Abstract
“Man [or object] does not exist unless he has a name. It must be named to exist” (Tesone, 2013: 73). Names are studied by different sciences. The act of naming is the bearer of meanings, and naming is the subject of urban toponymy. Cities consist of several levels of names. Urban toponymy addresses place names, such as street, square, park, school, and bridge names, at all levels in urban spaces. This research aims to present an evaluation of urban toponymy studies in Turkey. Hence 25 published articles are examined by using content analysis. As a result, research reveals an increase in the number of studies being done on the origin of urban place names. These are especially related to the classification of street and neighborhood names. In these classifications, the effect of Turkey's recent history on naming is elucidated by using ‘republic’ streets, referring to the government and those who founded the Turkish republic in 1922. Human characteristics of the geographical setting are extremely important in the analysis. Due to the upsurge in interest in cultural geography, urban toponymy is appraised here with a critical approach. For instance, local administrators with different political perspectives have tried to project their ideologies onto spaces by place naming. Also although not frequently, urban names are used to create more prestigious urban spaces for economic gain.
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Notes
- 1.
After World War II, Korea was divided in two by the 38th parallel. The north of the 38th parallel was occupied by Soviet Russia, and the south was occupied by the USA. With the division of Korea in two, the Korean problem also emerged. The expansionist attitude of the USSR led the USA and European countries to cooperate economically, politically and militarily. Economic organizations were formed and defense agreements were made. The most important of these was the North Atlantic Alliance, which was established for defensive purposes. Searching for security against the threat of the USSR, Turkey turned to the West and tried to take its place in Western institutions. Although it wanted to join NATO to address security concerns, it was not accepted for various reasons. In this period, Communist expansionism manifested itself with the attack of North Korea on South Korea. This time, the free world took action to stand against communist expansionism with the authority given by the United Nations under the leadership of the USA. By taking sides with the UN and deciding to send troops to Korea, Turkey saw this war against communism as an opportunity to enter NATO. The Korean War began when North Korea attacked South Korea on June 25, 1950. Thereupon, the UN took a decision to keep the peace. The UN had asked member states to assist South Korea in restoring peace. Turkey complied with this decision and sent a land force of 5000 people to Korea (Haşimi 2014).
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Aliağaoğlu, A., Uğur, A. (2023). Urban Toponymy in Turkey. In: O’Reilly, G. (eds) Place Naming, Identities and Geography. Key Challenges in Geography. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21510-0_14
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