Tamil Nadu: Coimbatore becomes ‘Koyampuththoor’ after state changes names of 1,018 places

The Tamil Nadu government has changed the names of 1,018 places throughout the state to match their Tamil pronunciation. An order to this effect was issued on April 1 but was made public only on Wednesday. In 2018, the state government had told the Assembly that anglicised names of the areas will be changed to bring them closer to their original names in Tamil, The Hindu reported.

In a 37-page notification, the state government has appended the entire list of 1,018 names of the places, as they are pronounced in Tamil, the present English name corresponding to it, and the change suggested. Most of the places have been provided with a new spelling.

So, Coimbatore, an important industrial city in the south of the state, will be called Koyampuththoor. Similarly, Ambattur, known for housing a large industrial estate, has been christened as Ambaththoor. Vellore, a major tier-II city in the northern belt of the state will now be known as Veeloor. And Mylapore, an area in Chennai, will now be written in English as Mayilaappoor to match its Tamil pronunciation, while Egmore station, also in Chennai, will be known as Ezhumboor station.

Here’s the full list of the new names.

Apart from district collectors, a high-level committee, headed by Minister for Tamil Official Language and Culture K Pandiarajan, was responsible for making the changes. But the actual responsibility of implementing the change of names has been entrusted to departments of revenue, district administration, rural development and panchayat raj, and municipal corporations, according to The Times of India.

State Tamil Development director G Vijayaraghavan told the newspaper that the committee that proposed the changes comprised revenue officials, local administration officials, highway officials, and Tamil scholars. “The idea was to match the spelling of a place’s name with what a common man pronounces,” he explained.

However, Coimbatore Collector K Rajamani said they were unaware of the changes and will proceed with it only when the state government communicates it.