Name change: When Saidapet becomes Saithappettai

Name change: When Saidapet becomes Saithappettai

Julie Mariappan TNN

Chennai:10.06.2020

Are you a resident of Mylapore? Get ready for a name change in documents, as the state government has renamed the popular neighbourhood Mayilappoor. And that’s only one of the 1,018 place names it has reverted. That turns Tondiarpet into Thandaiyaarpettai, Purasawalkam into Purasaivaakkam and Adyar into Adaiyaaru.

It is the culmination of an initiative in 2018 to have Tamil equivalents or original Tamil names of Anglicised names of places across the state. The changes have been notified in the gazette to be in effect from April 1, though rewriting the boards would have to wait till Covid-19 goes away.

“A group of language experts, representatives of Tamil organisations and professors, along with government administrators finalised the names at the district level and later at the state level, said Tamil development director G Vijayaraghavan. “It took almost two years.”

So, V O C Nagar in north Chennai has been renamed ‘Va Oo Si Nagar,’ while Aminjikarai has become Amaindhakarai. Egmore has regained its Tamil name Ezhumboor and Thiruvanmiyur is now spelled Thiruvanmiyoor. The ‘pettais’ of Chennai will no longer have their names ending with ‘pets’. Hence, Saithaappettai, Chinthadharipettai and Jalladiyaanpettai.

Tamil language experts said people would soon get accustomed to the changes. “Trivandrum became Thiruvananthapuram, Bangalore became Bengaluru and Madras became Chennai. It took time, but people did accept them. Originality brings the places closer to the people,” said V Jayadevan, former head of the department of Tamil language at University of Madras, who was involved in the exercise.

Thoothukkudi is now spelled Thooththukkudi. Trichy has become Thiruchirappalli and Srirangam is now Thiruvarangam. Dharmapuri has been renamed Tharumapuri.