What's in a name?

By what name do you know this City? Bangalore? Bengaluru? Bean Town?

Does it really make a difference, to you, what it is 'officially' called? Not so much, I would guess.

For those who only know Bangalore as India's Silicon Valley and current IT hub, I doubt the 'brand' will lose much for the change in name. And for us Bangaloreans (or Bengalurians? Or are we all just Beans now?), there has always been both a 'Bangalore' and 'Bengaluru' aspect to the City we know. Both the Western and the traditional Kannadiga aspects of our world. No matter what the 'official' name, I know I shall always think of it as 'Bangalore' when thinking in English, and 'Bengaluru' when thinking in Kannada.

At least in our case, the shift in the name is not as drastic as has been for Mumbai and Chennai. Heck, these cities still get called Bombay and Madras...what horror, I say.

Sure, there is nice feeling involved in knowing that, from now on, the rest of the world will be calling namma Bengaluru by its original name as against the anglasized version.However, when I hear some of the contorsions the Kannada name undergoes (**cringe, cringe**), when someone unfamiliar with the language tries to pronounce it, I wonder if it is really worth the effort!