Ivory Coast. We call it Kyiv instead of Kiev. We call it Russia instead of USSR. All of these are names chosen within the last 50 years or so.
A lot of the “traditional” names are just historical holdovers from a very long time ago. If we encountered them for the first time today, we probably would use their chosen name. If tomorrow they said they wanted to be referred to as Deutschland or Nippon, we’d probably accept that and start calling them by those names.