Saint John and St. John's... Confusing?

[ScreamingViking]

Options!

But she'll always be Saint John to me.

[Acajack]

Wolastoq actually sounds quite nice.

[ShavedParmesanCheese]

Wollastock isn't the worst name out there...

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Wolastoq actually sounds quite nice.

Wolastoq Regional Municipality would be ideal, imo.

People in the outlying suburbs have very negative connotations regarding Saint John, and would want nothing to do with being part of a municipality called Saint John. Wolastoq Regional Municipality; however, would be a slightly more palatable pill for them to swallow.

Plus it’s not like establishing the WRM would wipe Saint John, Rothesay, Quispamsis, etc, off the map. They’d still exist as constituent communities within the municipality, but the Wolastoq name for the entire region would definitely help lessen the Saint John—St. John’s confusion.

[craner]

I just clarified the Saint John, NB vs St. John’s, NL for some high school kids this past weekend.

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by EnvisionSaintJohn

Wolastoq Regional Municipality would be ideal, imo.

People in the outlying suburbs have very negative connotations regarding Saint John, and would want nothing to do with being part of a municipality called Saint John. Wolastoq Regional Municipality; however, would be a slightly more palatable pill for them to swallow.

Plus it’s not like establishing the WRM would wipe Saint John, Rothesay, Quispamsis, etc, off the map. They’d still exist as constituent communities within the municipality, but the Wolastoq name for the entire region would definitely help lessen the Saint John—St. John’s confusion.

There's no confusion between Saint John and St. John's; only in your mind.

[Nashe]

Originally Posted by Ozabald

There's no confusion between Saint John and St. John's; only in your mind.

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by Nashe

I've lived in both. No confusion.

How about Portland, ME vs. Portland, OR?
or
Vancouver, BC vs. Vancouver, WA?

or for maximum confusion:
Grand Falls, NB vs. Grand Falls, NL?
And to add an additional element of confusion, there's a Grand Falls casino in the US!

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by Ozabald

I've lived in both. No confusion.

How about Portland, ME vs. Portland, OR?
or
Vancouver, BC vs. Vancouver, WA?

pushing those two tiny towns aside, you do see the fundamental differences between the other examples you gave? Portland and Portland are on two separate oceans, and Vancouver and Vancouver are in two separate countries.

It might not be confusing to you because you lived in both cities. As for people who've lived in neither, or never been east of Quebec... Saint John, NB and St. John's, NL can definitely be quite confusing.

It wasn't that long ago that St. John's and Saint John were the second and third largest cities in Atlantic Canada. It's confusing to others whether you want to admit it or not.

[MolsonExport]

Aylmer, Quebec
Aylmer, Ontario







Sydney, New South Wales
Sydney, Nova Scotia



London, England
London, Ontario



York, England
New York, New York

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Aylmer, Quebec
Aylmer, Ontario







Sydney, New South Wales
Sydney, Nova Scotia



London, England
London, Ontario



York, England
New York, New York

Tomatoes and potatoes

SJ, NB has it worse than any of these examples that aren’t anywhere close to each other and are part of different countries.

didn’t realize there was an Aylmer, PQ. I see it’s no longer a city, though, but rather a sector of Gatineau.

That’s essentially the best case solution for the Saint John, NB CMA. The bulk of the Saint John CMA should amalgamate under a new name… like Fundy Regional Municipality, Wolastoq Regional Municipality, or something else.

Saint John would remain “on the map” as the sector at the centre of the newly named regional municipality, while the overall confusion with St. John’s, NL would be drastically reduced due to the official usage of the new, unique name to refer to the entire regional municipality.

[MonctonRad]

Every single state in the US has a Springfield..............

[lio45]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Sydney, New South Wales
Sydney, Nova Scotia

This one actually took place on SSP for real, I clearly remember, there was a dick-measuring contest about midsized Canadian cities regarding who had the bigger number of international flights (a handful each, and usually to the main global cities like Paris, Tokyo, Rome, Sydney...) and Halifax got a -1 when someone realized that airport link that was getting counted as international was actually to the one right next door in Nova Scotia

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by lio45

This one actually took place on SSP for real, I clearly remember, there was a dick-measuring contest about midsized Canadian cities regarding who had the bigger number of international flights (a handful each, and usually to the main global cities like Paris, Tokyo, Rome, Sydney...) and Halifax got a -1 when someone realized that airport link that was getting counted as international was actually to the one right next door in Nova Scotia

There was a couple from Britain that were trying to get to Sydney, Australia (for some vacation experience) but somehow booked Sydney, Nova Scotia, as the destination.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/oops-british-couple-flies-to-canada-by-mistake-1.353972

Two teenagers from England who thought they had booked a flight to Australia began an unexpected holiday in Nova Scotia this weekend.

Raeoul Sebastian and Emma Nunn, both 19, purchased their tickets from a travel agent over the Internet last April.

Although they wanted to go to Sydney, Australia, they wound up flying across the Atlantic and ended up in Halifax Thursday instead.

At first they thought the six-hour journey to Canada was part of the routine flight to Australia. They began getting concerned when asked to transfer to a much smaller plane. The couple wondered how the aircraft could make it all the way Down Under.

Really strange how people could not notice this prior to landing.

And this also happened to tourists from Italy:

Travel agency booboo: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/italian-tourists-end-up-in-wrong-sydney-1.975605

A couple from Italy got a taste of Cape Breton hospitality Wednesday when they unexpectedly arrived in Sydney, N.S., instead of Sydney, Australia.

Valerio Torresi, 26, and Serena Tavoloni, 25, had never travelled outside Europe until Tuesday night when they found themselves in Nova Scotia instead of Australia where they had planned to fly.

At first, they assumed they were only changing planes, and when they found out it was actually the end of their flight, they didn't believe what had happened.

And here's another, this time a Dutch teen:

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/dutch-t...7c253f4-21c8-548c-83bb-a7df78eac450.html

Dutch teen ends up in the wrong Sydney

An 18-year-old Dutch wanted to visit sunny Sydney, Australia, but ended up in chilly Sydney, Nova Scotia.

“I saw the plane — and the plane was really small,” he said. “So I figured, would that make it to Australia? But afterwards, I checked the screen on the seat in front of me and I checked the flight plan and everything and then I saw all the flight plan was going to go right and up left. Yeah, that was about the time that I realized there was another Sydney.”

[Acajack]

https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=97...528&bih=714&dpr=1.25&safe=active&ssui=on

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Acajack

https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=97...528&bih=714&dpr=1.25&safe=active&ssui=on

[MonctonRad]

I read that the sign keeps on getting stolen. I wonder why???

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

When will Johners and their suburban neighbours admit that the only way to stop this confusion is to amalgamate and pick a new, less confusing name for a regional municipality?

The rest of Canada, and the rest of the world simply won’t ever care about the distinction between these two nearly identically named cities in the same region. This branding/ identity problem is never going to be solved without a new name, and it negatively impacts Saint John’s ability to market itself far more than it impacts St. John’s.

This doesn’t mean wiping St. John, NB off the map, it would still exist, just like Dartmouth continues to exist today within the HRM. It’s simply means picking a new, less confusing name for the region as a whole and amalgamating with the wealthy suburbs who will start paying their fair share towards a regional municipality, like was so successfully done in Halifax.

The oldest incorporated city in Canada shouldn’t be only 50% the population of its CMA. Ideally, a new regional municipality would have at least 80% of the CMA’s population, and Canada has dozens of examples of such amalgamations to emulate.

It’s debatable what would be the bigger benefit: the wealthy suburbs like Quispamsis and Rothesay paying their fair share towards a regional municipality, or having a good reason to pick a new name that isn’t even slightly similar to St. John’s.

I think Wolastoq or Fundy would both be good names for a regional municipality, but there’s many other names that could work to benefit the region in efforts to pick a new marketable name for the entire region that name helps end the confusion with St. John’s.

The first step to fixing something is admitting that there’s a problem. Unfortunately, many in Saint John’s metro region aren’t even willing to admit there’s a branding problem with the name being so similar to St. John’s. Half of Saint John’s CMA doesn’t live in the city, because they have all kinds of negative connotations about the city of Saint John, yet, if you polled the metropolitan region of a whole, probably less than half would say that there’s a problems that arise from Saint John and St. John’s sharing such similar names.

I don’t know what the best name would be for a new, regional municipality with Canada’s oldest incorporated city at its centre, but I’m very confident that if the province of New Brunswick took the necessary steps to an bring about regional amalgamation and pick a really great new name for it, the entire region will benefit from it in the long run.

Even more importantly, for this forum at least, is that amalgamation might finally mean some “skyscraper” projects to post and discuss about in Uptown Saint John and other core parts of the “Fundy Region”.

I firmly believe this part of Canada has some of the nicest ocean views in the entire country, yet very few people actually have these ocean views from their homes, because we have such a dearth of tall buildings. Picking a less confusing name and close to doubling the population through amalgamation would be great first steps towards attracting the investment needed to get the high rise projects built, and help put this this city and region back on the map.

[Franco401]

Unless you actually wipe Saint John off the map, everyone is still going to call it Saint John. KV residents will still call their area KV. You don't get to replace the name Saint John in everybody's minds and memories and override hundreds of history (and I'm not talking about Champlain naming the river that, I'm talking about the thousands of people who have been living in SJ and making up the community) just by crossing a name off and writing another. CBC will not be cutting to a live look at the skyline of Fundy Region, New Brunswick. Never gonna happen. I'm not even going to engage with the idiotic notion of a name change leading to skyscraper projects.

Amalgamation is something that needs to happen for reasons of sound governance and regional planning, not some completely unfounded vision of explosive economic growth through name changes.

How's this supposed to work?

1. Name change
2. ?????????????
3. Skyscrapers

All this culture-warring and time-wasting going on about renaming things named after problematic historical figures and we've actually found the only renaming discussion more pointless than that.

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by Franco401

Unless you actually wipe Saint John off the map, everyone is still going to call it Saint John. KV residents will still call their area KV. You don't get to replace the name Saint John in everybody's minds and memories and override hundreds of history (and I'm not talking about Champlain naming the river that, I'm talking about the thousands of people who have been living in SJ and making up the community) just by crossing a name off and writing another. CBC will not be cutting to a live look at the skyline of Fundy Region, New Brunswick. Never gonna happen. I'm not even going to engage with the idiotic notion of a name change leading to skyscraper projects.

Amalgamation is something that needs to happen for reasons of sound governance and regional planning, not some completely unfounded vision of explosive economic growth through name changes.

How's this supposed to work?

1. Name change
2. ?????????????
3. Skyscrapers

All this culture-warring and time-wasting going on about renaming things named after problematic historical figures and we've actually found the only renaming discussion more pointless than that.

There’s been multiple government funded studies that recommended amalgamation for the Saint John Region. They were ignored, or rather, the KV suburbs protested being part of Saint John, and the government didn’t go through with amalgamation.

Again, people in the HRM still call their respective communities by their names, be it Bedford, Dartmouth, or Cole Harbour, so it would be the same thing, except the city at the centre (Saint John) wouldn’t be the same name as the RM like Halifax is.

As for how amalgamation could help get some more ambitious projects in the pipeline more worthy of discussion on a forum called, “skyscraperpage.com”, nearly doubling the population of the municipality would certainly help attract investment. While, renaming and expanding one of the oldest municipality in Canada would generate a significant amount of press. Going with a name less easily confused with St. John’s would be the logical choice for a newly amalgamated regional municipality.

As for the CBC live look not cutting to a picture of Fundy RM, perhaps… but Wolastoq? They’d be all over that.

There’s a lot in a name, and while Saint John may be the oldest incorporated city in Canada, there’s a lot of confusion with its name being so similar to another city in the region. The similarity of SJ/SJ’s names is a marketing and branding challenge for Saint John, and going with a new name for an amalgamated municipality would be an effective solution to this issue.

People will still use the name Saint John, sure, but amalgamating and renaming will mean more people from outside the region will start using that name or at least see it on the map. It would also mean renaming the Saint John Airport, which would be a huge improvement, as there’s countless stories of people meaning to fly to St. John’s and ending up in Saint John— and vice versa!

Pardon me for being hopeful that a name change could be a positive shot in the arm for this city and region. I think people born and raised in Atlantic Canada, New Brunswick, or Saint John especially, just don’t get that the name being so similar to the more notable city of St John’s is actually a branding problem for the Saint John Region, including KV, or they just won’t admit it, because they are especially resistant to change.

I’m not suggesting people need to stop calling it Saint John, I’m simply suggesting a two pronged approach that would lessen the confusion between Saint John and St. John’s, and see the KV suburbs finally pay their fair share towards the city they are a suburb of and the region they are a part of. I’m not guaranteeing amalgamating will result in long term, explosive growth, but I am confident that amalgamating under a new, less confusing name would be good for the long term economic prospects of the region, and present a unique branding opportunity to bring attention to the region and lessen the confusion between the two SJ’s.