Name(s)

"Is Bâle Basel?" Rick asked.

He often checks with me on French words. I thought he was referring to the herb. He wanted to know the name of the city.

In Switzerland most cities have multi names. Geneva is Genève in French, Genf in German and Ginerva in Italian.

When I was first working in Switzerland, I had a client meeting in Zurich. It went well and I wanted to catch the train back to Neuchâtel. I had learned not to get on the train, if the destination is not listed on the platform sign that tells what time a train is leaving and where it is going. Trains leave every hour and for three hours, Neuchâtel was not posted on the track I had been told was the one I wanted. 

I had been told in English. Switzerland has many dialects in German or Schweizerdeutsch and each can be totally incomprehensible. My daughter, a student at Mannheim University, would cross the border by train at Bâle/Basel and go from total understanding of the German conductor's German to total incomprehension of the Schweizerdeutsch.

I also knew that it was the train destined for Geneva, but there was no Geneva listed train. Then it hit me. Genèva would be listed as Genf. I looked up and the next train was going to Genf.  It had a stop in Neuenburg which was the German for Neuchâtel. When asked by my boss why I was so late in getting back, I told him, and became a good target of teasing from then on.

I never realized that places had different names until I went overseas to live in Germany at age 20
The United States became Vereinigte Staaten. In French it is Etats Unis and in Arabic الولايات 
المتحدة الأمريكية

Maybe if we can't settle on one name for a country, how can we ever hope to achieve world peace.