How did it become 'Mumbai'?

SO WHEN DID Bombay become Mumbai?

Officially, in 1995, when the Hindu nationalist party Shiv Sena won elections in the state of Maharashtra.

After the election, the party announced that the port city had been renamed after the Hindu goddess Mumbadevi, the city's patron deity. Federal agencies, local businesses and newspapers were ordered to adopt the change.

Shiv Sena's leadership had pushed for the change for years, arguing that "Bombay" was a corrupted English version of "Mumbai" and an unwanted legacy of British rule.

The national government objected to the renaming, fearing that Bombay would lose its international identity.

The push to rename Bombay was part of a larger movement to strengthen ethnic identity in the region. Shiv Sena also declared its intention to do away with the term "Bollywood," a conflation of "Bombay" and "Hollywood" that refers to Mumbai's vibrant film industry, but it's stuck.

The change didn't affect all of Mumbai's residents. Speakers of Marathi and Gujarati, the local languages, have always called the city Mumbai.

"Bombay" is an anglicization of the Portuguese name "Bombaim," believed to derive from the phrase "Bom Bahia," or "Good Bay." (Portugal held territory in western India until 1961.)

Several other Indian cities have changed their names in recent years. In 1996, Madras became Chennai, part of an effort by the state of Tamil Nadu to promote Tamil language and culture. *

Christopher Beam writes for Slate, the online magazine (www.slate.com), where this originally appeared.