Chennai: In what came as a surprise to Tamilians, the state government has changed the names of 1,018 cities and districts in the state to make their spellings closer to their Tamil pronunciation.
The news flashed after the Edappadi Palaniswami government passed an order on Wednesday based on the April 1 recommendation. As per the change, Coimbatore is set to Koyampuththoor, Mylapore is now Mayilaappor and Vellore is now Veeloor.
While the move is clearly in place to please Tamilians, it has garnered a varied response from Twitteratis who are in flux. The hashtag #NAMECHANGE is trending on Twitter with people giving polar opinions and sharing memes on the move.
While some are praising the name change;
It's great to see that tamilnadu government is also changing the English names of cities into cultural or traditional names.
I would like to thank @myogiadityanath for idea of #NAMECHANGE and now it's spreading in country.
Thanks for taking the initiative forward @CMOTamilNadu.— Aditya Dwivedi (@meadityadwivedi) June 11, 2020
many are clearly not happy about it.
#NAMECHANGE
There's neither proper Tamil nor English in the Names. Just making the existing ones harder to spell. Is there a benefit for anyone during these tough times?? Names of small villages are changed but Tamil Nadu remains Tamil Nadu.. for what??— Judith Femina (@JudithFemina) June 11, 2020
Twiteratti has even called out the false timing of this move when the country is still steering through a pandemic.
#NAMECHANGE#Coimbatore #TNGovt changed names of few cities during this pandemic
Meanwhile corona: pic.twitter.com/PVBRa4RwU0— . (@shunya_zeroo) June 11, 2020
And of course, Twitter couldn’t forget Yogi Adiyanath who made headlines after he changed the name of Allahabad to Prayagraj, in this situation of name changing. Memes, which show the UP CM’s love towards the change of city name are circulating.
#NAMECHANGE Expert 😂 pic.twitter.com/64QVX6WOTX
— Epic_Boy★ (@epic_boy_tweets) June 11, 2020
#NAMECHANGE is in Trend –
Meanwhile Yogi Adityanath be like – : pic.twitter.com/tkmrRgOpch
— THE | Epic Blogger | (@Kush_official_) June 11, 2020
Moreover, the platform is also concerned about the situation of North Indians who they think will now be ever confused.
https://twitter.com/SM__TWEET/status/1270965876028669953
Netizens are clearly having fun over this move while many continue to question the need for something like this.
#NAMECHANGE Say it in Tamil now ! pic.twitter.com/gFIM8y6Phu
— Manoj Prabakar S (@imanojprabakar) June 11, 2020
