Place-names in Oslo, Seen from an Inhabitant Perspective in Three Different Ethnic Groups

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to describe the differences in attitudes towards place-names in Oslo, the capital of Norway, and the use of these names in three different ethnic groups: ethnic Norwegians and people with a Pakistani or Polish background. Oslo has in the last decades become a highly multicultural city where more than 25 per cent of the population has an immigrant origin, and therefore I decided to conduct the investigation among inhabitants with different ethnic backgrounds. The reason for my choice of the two non-Norwegian target groups is that people from Pakistan and Poland compose the main groups in two of the largest immigration waves to Norway in the 1970’s and the 2000’s respectively. I try to answer the following questions: Is the perception of place-names in Oslo similar among ethnic Norwegians and among people with an immigrant background? What kind of names are considered as ‘good names’ and what kind of names are perceived to be ‘bad names’? What kind of unofficial toponyms exist in the different ethnic groups? And last but not least, I discuss whether creating new place-names based on the non- Norwegian communities of Oslo is an important issue for citizens.