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Geographical name change in Greece is the Greek state's systematic replacement of non-Greek geographical and topographic names within Greece with Greek names as part of a policy and ideology of Hellenization. The main objective of the initiative has been to assimilate or hide geographical or topographical names that were deemed foreign and divisive against Greek unity or considered to be "bad Greek". The names that were considered foreign were usually of Turkish, Albanian, and Slavic origin. Most of the name changes occurred in the ethnically heterogeneous northern Greece and the Arvanite settlements in central Greece. Place names of Greek origin were also renamed after names in Classical Greece.
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The policy commenced after the independence of Greece from the Ottoman Empire in the early 1830s, after the territorial expanses of Greece and continued into the Greek Republic. To this day use of the old Turkish, Albanian, or Slavic placenames by authorities, organisations, and individuals is penalized under Greek law.
History
The area that is today Greece was inhabited by various peoples throughout history, and the country's toponyms reflect their diversity of origins. The hellenization of toponyms in Greece started soon after Greek independence, as part of the process of shaping Greek national identity. Many placenames in Greece of non-Greek origin were replaced by "ancient or pseudo ancient names that were supposed (sometimes erroneously) to have some connection to the area". For example, the ancient name of Piraeus was revived in the 19th century, after it had been called Drakos in Greek, Porto Leone in Venetian, and Aslan Limanı in Turkish for centuries, after the Piraeus Lion which stood there.
In 1909, the existence of large numbers of non Greek place names were a nuisance to the government. In 1909 the government-appointed commission on toponyms report that every one village in three in Greece (30% of the total) should have its name changed (of the 5,069 Greek villages, 1,500 were considered as “speaking a barbaric language”.
During the Balkan Wars, Greece doubled its territory and population, but it brought various large non-Greek populations into its border, especially in Macedonia and Epirus. Notably were the Slavic speaking Orthodox, the mostly Turkish-speaking Muslims from Macedonia, the Albanians and Aromanians in Epirus. After the war against Bulgaria in 1912 the majority of Slavic speaking Christians were also expelled from the country. After 1922, all Muslims except Western Thrace, were exchanged for all Orthodox in Turkey except for those in Istanbul. After World War II the remaining Muslim Albanians were expelled, the remaining Christian Albanian and Wallachians today proclaim themselves as Greeks. By 1928, Greece's demography had drastically changed from the position in 1830: the country had turned into a nation-state, non-Greeks had been removed, and most of the population spoke Greek and considered themselves to be by free will or pressure as "Greeks". Even the remaining Arvanites, Aromanians and the Orthodox Albanians in Epirus have conformed, as most members of these groups consider themselves Greeks today.
As Greece transformed rapidly from a multi-ethnic to a mono-ethnic state the Greek government renamed many places with revived ancient names, local Greek-language names, or translations of the non-Greek names. The non-Greek names were officially removed. Although the bulk of the population was Greek the renaming was considered a way to establish a collective ethnic consciousness. A lot of historical Greek names from Asia Minor were also introduced in the region mainly by the resettled refugees. Many Demotic Greek names were also replaced by a Katharevousa Greek form, usually different only morphologically. This process started in 1926 and continued into the 1960s.
Name changes by region
Many settlements in the Macedonia region in Northern Greece had Greek and non-Greek forms. Most of those names were in use during the multinational environment of the Ottoman Empire. Some of the forms were identifiably of Greek origin, others of Slavic, yet others of Turkish, Vlach or Albanian origin. Following the First World War and the Graeco-Turkish War which followed, an exchange of population took place between Greece, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Turkey (Treaty of Neuilly, between Greece and Bulgaria and Treaty of Lausanne, between Greece and Turkey). The villages of the exchanged populations (Bulgarians and Muslims) in Greece were resettled with Greeks from Asia Minor, and the Balkans (mainly from Bulgaria and Yugoslavia).
According to ongoing research being carried out at the Institute of Neohellenic Research in Athens, between 1913 and 1996, the names of 4,413 settlements were legally changed in Greece. In each case, the renamings were recorded in the official Government Gazette. The regional breakdown in renamings is: Macedonia: 1,805 renamings; Peloponnese: 827 renamings; Central Greece: 519 renamings; Thessaly: 487 renamings; Epirus: 454 renamings; Thrace: 98 renamings; Crete: 97 renamings; Aegean Islands: 79 renamings; Ionian Islands: 47 renamings.
Central Greece
Eastern Central Greece was home to the Arvanites, an Albanian speaking people who migrated to the area in the 14th century. Till the 19th century most of Attica and Boeotia was populated by Arvanites, many of the placenames were also Arvanite, after the establishment of Greece in 1830 most of the names have been changed, especially to unused names since antiquity, from Classical Greece.
Epirus
Epirus had a Greek majority population before annexation to Greece (1913), with minorities of Aromanians and Albanians, while the majority of the toponyms in the region are ancient Greek. A part of the Albanian minority, known as Cham Albanians, resided in the coastal area and were expelled from the area after World War II by the EDES resistance group. An unknown number of Aromanians and Orthodox Albanians, in some sources called Arvanites, still live in the area, who today identify mostly as Greek. Since the early 20th-century Albanian place names of Epirus have been systematically changed to Greek, thereby erasing the former Albanian presence in the landscape.
Greek region of Macedonia
Till 1912, the area had a very heterogeneous population consisting of Slavic, Turkish, Greek, Jews and Wallachian people. Most of the geographical names were of non Greek origin, the Greek government planned to change this. Between 1913 and 1928 the Slavic names of hundreds of villages and towns were Hellenized by a Committee for the Changing of Names, which was charged by the Greek government with "the elimination of all the names which pollute and disfigure the beautiful appearance of our fatherland". Between 1912 (Balkan Wars) and 1928 (after the Population exchange between Greece and Turkey), the non Greek inhabitants were largely gone and instead of them Greek refugees from the Ottoman Empire settled in the area thereby changing its demography.
Western Thrace
Since 1977 all Turkish village names of Western Thrace have been changed to Greek names. Western Thrace is home to a large Turkish minority.