[OSM-talk] shortened names

[andrzej zaborowski]

On 27 July 2011 04:04, Stephen Hope <slhope en gmail.com> wrote:
> On 27 July 2011 10:40, Ed Loach <ed en loach.me.uk> wrote:
>> Yes, it is called Saint Albans, written St Albans, except where some
>> websites seem to have expanded it.
>>
>> e.g.
>> http://www.meteoprog.co.uk/en/weather/SaintAlbans/
>> http://www.gomapper.com/travel/map-of/saint-albans.html
>> etc...
>> http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=%22saint+albans%22
>>
>> I personally would be tempted to store the name tag in expanded form
>> so it is clear what the St abbreviation applies to (I've seen things
>> like S St N on Google where they've abbreviated South Street North,
>> for example, which just looks silly). This seems to agree with
>> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:name#Notes
>>
>
> Um - no.  If a place wants to be written "St Albans", then that's the
> name. Just because you pronounce it "Saint Albans" makes no
> difference.

I'd say the opposite is true.  If it's pronounced "Saint Albans" then
that is the name.  The local administration may want to spell it
however they like and make one way or the other official, but we don't
care, in the end it's always a product of how people are and have been
calling the place.  Place names have often been abbreviated in writing
because there was never any need for consistency across countries and
continents, much less for machine-readability.  In OSM there is this
need.

Cheers