16 
REPORT OF BOARD ON GEOGRAPHIC NAMES. 
The practice of adding the word “city” or “town,” as Boise City, 
Drummondtown, as a part of the name is a useless complication, 
growing in most cases out of an optimistic spirit on the part of the 
promoters of the place. It is often misleading and almost invariably 
unnecessary. 
There are in Alaska a good many names of Russian origin ending in 
OBB, which terminating syllable has been variously rendered of, off, 
ow, and ov. The Board uniformly uses of. Examples: Baranof, 
Chichagof, Popof, and Shelikof. 
Outside of the United States, where the Department of State and 
United States Hydrographic Office are chiefly interested, the work of 
the Board is directed to the harmonization of American usage in geo¬ 
graphic nomenclature with the usage of the great map making nations— 
England, Germany, and France. The Department of State, by reason 
of its diplomatic and consular, functions, is intimately concerned with 
the present style, change of names, transfers of territorial jurisdiction, 
cession and acquisition of territory by various governments abroad, 
and the proper forms of the titular political nomenclature of foreign 
states and nations. The interest of the Hydrographic Office is involved 
by reason of its publication of charts and sailing directions of all for¬ 
eign waters, to the effective use of which uniformity of geographic 
nomenclature is obviously indispensable. The forms of foreign names 
recommended for adoption are determined on consultation of estab¬ 
lished usage, the best authorities upon ethnological and political his¬ 
tory and derivation, and current geographic and political information 
from authentic sources. 
Many names in foreign civilized countries present a peculiar diffi¬ 
culty and appear to require that a further exception be made to the 
general principle of following local usage. This lies in the fact that 
many foreign names have been anglicized, and the anglicized form, 
often quite different from the local form (meaning by local form that 
in use by the best authorities in the country having jurisdiction), is 
well established in usage in this country. 
Such cases wherein English speaking nations use names differing 
from those locally accepted are not numerous, but they are among 
those most in use and represent the most prominent features of the 
earth; for instance, we call Deutschland Germany, Espana Spain, 
Livorno Leghorn. In many cases we translate the foreign name, if it 
is capable of translation, into English words. Other countries, in turn, 
treat the names of this country in a similar manner. Indeed, most 
non-English speaking people translate the name of this country into 
their own tongue, forgetting that geographic names, like personal 
names, should not be translated. 
It is unquestionably desirable and proper that local usage should be 
