>>>We actually have the same problem with other countries as well.
>>
>>For reasons of standardization, it would really make things simpler if all agreed to either (a) always use English names, or (b) always use the local names. (In the latter case, systems of transliteration have to be agreed upon, for example, for the cyrillic or arabic alphabet.) Personally, I would prefer local names - and there seems to be a growing tendency, World-wide, to do just this.
>>
>>However, I consider it very difficult to implement this in the UT forum.
>
>Hilmar,
>
>Thanks for the constructive response < g > These are my thoughts as well. Of course, it's hard to implement, however, Michel introduced an ability to map city names. E.g. for common names we may have a cross-table of mappings. Also, I think, some validations should be put on. Say, the city name should be in the proper case and rarely can contain numbers (in fact, I don't know the city name containing numbers, but may be you know some examples). Also it would be good to agree on some standards, like Ft for Fort or St for Saint, etc.

Funny thing, but my unconstructive response said just about the same thing that HilMarZ did.
So Michel introduced cities cross-reference and it's imperfect because it involves humans typing names as they know/prefer them. So let's get rid of the cross-reference!