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November 20, 2005
Vishy's Useless Factoid of the Day #21: Rejected names for Canada
Yes, I am alive! Thanks to a recent burst of activity on my part, both at work and outside of work, I have had no time to update the blog. It appears that the spurt of activity isn't going to abate anytime soon. Still, I will do the best I can to keep posting about interesting things I see and read about.
Case in point -- what Canada might have been called. Published in The Book of Lists: The Original Compendium of Curious Information by Ira Basen and Jane Farrow, here's a list of twenty eight failed names for Canada:
- Acadia
- Albertland (are you kidding me? Maybe Gore would have stood a better chance of winning here)
- Albionara (has a nice poetic ring to it, but anybody want to be an Albionaran?)
- Albona (reminds me of Elbonia, the fictitious country from Dilbert)
- Alexandrina (are they naming a country or a girl?)
- Aquilonia
- Borealia (those boring Borealians!)
- British North America (I know they are a Dominion, but don't rub it in so)
- Brittanica (could be liable for trademark infringement. Invoke DMCA if necessary.)
- Cabotia (would everyone there talk only to God?)
- Canadensia (does show some promise, and vague hints of the successful choice.)
- Colonia (A Colonian might as well be mistaken for having come from somebody's colon)
- Efisga (wtf? looks like what a tired clerk on the naming committee came up with by ramming his fist into the typewriter)
- Hochelaga ("Yes, I'm Hochelagan. No, I was not clearing my throat.")
- Laurentia. (This one got a much better deal after getting rejected)
- Mesopelagia (Meso=middle; pelagos=sea. Probably a better name for Atlantis.)
- New Albion (sounds more like a town of strip malls)
- Niagarentia (not too bad actually, but it would mean naming the 2nd largest country in the world after one waterfall)
- Norland (going west to east: Norland-Greenland-Norway-(shall we call Sweden Greenway?))
- Superior (a lady from there would automatically be *cough* female superior)
- Transatlantia (see next one)
- Translatlantica (now I get why they are called transatlantic flights!)
- Transylvania (Too vampirish, eh?)
- Tuponia
- Ursulia (lots of bears?)
- Vesperia
- Victorialand
- Victorialia (cool -- then they'd be Victorialialialialialialialialialians.)
Canada derives from the Huron-Iroquois word for village, kanata, a term that was used initially in reference to Quebec City but grew to include the whole region.
Posted by Vishy at November 20, 2005 01:40 PM