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Names: Florence, Homer, etc

Cities

The names of cities are often different in different languages – for example the capital of Denmark, København, is called Kopenhagen in German, Copenhague in French, and Copenhagen in Italian and English. Some examples of English names for cities:

  • Antwerp, Athens, Beirut, Belgrade, Bombay (now usually Mumbai), Brussels, Bucharest, Calcutta (now usually Kolkata), Cologne, Damascus, Florence, Geneva, Genoa, The Hague, Hanover, Jerusalem, Leghorn (now more usually Livorno), Lisbon, Lyons (now more usually Lyon), Marseilles (now more usually Marseille), Milan, Moscow, Munich, Naples, Oporto, Padua, Peking (now usually Beijing), Prague, Rome, St Petersburg, Seville, Thessalonica, Turin, Venice, Vienna, Warsaw

Classical names

The same is true of many classical Greek and Roman names. Some examples:

  • Homer, Aeschylus, Livy, Horace, Ovid, Virgil, Aesop, Aristotle, Euclid, Sophocles, Mercury, Jupiter, Helen, Troy, Odysseus

Artists

The Italian artists Raffaello Sanzio and Tiziano are called Raphael and Titian in English.

Countries

The names of countries, of course, also differ from one language to another (for example Deutschland is called Germany in English; its neighbours call it, for instance, Allemagne, Tyskland or Niemcy). English versions are not listed here, as they are well known and can easily be found in any dictionary if needed.