Official Changes on Place Names

　 Place names are used by people in their daily lives, and they are relatively stable

compared with personal names; changes of place names tend to be gradual, and some regular trends can be found in the process. However, other than transliteration changes, some place names are very distinct from the original ones and the connections between them are weak. This is often resulted from the arbitrary renaming by the rulers for various reasons. We will discuss the official renaming principles of place names during the Ching Dynasty, Japanese colonization and Republic of China.

4.3.1 Ching Dynasty

There were two general principles of place renaming. One was for the purpose of elegance and the other was for political reasons.

Replacing “a” (仔) with “ya” (雅) was very common for elegance, e.g. 壩仔 became 壩雅 in Da-ya Township (大雅鄉), 番仔溝 became 番雅溝 in Ho-mei Township (和美鎮), 崙仔 became 崙雅 and 湳仔 became 湳雅 in She-tou Township (社頭鄉). Besides “ya” for “a”, Hsiu-shui Township (秀水鄉) was called

“Chou-shui” (臭水) in the past because of bad water drainage problems, and the

Ching government replaced “Chou” with “Hsiu” to make it more elegant. However, these elegant place names consequently lost the original meaning, and people are easily misled by them when studying local history and geography.

The other reason was for political purposes, Chang-hwa (彰化) is the most famous

example in central Taiwan. In the past it was called “Ban-xian” (半線) which was a

transliteration of the Hoklo pronunciation of the village name “Passoua” of the Pingpu Babuza group. In the first year of Emperor Yong-zheng (雍正) a new county was set up in this place, and it was renamed “Chang-hwa” (彰化), proclaiming the civilization brought by the Emperor (彰聖天子丕昌海隅之化歟) (Hong, 1984), which had

nothing to do with either the original Babuza village name nor with the later Hoklo transliterated name at all. Another case was “De-hwa Village” (德化社區) in Da-jia Township (大甲鎮) of Taichung County. The old place name was “She-wei” (社尾),

for it was located at the end of a Pingpu Taokas village. A revolt “Da-jia-xi Village Incident” by the Pingpu Taokas arose here at the time of Emperor Yong-zheng (雍正), and the Ching government changed the place name to “De-hwa Village”(德化社),

which means “civilized with the Emperor’s grace”, expecting these aborigines can be civilized. The name has been kept since then, and we guess “De-hwa Village” of Shao (邵族) in Sun-moon Lake of Nan-tou County might have received its name for similar

reason.

4.3.2 Japanese Colonization

　 In 1920 there was a reformation of the local administration system, and more than

100 place names went through significant changes. All the place names which were more than three words were shortened to two, and many of them were replaced by more elegant words or by corresponding Japanese Han Characters, or simply given a Japanese name. Examples of shortened place names in Taichung, Chang-hwa and Nantou were Dong-shi-jiao (東勢角) Æ Dong-shi (東勢), Er-ba-shui (二八水) Æ Er-shui (二水), Pu-li-she (埔里社) Æ Pu-li (埔里), Da-li-dai (大里杙) Æ Da-li (大 里), etc.

We have explained how “Zhou-lan” (罩蘭) was changed into “Zhuo-lan”(卓蘭) for 罩 was believed to bring bad luck to local development. “Fan-po” (番婆), a place name related to aboriginal women, was changed into “Pan-tao” (蟠桃, peach) for the

latter was close in pronunciation but contained a better meaning. In Ching-shui Township (清水鎮) of Taichung County there is a place called “Gao-mei” (高美).

According to senior citizens, it was a wetland in the past, and the mud was so thick that even bamboo poles would get stuck within it. So it was called “Gou-me” (篙密) in Hoklo. In 1920 it was changed to “Gao-mei” ( 高 美 ) which was close in

pronunciation but carried a more elegant meaning.

The case of place names changed according to corresponding Han characters in central Taiwan was “Hua-tan” (花壇) in Chang-hwa County. “Hua-tan” was called

“Jia-dong-jiao” (茄苳腳), for the original village was located under a Jia-dong forest.

“Jia-dong-jiao” was pronounced “Ka-tan-kha” in Hoklo, which was close to “Kadan”

in Japanese. “Kadan” was written as 花壇 in the Japanese Han character system

(Kanji). In this way, the place has come to be known as “Hua-tan” meaning

“flower-bed”. From a place under a Jia-dong forest to a flower-bed: what a great transformation! Another example was “Ming-jian” (名間) in Nan-tou County. It was a

lower land where water was not easily drained, so the mud was wet and marshy, and local people called it “Lama”(湳仔) in Hoklo. Because “Lama” was close to “Nama”

in Japanese, which was written as “名間” in Japanese Han characters, it was then renamed as “Ming-jian” (名間) in 1920. As for Japanese style place names such as

“Feng-yuan” (豐原), “Ching-shui” (清水) and “Zhui-fen” (追分) please refer to the

earlier section.

Quite a few place names which had more than three words were transliterated

from Austronesian village names. This was because Austronesain languages were polysyllabic, but Han Chinese and Japanese use a writing system in which a monosyllabic character represents a morpheme. Thus Chinese or Japanese would have to use many characters to transliterate Austronesain place names. However place

names with more than two characters were not preferred in Chinese and Japanese, and many place names with more than two characters were often cut down to two.

Although they look consistent and easier to remember this way, the meanings represented by a multi-syllabic name were also mutilated beyond recognition.

Aboriginal place names had a specific general term “she” (社) to refer to their villages, similar to “zhuang” (庄) of the Han people. Because of the rapid change of

society, now we can hardly tell where aboriginal people have inhabited. But this clue of “she”, which is kept in place names such as “Hsin-she” (新社), “She-ko” (社口) and “She-tou” (社頭) bear witness to their involvement in the development of central

Taiwan. So they should not be deleted or changed arbitrarily.

4.3.3 Republic of China

Like the Ching, the government of the Republic of China also changed many place names to make them become more elegant. “A” (仔) to “ya” (雅) was still the dominant reformation, e.g. “Song-ya Village” (松雅村) in Da-an Township (大安鄉) of Taichung County. It was called “cheng-a-ka” (松子腳) in Hoklo, because the village was originally built under banyan trees. Another frequent replacement was

“Hou” (後, back) by “Hou” (后, queen), e.g. 後里 (Hou-li)Æ 后里 in Taichung

County and 後庄 (Hou-zhuang)Æ 后庄 in Taichung City. Another interesting case was “Zhi-gao” (知高) in Nan-tun District (南屯區) of Taichung City. It was said that

in the village there were quite a few people who bred pigs for mating, which were

known as “Di-go” (豬哥) in Hoklo and the former and latter names were pronounced

very similar in Hoklo so the place also came to be known as “Di-go”(豬哥), which

was later changed into “Zhi-gao” (知高).

　 Political place names were also the main targets for reformation by the government

of the R.O.C., but most of them were represented in road names. Take Taichung City for example, there are “Zhong-zheng Road” 中正路 and “Zhong-shan Road” 中山路 to honor celebrities. “San-min Road” 三民路 and “Wu-quan Road” 五權路 to

proclaim political systems, plus names after provinces or cities in Mainland like

“Tien-tsin Street”天津街, “Da-lien Road” 大連路, “Ching-dao Road” 青島路, etc.

But from the signposts of bus stops we find that still old place names were preferred to these official names, because it is not that easy to change place names which have been used by people in their daily lives for decades.