18 SECOND REPORT OF U. S. BOARD ON GEOGRAPHIC NAMES. 
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 
foreign 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 
followed in these cases as well as in others, i. e., that the home names 
should be the ones universally used; but in most of these cases it is 
obviously impracticable to introduce this reform, at least at present. 
The people of the United States can not be induced to change from 
Germany to Deutschland, or even from Italy to Italia, or The Hague to 
's Gravenhage. It is a reform, however, to which we may look forward 
and work toward and which may be attained in the future. 
It is understood by the Board that our charts of the coasts of foreign 
countries using Roman characters, made for the use of our Navy and 
merchant marine, generally require the use of the local forms of these 
names, while on the other hand popular usage in this country, espe- 
cially in our atlases and text-books, requires the anglicized form. 
The Board practically leaves this matter on the same footing as here- 
tofore, approving the use of local forms of foreign names upon our 
charts and the anglicized forms upon maps designed for use in this 
country. It hopes, however, that the way may be opened in the near 
future to the adoption throughout of the local forms of these names and 
the rejection of the anglicized forms. In such specific cases as have 
