Turkey no more, Erdogan country changes name to Turkiye

Turkey is the
American thanksgiving bird, and its just that and not a nation anymore. The ‘Land
of the Turks’ has changed its name to Turkiye in an apparent bid to stay closer
to its cultural roots and also steer clear of being confused with the
guineafowl. On Thursday, June 2, the United Nations accepted Turkey’s request
for a name change. The new name is the official English-language and internationally
recognised name of the country.

What’s the
difference?

While both Turkey
and Turkiye seem to have proximate pronunciations, the second name has an extra
syllable that is pronounced ‘yay’.

Why the name
change?

Turkiye is the
preferred name of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, even though many
among the citizenry agree with Turkey. The decision to change the name was
taken in December 2021. Since then, the Turkish government has been using the
new name in all official correspondence. All exported products from the country
now come with ‘Made in Turkiye’ tags. The government also launched a ‘Hello Turkiye’
tourism campaign in January.

Among several
reasons for the name change, one significant reason is to dissociate the
country’s name from the turkey bird, according to Turkish state media channel
TRT News. It further said that a Google search for turkey brings up “a muddled
set of images, articles, and dictionary definitions that conflate the country
with Meleagris – otherwise known as the turkey, a large native bird to North
America – which is famous for being served on Christmas menus or Thanksgiving
dinners.”  

“Flip through the
Cambridge Dictionary and ‘turkey’ is defined as ‘something that fails badly’ or
‘a stupid or silly person’,” the network said.

The turkey bird
was discovered by European settlers when they were imported via the Ottoman
empire.

Other
countries that have changed names

In the last four
years, four countries have changed their names. Swaziland changed its name to
Eswatini in 2018. Netherlands removed the name Holland from its internationally
recognised name in 2020 and North Macedonia changed its name from “Former
Yugoslavic Republic of Macedonia” owing to a political dispute.