Pretoria or Tshwane? The politics of name changes

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to look at the reasons that underpin the envisaged name change from Pretoria to Tswhane. The argument in the article is that the empirical evidence presented by the supporters for the proposed name change is not sufficiently substantial to warrant such a change. It is therefore vital to detect the apparent reasons to comprehend the rationale for the name change, because it is located on a different level. Lurking behind the thin veil of historical evidence is the more obvious driving stimulus for the name change, namely the core of politics or power politics. Therefore, in order to fully appreciate the reasons for name changes, one has to look more at the nature of (power) politics than of history.