Foreign Geographic Names: US board on Geographic Names

John Wonder and other WAISers have expressed their strong support for my insistence on international standardization of geographic names. Roger L. Payne, Executive Secretary of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names writes:

"There is no international body for analyzing and adjudicating names issues that are transnational or in areas lacking any sovereignty. As a result of the growing need for a forum for discussion of principles, policies, and procedures regarding geographic names, a Group of Experts was formed under the auspices of the United Nations, which is the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN). At its first conference in 1967, numerous resolutions were adopted, but Resolution IV of the first conference, among other things, indicates that the most appropriate and effective means to achieve international standardization is through strong programs of national standardization. Countries are encouraged to cooperate and exchange ideas in all aspects of toponymy, especially applied toponymy. To this end, there is a technical meeting every two years at the U.N. where these experts from various countries (with approved credentials) exchange ideas and procedures as well as report on toponymic activities within their respective countries. Obviously, especially today, there is much exchange of ideas, procedures, and people between meetings. Broad topics considered by these experts at U.N. meetings include automation, transboundary issues, systems of transliteration, names in multilingual areas, procedures and methods of standardization, exonyms vs. endonyms, etc. Every five years there is a formal conference on "the standardization of geographical names".

Many nations (probably approaching 50) have some means of standardizing or reviewing names within their countries (domestic activity). However, very few nation's have a foreign names component for various reasons, which may be little or no foreign activity, or any number of reasons Canada has no foreign names component, while the United Kingdom and the U.S. have very active foreign names components.