Kazakhstan's president considering changing country's name

[Larry1]

Kazakhstan's President Is Tired of His Country's Name Ending in 'Stan'

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev doesn't like the name Kazakhstan.

"Kazakhstan has the 'stan' ending like many other nations of Central Asia. At the same time, foreigners take an interest in Mongolia, the population of which makes up only two million, but its name does not end in '-stan,'" he told onlookers while visiting a school in Atyrau, according to his official website. "Perhaps, eventually it is necessary to consider an issue of changing the name of our country into the 'Kazakh Nation', but first of all, it should necessarily be discussed with people." (His proposed name would be rendered as "Kazakh Eli" in English.)

This isn't Nazarbayev's first foray into nomenclature. The president, a septuagenarian autocrat who has led Kazakhstan since the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991, has built up quite a cult of personality after years of one-party rule. In 1997, he moved the nation's capital from Almaty, the country's largest city, to Akmola, a small town deep in the Kazakh steppe, and renamed it Astana—literally "capital" in Kazakh. The generic name is suspected to be a placeholder for Nursultan, his own name, but Nazarbayev has graciously delayed naming the city after him until he dies.

Renaming an entire country is an even bolder move by Nazarbayev, but it isn't uncommon worldwide. Rhodesia was originally named for the British man who colonized it, but became Zimbabwe when white-minority rule ended in the 1980s. The military junta in Burma renamed the country Myanmar in 1989 after seizing power, although many opposition groups, foreign governments, and media outlets do not recognize the name change.

And Nazarbayev does have a point about his country's name. There are seven countries in Central Asia with the suffix "-stan": Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The suffix comes from the Persian root istan, or "land"—hence the "land of the Uzbeks," "land of the Kazakhs," and so forth. Pakistan bucks the trend somewhat: Its name means "land of the pure."

... The difference for Kazakhstan and its neighbors is the cultural and geopolitical context. There's a certain stigma associated with the suffix "-stan." Apartheid South Africa's segregated black-majority enclaves, for example, became known as "bantustans," a term that came to connote artificial, ethnically defined statelets. In the U.S., people broadly uses the suffix "-stan" to give a generic Oriental vibe to fictional Middle Eastern countries, as with 24's sinister Islamic Republic of Kamistan or Team America: World Police's Derkaderkastan, or to indicate backwardness and instability, with names like Doonesbury's Berzerkistan or The Onion's Ethniklashistan and Nukehavistan.

Would a name change help Kazakhstan? Geographically, it couldn't hurt. Flubbings of Central Asian nations' names are common, even among those who should probably know better. In 2012, U.S. presidential candidate Herman Cain claimed on the campaign trail not to know who "the president of Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan" was, to Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai's amusement. Even John Kerry, the U.S. secretary of state, once verbally mangled Kazakhstan with neighboring Kyrgyzstan to create "Kyrzakhstan."

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/02/kazakhstans-president-is-tired-of-his-countrys-name-ending-in-stan/283676/

Is there a stigma associated with the suffix "stan"?.  What are your thoughts on this or the potential name change?

If the country's name is changed there will be millions of people who lived in three countries without ever having moved (The USSR, Kazakhstan, and whatever the new name ends up being).  I suppose that's similar to those people who were born in St. Petersburg, lived in Petrograd as children, spent most of their lives in Leningrad, then spent their last years in St. Petersburg again.

If someone makes a Borat joke I hope at least that it's a funny one.

[Shadow]

The word 'stan' has been getting a religious context that the Kazakh would rather be free of.

[CanadaMan]

I believe it was the great Shakespeare who said it first:

’Tis but thy name that is my enemy;   
Thou art thyself though, not a Kazakhstan?   
What’s Kazakhstan? it is nor land, nor soil,   
Nor sea, nor stone, nor any other part     
Belonging to a country. O! be some other name:
What's in a name? that which we call a 'Stan'
By any other name would be just as poor;

[mendeleyev]

I hope that after he dies the people will overthrow his family or whoever follows and elect a leader of their own choosing. I also hope that when that time arrives that both the USA and Russia will kept out of the process, but given Kazakhstan's membership in the Customs Union, that is a very silly wish on my part. 

[Larry1]

I hope that after he dies the people will overthrow his family or whoever follows and elect a leader of their own choosing. I also hope that when that time arrives that both the USA and Russia will kept out of the process, but given Kazakhstan's membership in the Customs Union, that is a very silly wish on my part. 

Yes, It wouldn't be surprising if Vladimir Putin suggested a new name for Kazakhstan:  The Russian Federation.

[Slumba]

They should name it

"Sasha Baron Cohen"

and screw the guy over who made fun of them.