What’s in a Name?

Every so often, someone asks why a place, battle, unit, or formation is named one way in a game and another way somewhere else. Sometimes it's curiosity. Sometimes it comes with a raised eyebrow. Occasionally it arrives with the firm confidence that we've made a mistake, because the player knows the "real" name and can't understand why we used another one.

The truth is usually less dramatic and more interesting. Historical names are messy. They move across languages, alphabets, maps, armies, archives, borders, and centuries of later writing. A single place may carry an ancient name, a medieval name, a German name, a Polish name, a Russian name, a Ukrainian name, a modern administrative name, and a conventional English battle name. A commander may appear in a Latinized form in one book, a Greek form in another, and a modern national form in a third. A headquarters may look like an acronym simply because it is usually printed in capitals.

For a historical game, this matters. Names are part of the atmosphere; they place the player in a particular campaign, army, or period. But they also have to be understood. A name that is perfectly correct in a narrow scholarly sense is useless if almost no player recognizes it, while a familiar old form may carry the wrong implication for the period depicted. The choice is rarely "right" versus "wrong." More often, it balances period usage, English-language convention, source tradition, map clarity, and player expectations.

Our general rule is simple: use the name that best fits the historical context of the game. Sometimes that means a name no longer current on modern maps. Sometimes it's the name under which a battle is best known in English-language military history. Sometimes it's a modern local form, or an established title in our catalog. And sometimes, frankly, it's the least confusing option from a set of imperfect alternatives.

That isn't always satisfying. But it's how historical naming works.

The Afterlife of a Typo: Pointe du Hoc and Pointe du Hoe

A good place to start is the smallest kind of naming problem: the typo that refuses to die.

Most players know Pointe du Hoc, the cliff-top position assaulted by U.S. Rangers on D-Day and one of the iconic locations of the Omaha sector. The name appears in histories, maps, documentaries, guidebooks, and battlefield tours. Yet older material sometimes produces odd variants like "Pointe du Hoe." That form is not a rival local tradition or a deep controversy. It's almost certainly what happens when names pass through wartime maps, typewritten reports, poor reproductions, copied captions, old typesetting, or later OCR.

This illustrates a larger problem. Once an incorrect form enters the pipeline, it can travel a long way. A mapmaker copies it; a report uses the map spelling; a caption follows the report; a secondary history copies the caption. A scenario designer, decades later, sees the form in what looks like a reliable source and has to decide whether it's a valid variant or just a mistake with a long shadow. A source can be good and still contain a bad label. A wartime document can be authentic and still have a typo.

These mistakes deserve some charity. Wartime documents were produced under pressure; maps were copied, reduced, annotated, and reissued; foreign names were handled by people who didn't always know the language, and diacritics weren't easy to reproduce. A strange form in an old source isn't automatically evidence of ignorance. It may simply be evidence of how information moved.

For a game, the answer is usually straightforward: use the correct, recognizable form. Pointe du Hoc is Pointe du Hoc. "Pointe du Hoe" might be worth a note about source transmission, but as a scenario title it would look like an error and function as one — unless the scenario were deliberately reproducing a specific document, in which case the spelling would need explanation.

This is the lightest kind of naming problem. Nobody's identity is tied to "Pointe du Hoe." But it's a useful warning: historical names are copied artifacts. By the time we see them, they may already have passed through several layers of translation, abbreviation, typographical compromise, and simple human error.

The Famous Battle Name: Austerlitz and Slavkov u Brna

Other cases aren't mistakes at all. They're conventions.

The Battle of Austerlitz is a good example. The modern Czech town is Slavkov u Brna, and for a travel guide or directions to the battlefield, the current name would be natural. But in military history, the battle is Austerlitz — the name under which it entered the Napoleonic canon, the name players expect, the name used in countless histories, orders of battle, and maps.

Calling it "Slavkov u Brna" in a Napoleonic game would be more geographically current but less historically clear. The conventional name has become part of the subject's historical language. A player looking for Austerlitz expects Austerlitz; a scenario titled Slavkov u Brna would make many players pause for the wrong reason.

The same issue runs across Central and Eastern Europe. Eylau is now Bagrationovsk, Friedland is now Pravdinsk, Breslau is now Wrocław, Danzig is now Gdańsk, Adrianople is now Edirne. The modern names are correct in modern usage but not automatically best for every historical context. A Napoleonic or Second World War scenario may reasonably use the name from the campaign literature of its period; a modern map needs the current name; a historical note may mention both.

Players sometimes assume modern official names should always replace older ones, but that would create more confusion than clarity. Nobody expects Austerlitz to vanish from Napoleonic history because the town is now Slavkov u Brna, or the Battle of Adrianople to be renamed after Edirne. The older battle name isn't necessarily a claim about present-day sovereignty or identity. It's often just the name by which the event became known — and frequently it was never the same thing as the town name anyway. Battles are named after nearby towns, rivers, ridges, roads, taverns, crossroads, or districts. Once the label sticks, it stays stable even as the political map changes.

The lesson for design is practical. A title has to point the player toward the historical event. If a battle is widely known by a single name in English-language military history, that name has strong claims. A modern form can be added in notes, but replacing the conventional name entirely creates a false sense of precision. The goal isn't to show we know the modern municipal name; it's to help the player understand what action is being represented.

The Borderland Problem: Saaz, Žatec, Breslau, Wrocław, Danzig, Gdańsk

Some naming issues are more sensitive, tied not only to convention but to borders, languages, and population history.

Central Europe is full of them. Saaz, in what was the Sudetenland, is now Žatec; Breslau in Schlesien is now Wrocław; Danzig is now Gdańsk; Brünn is now Brno; Posen is now Poznań. These aren't just spelling variants. They reflect multilingual regions, changing state borders, shifting administrative systems, and, in some cases, the upheavals of the twentieth century.

One form isn't always right and the other always wrong. Saaz may suit a German-language Habsburg or early modern context; Žatec is the normal modern Czech form. Breslau is natural in a Prussian, German imperial, or Second World War German operational context; Wrocław is a modern Polish city. Danzig fits many medieval, early modern, or German-language contexts and appears in English as the conventional name of the "Freie Stadt Danzig" ("Free City of Danzig"); Gdańsk is the modern Polish name and the proper form for the contemporary city.

The trouble is that these names carry emotional weight. One reader sees the old German form and assumes a political claim; another sees the modern Polish or Czech form in a historical setting and feels the period atmosphere has been flattened. Both reactions are understandable. Names stop being neutral labels once they've passed through wars, expulsions, border changes, and national memory.

 

Our approach is neither to pretend the associations don't exist nor to let them paralyze the writing. The practical question stays the same: what is the game depicting? In a German operational context in 1945, Breslau isn't a revisionist choice; it's the name used by the armies, maps, and documents of that context. As a modern Polish city, it's Wrocław. Often, the cleanest solution is to use one form in the title and the other in the description: "Breslau, modern Wrocław," or "Saaz, now Žatec." That isn't a compromise born of uncertainty but a recognition that the same physical place has belonged to different linguistic and political worlds. A game enters one of them for a purpose; it shouldn't erase the others, but it does need to speak in the language of the setting.

Danzig/Gdańsk is the clearest example. In a medieval Hanseatic context, "Danzig" fits an English discussion shaped by German and Latin sources. In a Polish national context, "Gdańsk" may be preferable. In the interwar period, "Free City of Danzig" wasn't a choice of words but the official historical entity. In a modern travel article, "Gdańsk" is obvious. The correct name depends on what kind of sentence we're writing.

This is why no single rigid rule works. "Always modern" damages historical clarity. "Always period" sometimes confuses readers or creates an archaic surface. "Always English conventional" ignores modern local usage. The real rule is contextual: period first, clarity always, and where needed, acknowledge the other form.

Modern Usage and Inherited English Forms: Donbas, Donbass, Kiev, Kyiv

Modern conflicts make naming more delicate because the language question isn't safely buried in the past. It's alive, visible, and often politically charged, so these cases need care.

Donbas/Donbass is a good example. Both forms are recognizable in English and widely used. The difference is clearer in Cyrillic: Ukrainian Донбас, usually rendered Donbas; Russian Донбасс, usually rendered Donbass. One English letter, but it reflects two source languages and two transliteration habits.

Using "Donbas" doesn't declare every older "Donbass" wrong, nor that historical titles should be retroactively altered. It means that in a modern Ukrainian setting, there are good reasons to use the form that best fits current Ukrainian usage and much current English practice. That's a practical editorial decision, not an invitation to refight the region's language politics in a product title.

Kyiv/Kiev works similarly. Ukrainian Київ is now normally rendered Kyiv; Russian Киев was long rendered Kiev. For decades “Kiev” was the standard English form, shaped largely by Russian-language imperial, Soviet, diplomatic, cartographic, and military-history usage, and it remains embedded in older military history, especially for the Second World War. “Kyiv” is now the preferred modern form. For the contemporary city, Kyiv is usually natural. But an established title like “Panzer Campaigns: Kiev ’43” sits in a different frame — a title, a product history, and an older English military-history convention around the 1943 campaign.

That doesn't settle every case, and it would be unwise to invent a grand theory after the fact. Some titles were named when different conventions dominated; some names have grown familiar to players over the years. Changing an established title creates catalog confusion, breaks continuity with existing documentation, and makes it harder for players to identify a game they already know. A new article, map label, or scenario note might reasonably follow a newer convention while the older product title stays put.

This is where an internal style note helps. Established product titles aren't automatically renamed whenever modern English usage shifts, especially when they're familiar and tied to existing documentation. New writing should still weigh the period depicted, the source tradition, and current usage. In modern Ukrainian geography, current Ukrainian-derived forms will often be preferable; older English forms may remain appropriate in Second World War titles fixed by product history or campaign literature. Where the difference may puzzle readers, a short note can acknowledge both forms without turning the issue into an argument. This lets "Kiev '43" and "Donbas '43" coexist without pretending the choice is perfectly uniform. It isn't. Historical naming rarely is.

The same pattern appears with Kharkov/Kharkiv, Lvov/Lviv/Lwów/Lemberg, and many other places. Kharkiv comes from Ukrainian Харків, Kharkov from Russian Харьков. Lviv comes from Ukrainian Львів, Lvov from Russian Львов; Lwów is the Polish tradition, Lemberg the German. Each form has a context — Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, German, or older English convention — and a rigid rule would quickly break down. A historically aware practice is better: ask what period is depicted, whose documents are followed, what English-speaking players will recognize, and whether the chosen form introduces an unintended political signal.

Neutrality here doesn't mean pretending names have no associations. It means making choices for defensible historical and practical reasons rather than using names as slogans. A game about military history can't avoid language, but it can avoid turning every choice into a declaration of allegiance.

Roman, Byzantine, Greek, and the Names People Used for Themselves

Not all disputes concern place names. Sometimes the question is what to call a people, state, or army.

The "Byzantine Empire" is the classic case. The term is familiar, convenient, and widely used; it helps readers distinguish the medieval Eastern Empire centered on Constantinople from the earlier Roman Empire centered on Rome. As a modern label, it's useful.

But it's a later label. The people we call Byzantines generally thought of themselves as Romans — in Greek, Rhomaioi, Ῥωμαῖοι. Their empire was the Roman Empire, the Basileia ton Rhomaion, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων. This wasn't a poetic memory of Rome. Until the fall of Constantinople on May 29, 1453, the state's legal and political identity, imperial ideology, diplomacy, and claims of legitimacy all rested on Roman continuity. In many medieval contexts, calling them "Roman" isn't antiquarian fussiness; it reflects how the state understood itself and how its neighbors had to deal with its claims.

That doesn't ban "Byzantine." There are contexts where it's the clearest word — orienting a general reader, or covering many centuries with a stable modern label. But where the empire's Roman identity is central to the period's politics, "Roman" may be the better choice.

Again, this balances accuracy and clarity. Pushed to its most technically pure form, every name becomes unreadable for most readers. Belisarius could be Belisarios, Βελισάριος; Procopius, Prokopios, Προκόπιος; Justinian, Ioustinianos, Ἰουστινιανός, or the Latin Iustinianus; Rome, Roma or Rhome, Ῥώμη; Constantinople, Konstantinoupolis, Κωνσταντινούπολις. Scholarly contexts may defend such choices, but for most English-language writing, the familiar forms aren't errors. They're conventions that let readers move through the subject without friction. 

The resulting rule looks inconsistent but is practical: use "Roman" where it conveys the state's historical self-understanding, but keep familiar English or Latinized personal names where changing them would distract more than they enlighten. The aim isn't a museum of linguistic purity; it's a clearer historical world.

The same applies beyond the Roman world. Older Western writing often treated Rome's eastern opponents in Greek or Latin. Persian royal names may appear in older books several steps removed from how modern scholarship handles them. Newer usage often gives a better sense that these weren't "barbarian" names filtered through Roman eyes but the names of a major imperial culture with its own institutions, court, and political language. No player needs to master Middle Persian, Greek, Latin, Syriac, Gothic, or Arabic; naming choices simply shouldn't casually reproduce old hierarchies of perspective.

The Roman/Byzantine question also shows why "historically correct" needs care. Correct in what sense — for the people at the time, in modern academic shorthand, in popular history, on a map, for a product title? These answers differ. A good editorial choice recognizes the difference rather than pretending there's only one answer.

Stavka or STAVKA? When Capital Letters Mislead

Some naming issues come from translation and typography rather than geography. “Stavka” is a good example.

In the Second World War, Stavka usually refers to the Soviet Supreme High Command. The word itself is not an acronym. It comes from Russian ставка, originally meaning something like a “tent,” “camp,” or headquarters location, and by extension came to refer to the high command or its staff. In Imperial Russia it was used for the administrative staff and later the General Headquarters of the armed forces; in the Soviet period it became closely associated with the supreme wartime command. Related forms also exist in Ukrainian and Belarusian usage.

Many histories and wargame materials print the word in all caps as STAVKA, and in some older wargaming contexts that has become part of the visual language. The trouble is that all caps makes it look like an acronym — OKH, NKVD, RAF, NATO — which it isn’t. A player unfamiliar with the term might reasonably assume each letter stands for something.

This isn’t a catastrophic error; serious books and games have used the all-caps form. The question is whether it is the clearest form today. In most prose, “Stavka” reads like a name or institution rather than an acronym. If a series has an established all-caps style, consistency may justify keeping it, but as a general choice, lowercase after the initial capital avoids a false signal.

This belongs to a broader family of terminology problems. “Wehrmacht” isn’t a fancy word for the German Army; strictly, it means the German armed forces as a whole — the Heer was the army, the Luftwaffe the air force, the Kriegsmarine the navy. “Red Army” and “Soviet Army” aren’t always interchangeable, since the formal terminology changed after the war. Panzergruppe, Panzer Group, and Panzer Army describe related but distinct organizational realities depending on date and translation.

These aren’t pedantic distinctions. In a game, labels teach players how to think about the forces on the map, and a misleading label can blur the chain of command, the type of formation, or the period. A label that’s too technical is just as unhelpful. The best choice gives the player the right historical impression with the least unnecessary explanation.

Stavka/STAVKA is a reminder that names are visual as well as verbal. Capitalization, hyphenation, diacritics, apostrophes, and transliteration all shape meaning. A name doesn’t merely say something; it looks like something — and sometimes that look carries an implication we didn’t intend.

Same Name, Different Place

One more problem deserves mention, because it often matters in scenario research: sometimes the difficulty isn't choosing the spelling but identifying the place.

Ancient and medieval geography is full of repeated names. There were many cities called Antioch and several called Caesarea. “Tripoli” may mean Libya or Lebanon. “Scutari” can point to Shkodër in Albania or Üsküdar in Istanbul. “Thebes” may mean Greece or Egypt. “Alexandria” is worse still, because Alexander conquered half the known world and apparently decided that what every newly founded city really needed was the same name.

For a player, these look like simple names; for a designer, they're traps. A source says an army moved toward Antioch — but which Antioch? A chronicle mentions Caesarea — Maritima, Mazaca, Philippi, or another? A nineteenth-century source says Scutari — Albania or the Asian shore of Istanbul depends on the subject, the route, and the writer's vocabulary.

Here, maps, distances, campaign context, and source comparison become essential. A name alone isn't enough; it has to be placed inside a movement, a landscape, and a chain of events. Sometimes the modern equivalent is secure, sometimes debated, and sometimes the best that can be done is to choose a plausible identification and say so. A scenario needs a map and a location; it can't always wait for perfect certainty, especially when the sources are ancient, fragmentary, or contradictory. The responsible approach is to make the best reconstruction possible, avoid pretending a debated identification is certain, and explain the reasoning where space allows.

This is also why a modern map label can mislead. The place where a battle was fought may not be the modern town whose name is attached to it. Settlements shifted, rivers changed course, medieval villages disappeared, an ancient name survives only in a later form or a nearby ruin. The player sees one scenario title; behind it may lie a long process of identification.

Why Not Use One Rule for Everything?

The obvious question is: why not adopt one rule and follow it everywhere? Use modern names, or period names, or English conventional names, or local names — pick one and be done.

Because every simple rule breaks down almost immediately.

"Always modern" gives us Slavkov u Brna instead of Austerlitz, Wrocław, where Breslau is the meaningful form, and Istanbul in medieval contexts that clearly call for Constantinople. It makes older campaigns feel strangely modern and hides the source language of the armies involved.

"Always period" sounds better but fails too. Which period name, used by whom, in what language? A city might have names in Latin, Greek, Arabic, German, Polish, Ottoman Turkish, Russian, Ukrainian, and English. An army's name for a place may differ from its opponent's, the local civilians', the mapmaker's, and a later battle name's. Period accuracy doesn't produce a single answer.

"Always English conventional" is practical but freezes old habits forever, preserving forms that English speakers inherited from one imperial, colonial, or scholarly tradition. Sometimes that's fine; sometimes it's misleading. English convention is a guide, not a law.

"Always local" sounds respectful but gets complicated. Which local language, date, or community? In multilingual regions, one local name may be anachronistic; in some settings, the local name isn't the one used by the armies depicted in the campaign; in others, using only the local form obscures the name most readers know.

So the better answer isn't one rule but a hierarchy of judgment. The starting point is the period and subject of the game — a medieval siege, a Napoleonic campaign, a Second World War operation, and a modern conflict may all call for different choices. Next: what would the historical actors themselves have recognized, especially where a name expresses identity, legitimacy, sovereignty, or command structure? English-language military history carries its own weight; a battle overwhelmingly known by one name can't be renamed without making it harder to recognize. Player familiarity matters, since a game has to communicate quickly, and a defensible but unfamiliar name may belong in a note rather than the title. For modern conflicts and living political geographies, current usage and sensitivities need particular care — not slogans, but recognition that some choices carry associations beyond spelling. And catalog continuity is a practical concern: a long-standing product title isn't the same as a fresh article or internal map label.

The answer may still be imperfect. But it will at least be reasoned.

What This Means in Practice

In practice, WDS naming choices tend to fall into a few patterns.

For famous battles, we favor the name known in English-language military history. Austerlitz stays Austerlitz — not denying the modern Czech town, just recognizing the established label.

For places whose names changed through border shifts, language, or population history, we choose the form that fits the period depicted. Breslau may suit a German 1945 context; Wrocław suits the modern Polish city; Saaz fits one setting, Žatec another. A note can bridge them where helpful.

For modern settings, current usage matters more. Donbas/Donbass and Kyiv/Kiev are cases where older English forms, Russian-based forms, Ukrainian forms, and catalog history intersect. We avoid pretending these choices are weightless, and avoid turning them into manifestos. The safest explanation is contextual: period, convention, and continuity guide the choice.

For states and peoples, we respect historical self-understanding without making the text strange. "Roman" may be right for a medieval eastern empire that understood itself as Roman, while familiar names like Justinian, Belisarius, and Procopius remain clearest for readers.

For institutions and terminology, we avoid labels that imply the wrong thing. Stavka is probably cleaner than STAVKA in ordinary prose, though established series style and player familiarity may still matter.

For uncertain ancient or medieval geography, we make the best identification possible without pretending every location problem is solved. Sometimes the note is as important as the name.

This may sound cautious, but caution isn't indecision. Historical naming is an area where overconfidence creates mistakes. A good name should feel natural to the player, defensible to the historian, and practical for the game.

Conclusion: Names Are Part of the Map

A name isn't just a label on a scenario screen. It's part of the historical map. It tells the player what world they're entering: Roman or Byzantine, Breslau or Wrocław, Austerlitz or Slavkov u Brna, Donbas or Donbass, Stavka or STAVKA.

Sometimes the choice is easy. Sometimes it's inherited. Sometimes it's debated. Sometimes it's a compromise. But it's almost never random.

When we choose a name, we're answering several questions at once. What would have made sense to the people at the time? What does the military-history literature call this event? What will players recognize? What does the modern map say? Does the old name carry a misleading implication? Would the new name obscure the setting? Is this an established title players already know?

That's why different games, periods, and even different parts of the same catalog may not follow what looks like one rule. A name right for a modern article may be wrong for a 1943 campaign title. A spelling that looks old-fashioned may be the established historical name; one that looks new may better fit the period.

So when a historical game appears to use the "wrong" name, the answer usually isn't that someone forgot to check a map. More often the name reflects a choice among competing forms, each with its own claim. Our job is to choose the one that best serves the history, the player, and the game.

And occasionally, of course, it really is just a typo. But even then, history has a way of making the typo interesting.

And don't get me started on Gulf of Mexico vs Gulf of America...