Danish exonyms

Danish exonyms

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This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
Bilingual town sign of Flensburg, Germany

Danish language exonyms for non-Danish speaking locations exist, primarily in Europe, but many of these are not commonly used anymore, with a few notable exceptions. Rom (Rome), Lissabon and Sankt Petersborg (St Petersburg) are still compulsory, while e.g. Prag and Venedig are more common than Praha and Venezia. In the decades following World War II, there has been a strong tendency towards replacing Danish exonyms with the native equivalent used in the foreign country itself. Possibly this is because many of these Danish forms (e.g. for names in Belgium, Italy and Eastern Europe) were imported from German.

Until recently, it was official Danish policy to use Danish exonyms on road signs if Danish forms were commonly used and known. This has, however, been changed following a change in international agreements. Currently, one can still see Danish road signs pointing towards Flensborg and Hamborg across the border, however signs with Nibøl have been replaced for the sake of Niebüll. Signs leading to the Sound Bridge usually have Malmø with Danish spelling.

In Southern Schleswig, the region south of the Danish-German border, a set of original (or, in some cases, reconstructed) Danish placenames exists alongside with the German names, just like most North Slesvig placenames have German counterparts dating from the period under Prussian rule (1864–1920). The Danish placenames in Southern Schleswig are used by the local Danish minority and their media, while others may avoid their usage for political reasons. The usage of German placenames in North Slesvig is similarly preferred by the local German minority (when speaking and writing German), but traditionally shunned by many Danes in the region. From 2008, municipalities in Schleswig-Holstein have been allowed to double their town signs with the official minority languages: Danish, Frisian and Low German. So far, the city of Flensburg has been the only municipality to introduce bilingual German/Danish signs.

Danish placenames dating from the colonial era exist for almost all major settlements in Greenland. Some of the places in question were founded as settlements under a Danish name, while others were originally Greenlandic toponyms. Very frequently, the Danish and Greenlandic names have different etymologies; while the former are often named after settlers or explorers, the latter usually describe geographical features. In 1983, a Danish law officially transferred the naming authority to the Greenlandic Home Rule. During the years before and after that, a complete set of Greenlandic placenames have ousted the former traditional Danish names. Danish names in Greenland are now mostly known or used by older-generation Danish-speakers or by Danes living in Greenland. However, Greenland is still officially and de facto bilingual.

Faroese placenames were Danicised in an era when no Faroese orthography existed, but the Danish names were replaced by Faroese ones during the first half of the 20th century (somewhat later on maps). Today only Thorshavn is commonly used (alongside with the Faroese Tórshavn and the hybrid Torshavn).

An example of radical use of Danish exonyms can be found in a great number of street names on the island of Amager, a part of Copenhagen. The city expanded greatly during the first half of the 20th century. Dozens of streets in the district were named after European cities or regions. It was deemed sutiable for practical reasons that street names were adapted to Danish spelling rules, resulting in names such as Nyrnborggade and Lyneborggade.

Due to historical reasons, the list also includes the United States Virgin Islands in the Caribbean.

Albania

English name Local name (Albanian) Danish name
Tirana Tiranë Tirana

Belgium

English name Local name (Dutch/French) Danish name
Bruges Brugge/Bruges Brügge (archaic)
Brussels Brussel/Bruxelles Bryssel (now less used than Bruxelles)
Ostend Oostende Ostende

Czech Republic

English name Local name (Czech) Danish name
Bohemia Čechy Bøhmen
Moravia Morava Mæhren
Prague Praha Prag
Plzeň Plzeň Pilsen
Silesia Slezsk Slesien (rare) or Schlesien
Sudetenland Sudety Sudeterlandet

Faroe Islands

Modern Danish generally uses the original Faroese names. Torshavn / Thorshavn is still in active use. Fuglefjord, Klaksvig and Tverå are occasionally seen. There are no established English exonyms for any place on the islands.

Local name (Faroese) Danish name
Argir Arge
Ánir Åerne
Árnafjørður Arnefjord
Bøur Bø
Dalur Dal
Depil Deble/Deple
Eiði Ejde
Elduvík Eldevig
Fámjin Famien
Froðba Frodebø
Fuglafjørður Fuglefjord
Funningsfjørður Fundingsfjord
Funningur Funding
Gásadalur Gåsedal
Gjógv Gjov/Fundingsgjov
Glyvrar Glibre
Hattarvík Hattevig
Lítla Dímun Lille Dimon
Stóra Dímun Store Dimon

Estonia

English name Local name (Estoniah) Danish name
Hiiumaa Hiiumaa Dagø
Saaremaa Saaremaa Øsel
Tallinn Tallinn Reval (historical name)
Tartu Tartu Dorpat (historical name)

Finland

  • Helsinki Helsingfors - which is the Swedish name of the city. In general Swedish names are used for more well-known places, Åbo instead of Turku, Tammerfors instead of Tampere. Less well-known places (to Danes, at any rate) will tend to retain their Finnish-language names (Lappeenranta instead of Villmanstrand, Iisalmi instead of Idensalmi).

France

English name Local name (French) Danish name
Corsica Corse Korsika

Germany

Danish has a very large number of exonyms for locations in modern Germany. Almost all of these are originally Danish names in the region of Southern Schleswig, a Danish territory until 1864 and still home to a Danish minority. Some of these exonyms are not commonly known in Denmark proper, but remain in use among the Danish minority in Germany and its newspaper, Flensborg Avis, and among the few remaining speakers of the South Jutlandic dialect south of the border. The names are also traditionally used by Danish historians, although some modern academics dismiss the usage of Danish exonyms outside present Denmark, at least in writing. Larger and well-known locations are more likely to be referred to by means of a Danish exonym, e.g. Flensborg and Slesvig [By], but also Hamborg which is not in the Schleswig region. The historical Dannevirke fortification is always referred to by its Danish name.

While almost all placenames in Schleswig north of the medieval language border (a line between Husum and Eckernförde, excluding the North Frisian area) are of genuine Danish (North Germanic) origin, there have also been limited attempts to construct Danish alternatives for placenames in the extreme southern part of Schleswig, which is originally German (Low Saxon) speaking. The latter names, as well as Danicised placenames in the Frisian area, are less commonly used. During 1814-64, when the Danish monarchy comprised the Duchy of Holstein, there was also sporadic usage of Danicised spellings of placenames in Holstein, such as Pløen (Plön) and Vandsbæk (Wandsbek). The latter name is still seen in the Danish phrase "ad Vandsbæk til" (see: Wandsbek (quarter)#History).

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Great Britain

  • Orkney Ørkenøerne (archaic)
  • Shetland Zetland or Hjaltland (both archaic)
  • York Jorvik (ancient)

Greece

Greenland

Iceland

India

  • Serampore Frederiksnagore [former Danish colony]
  • Tharangambadi Tranquebar / Trankebar [former Danish colony]

Italy

  • Roma Rom
  • Sardegna Sardinien
  • Sicilia Sicilien
  • Siracusa Syrakus
  • Venezia Venedig
  • Firenze Florens (mostly archaic)
  • Genova Genua (archaic)
  • Milano Mailand (archaic)
  • Napoli Neapel (mostly archaic, living in the expression "Se Neapel og dø", 'see Naples and die')
  • Südtirol Sydtirol or Sydtyrol
  • Torino Turin (archaic)

Lithuania

Luxembourg

  • Luxembourg (city) Luxembourg or (mostly archaic) Luxemburg, always pronounced as in Danish: Luxemborg, although this form is very rare in writing

The Netherlands

  • Den Haag Haag (pronounced in Danish: /hæˀɣ/
  • Edam Eidam or Ejdam (only common in the name of the Edam cheese, Ejdammer)

Norway

From the 16th until the late 19th century, Danish was officially used in lack of a Norwegian written language, but then spelling reforms gradually replaced it with Dano-Norwegian and the two present-day forms of Norwegian, Bokmål and Nynorsk. Until then, a very great number of Norwegian placenames were written in Danish. Almost all of them are now obsolete and not even used in Danish historical contexts. They may, however, still be used in the names of Norwegian newspapers, companies, institutions and associations. In present Norway, they will often be perceived more like "ancient" names than Danish ones.

  • Trondheim Trondhjem (occasionally seen in Danish, and very often used in spoken language even in Norway)
  • Finnmark Finmarken or Finmark
  • Svalbard Svalbard (usually not pronounced /'sva:lbar/ as in Norwegian, but /'svælbard/) or Spitsbergen
  • Bjørnøya Bjørneøen

Poland

  • Gdansk Danzig (mainly historical)
  • Łódź often spelled Lodz and pronounced as in Danish, /lɔds/
  • Pomorze Pommern
  • Szczecin Stettin
  • Świnoujście Świnoujście, Swinoujscie or (occasionally) Swinemünde
  • Wrócław Wrócław, Wroclaw or Breslau

Portugal

Romania

Russia

South Africa

Spain

Sweden

Some of these forms are archaic, based on names used in the 17th century prior to the surrender of the Eastern Danish lands Skåne, Halland and Blekinge to Sweden. Modern usage is primarily confined to history books[citation needed] and Scanian activists. These forms were also used in a number of texts in the first decades of the 20th century. The only example consistently used in modern Danish is Hven[citation needed], maybe because this form hinders confusion with the Danish word ven ("friend")[citation needed]. Since the opening of the Øresund Bridge, the form Malmø has again gained widespread use above Malmö[citation needed]. Engelholm and Øland (Öland) are occasionally seen. Knærød and Elfsborg are relatively common in historical works, due to their connection to historical events; the 1613 Peace of Knäred (Freden i Knærød) and the Ransom of Älvsborg (Elfsborgs løsen). The forms Gønge and Gønge Herred are also quite common given their connection to Svend Poulsen Gønge, known from Carit Etlar's historical novel, Gøngehøvdingen.

United States

  • California Californien, Kalifornien (mostly archaic)

U.S. Virgin Islands

The U.S. Virgin Islands were formerly a colony of Denmark, often referred to simply as Sankt Thomas, Sankt Jan og Sankt Croix.

See also


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