2017, Volume 14, Issue 3

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Marina V. Golomidova
Ural Federal University
Ekaterinburg, Russia

Modern Urban Naming Practices: Strategic Approaches and Practical Solutions

Voprosy onomastiki, 2017, Volume 14, Issue 3, pp. 185–203 (in Russian)
DOI: 10.15826/vopr_onom.2017.14.3.029

Received 22 June 2016

Abstract: The article looks at the problems of the naming of municipal facilities. The author analyzes the existing policy in assigning new names and renaming urban sites, describes the current strategic approaches to urban naming and proposes a new strategy based on congruity with the holistic image of the city. The current approaches to urban naming mark the predominating interest in the historical and cultural heritage of cities as a valuable source for the toponymic nomination shared both by native and foreign experts. However, this commitment to the past may run counter to the modern arrangement and perception of the urban space, as well as impede the city development prospects. From the standpoint of modern area marketing, names of urban sites are regarded as an information and communication resource highly relevant to the city image formation and promotion. In the author’s view, the benefits of adopting a new strategy may also resonate with the concept of “urbanonymic construction,” which is understood as sustainable and streamlined management policy aimed at the progressive implementation of long-term programs for individual urban site names consistency. The urbanonymic construction involves a normative, regulatory aspect; formation of the holistic city image that builds on its resource base, the symbolic capital, and the development strategy; definition of key characteristics of the city image which are most relevant to its positioning; identification of principal nominative themes for verbal representation of the city image; use of naming technologies to ensure the relevance of the name’s implications; testing and expert evaluation of new names. Drawing on domestic and foreign expertise in the same study field, a number of practical solutions for the creation of new urbanonyms are described.

Keywords: urbanonyms, urban nomination, strategies of urban nomination, historical and cultural context, city image, image nomination strategy, urbanonymic construction

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