Identity crisis

Why Holland isn’t Holland anymore — the surprising rebrand of a nation

Image: pure julia

Countries rename themselves for many reasons—shedding colonial pasts, embracing local languages, or settling political disputes. Some changes are subtle, others dramatic, but each reflects deep historical, cultural, or geopolitical shifts. Here are 10 times a nation decided to swap out its old name for a new identity.

Image: Yves Alarie

In 1989, the ruling military junta of the country changed "Burma" to "Myanmar" to reflect what it said was a more inclusive, indigenous identity. The name "Burma" was strongly associated with British colonialism and the dominant Bamar ethnic group.

The UN and many countries recognized the change, but some, like the U.S. and UK, resisted for years as a political stance against the unelected military regime behind the change.

Image: S'mile Vilakati

In 2018, King Mswati III declared that Swaziland would become Eswatini, meaning "land of the Swazis" in the local language. He announced the change during the country’s 50th independence anniversary.

The king cited confusion with Switzerland and a desire to break with colonial-era names as reasons. Also, the new name had already been in unofficial use for years during local events.

Image: Hendrik Cornelissen

In 1972, the island nation officially changed its name from Ceylon to Sri Lanka after becoming a republic. "Sri Lanka" derives from Sanskrit, meaning "resplendent island."

The name "Ceylon" was tied to Portuguese, Dutch, and British colonial rule. However, some companies (like Ceylon Tea) still use the old name as a global brand.

Image: Kaysha

In 1997, after the dictatorial regime of Mobutu Sese Seko was overthrown, Zaire reverted to its pre-1971 name: the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

"Zaire" had been Mobutu’s attempt to Africanize the nation, but reverting to the original name also caused its own problems, since its neighbor is also named the Republic of the Congo, leading to some confusion for both locals and tourists.

Image: Ljupco Dzambazovski

After years of dispute with Greece over the name "Macedonia," the country officially became North Macedonia in 2019. Greece claimed "Macedonia" implied a territorial claim over its northern region of the same name.

The compromise unblocked North Macedonia’s path to NATO and EU talks. Though controversial domestically, the change ended a decades-long diplomatic standoff.

Image: allPhoto Bangkok

Under the Khmer Rouge regime, the country was known as Democratic Kampuchea. After the regime’s fall in 1979, the name gradually returned to "Cambodia," the anglicized form of the original name.

By 1993, with the monarchy restored and a new constitution, "Kingdom of Cambodia" became official. "Kampuchea" is still used in the Khmer language, but not internationally.

Image: Road Ahead

In 1984, revolutionary leader Thomas Sankara renamed Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, meaning "Land of Incorruptible People" in local languages. The old name referred to river tributaries of the region.

Sankara saw the change as a break from colonial legacy and a tribute to national dignity. The people became known as Burkinabé, a new term coined to reflect unity.

Image: Azhar J

This was more a rebranding than a true name change. "The Netherlands" has always been the country’s official name, whereas "Holland" refers only to two provinces. In 2020, the Dutch government stopped using "Holland" in international marketing to avoid confusion.

The change was part of a tourism and trade branding overhaul, with major events like Eurovision and the Olympics adopting "Netherlands" exclusively in their materials.

Image: Mathew Schwartz

In 1939, and again officially after WWII in 1949, the country dropped the name Siam to become Thailand, meaning "land of the free."

The change was mainly driven by a nationalist movement that sought to unify the country under a more inclusive Thai identity. While the name "Siam" carried some specific cultural connotations, the name "Thailand" emphasized sovereignty and the ethnic majority’s rule.

Image: Chloe Evans

In 1980, the unrecognized white minority government of Rhodesia was replaced, and the country became Zimbabwe, derived from "Great Zimbabwe," an ancient city of the region.

The old name honored British imperialist Cecil Rhodes. The new one reclaimed African history and identity after years of brutal conflict.

Words filled with meaning

The meaning behind 11 popular acronyms and initialisms

Compared to other languages, English employs a relatively high number of acronyms and initialisms. According to linguists, this happens because English words tend to be short, and the word order is quite strict. While initialisms are easy to distinguish because they are not pronounced as a word, we don’t always recognize acronyms, especially when they refer to everyday things. Here are 11 popular acronyms and initialisms and their meaning.

When the scuba was invented in 1952 by Christian J. Lambertsen, it had a different name that, coincidentally, was also an acronym. Lambertsen had named his invention LARU, or ‘Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit’, but he changed it when it was time to apply for a patent. The name in the patent application was SCUBA, after ‘Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus’. Nowadays, scuba is a word of its own and has developed into words like scuba-diving.

In 1955, scientists who had developed a microwave radiation technology patented it as MASER or ‘Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation’. A few years later, American physicist Gordon Gould developed a similar technology, this time using light instead of microwaves. Following the pattern of MASER, he registered it as LASER or ‘Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation’. While the scientific community initially referred to this technology as the "optical maser", Gould’s acronym quickly became the preferred term.

If you’ve ever used the phrase "ATM machine", you need to know that you’re saying ‘machine’ twice. But don’t worry, this is a common error stemming from the fact that many people don’t know that ATM stands for ‘Automated Teller Machine’, a name that creates a parallelism between ATMs and bank tellers. Although the ATM was installed in 1967 in a London bank, no one really knows who was the first to call it ‘ATM’ instead of ‘cash-dispensing machine’.

The use of radio waves as a detection mechanism dates back to the late 19th century, but it was not properly developed until the 1920s, when the U.S. Navy started creating the first modern radars. By the Second World War, most military powers were using radio wave detection, but the technology did not have a name. In 1940, Lieutenant-Commanders Samuel M. Tucker and F. R. Furth of the U.S. Navy decided to come up with a code name and, after trying several phrases, landed on ‘Radio Detection And Ranging’, or RADAR.

If you are not familiar with the term CAPTCHA, you might recognize it as the test used by websites to make sure that you are human and not a robot. While clicking a box or selecting a picture is simple for a human, it’s extremely hard for a machine. What does the term CAPTCHA stand for? ‘Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart’. The name contains a reference to the Turing test —a method used to check if machines can behave like humans— and the acronym also functions as a portmanteau of ‘capture’ and ‘gotcha’.

If you follow international politics, you might have heard about NATO, a military alliance between several countries, the U.S. included. But have you ever wondered what NATO stands for? This alliance was established with the signing of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty by several European and North American nations, and its name stands for ‘North Atlantic Treaty Organization’.

The discussions around GIF tend to focus on whether it’s pronounced "gif" or "jif", and one would think that the meaning of the acronym would shed some light on the matter, but it doesn’t. GIF stands for ‘Graphics Interchange Format’, a reference to its development to transfer compressed images across computers. While the ‘g’ in ‘graphic’ would suggest that the correct pronunciation is "gif", creator Steve Wilhite has stated that the acronym was modelled after the peanut butter brand Jif, and should be pronounced in the same way.

The BBC is one of the most famous broadcasters in the world, and its name is so iconic that it has evolved from an initialism to the official name for the company. Established in 1923 as the British Broadcasting Company, initialized as BBC, it became officially known as the BBC when the company transitioned from private to public. The BBC has become so connected with standard British culture that "BBC English" has been historically promoted as the standard speech for newscasters and network announcers.

Nowadays, we use the term CEO in corporate settings, but did you know that its origins are military and political? The first records of CEO as ‘Chief Executive Officer’ date back to legal and government texts from the 1780s, and the term is used in reference to leaders and state governors. However, the term would not become popular until the 1970s, when it was adopted by the corporate world for the highest-ranking person in a company.

When acronyms for an invention include a name, it’s often the name of its inventor. But sometimes, as it happened with the TASER, they include a name that has nothing to do with the person behind the invention. The TASER was developed by Jack Cover, but its acronym stands for ‘Tom A. Swift's Electric Rifle’. Who is Tom Swift? The protagonist of the 1911 science fiction novel_._ Cover added the ‘A’ initial to the name to make the acronym easier to pronounce.

When the U.S. Postal Service created its postal code system, also known as a ZIP code, they used an acronym for the name, but the meaning of the acronym was not really important. ZIP stands for ‘Zone Improvement Plan’, but this phrase doesn’t make complete sense. This is because the USPS was more interested in using the name ZIP to convey the idea that using postal codes would make deliveries faster and more efficient than what these letters stood for.