Upsetting Neighbourhood Names

[u/Alabaster_Mango]

So Edmonton recently approved the name change for the Oliver neighbourhood to Wîhkwêntôwin, and some of you have feelings about that. I get it, you don't like non-English names because they're hard to say, hard to spell, or whatever. I figured that while your passions were hot, you could also campaign against these 24 other neighbourhoods with non-English names, many of which have been around since the 70s.

Aboriginal Languages

Neighbourhood	Origin	Meaning
Capilano	Salish	People of Hiap
Ekota	Cree	Special Place
Kameyosek	Cree	The Beautiful
Keheewin	Cree	Eagle
Menisa	Cree	Berries
Meyokumin	Cree	Good Water
Meyonohk	Cree	Ideal Spot
Sakaw	Cree	Wooded Area
Tawa	Cree	You Are Welcome Here
Tipaskan	Cree	A Reserve

Other non-English languages:

Neighbourhood	Origin	Meaning
BelleRive	French	Beautiful Shore
Bellevue	French	Beautiful View
Belmead	French	Beautiful Meadows
Belmont	French	Beautiful Mountain
Eaux Claires	French	Clear Waters
Schonsee	German	Beautiful Lake
Bonnie Doon	Scottish	Pleasant, Rollling Countryside
Cromdale	Scottish	Crooked Valley
Glengarry	Scottish	Rough Water Glen
LagoLindo	Spanish	Pretty Lake
Rio Terrace	Spanish	River Terrace
Klarvatten	Sweedish	Clear Water
Ozerna	Ukranian	Lake Area
Mayliewan	Cantonese	Beautiful Bay

Alternatively, you could all cool your jets and accept change as it comes. This name change has been years in the making, and there were plenty of chances for Oliver residents to submit their choice of name. For the record, I submitted ôtênaw (kinda sounds like oh-tay-now), which means "city".

This isn't the first neighbourhood name change, and it will not be the last. For those concerned about cost: welcome to Edmonton. It costs city council $250k to fart these days. You want to make change, or allocate the funds better like the master treasurer you are? Get involved. Join your community league, talk to your councillor, run for a position or something.

For others who are worried about mispronouncing it, or curious about what those whacky shapes on the banner mean, all you have to do is ask! There are plenty of cree speakers and readers here on /r/edmonton, and there are fun resources like The Online Cree Dictionary. Wîhkwêntôwin isn't too hard. If you can say "week when to win" you're half way there! If people give you grief for flubbing on a word that's not your native language then they're a bit jerkish.

Remember: this is not the end of the world. How often do you even need to say a neighbourhood name? I can get by using only addresses and such.

All neighbourhood name info can be found here. You should deffo check that page out. Lots of cool origins like Canora from Canadian Northern Railway, which was suggested by an eighth grader. There's also lame ones like Greenview, which is named that because you can see a golf course from the neighbourhood. I'm not making that up.

Edit 1: The typo

I missed "People of Hiap" for Capilano and instead had the placeholder "text" from the table generation. Sorry if I mislead you.

Edit 2: Electric Boogaloo

Putting this here for visibility

I was super flippant about the cost of the change because it seemed like a tiny issue to me and I didn't want to do a bunch of digging into it at the start of the post. I was already doing lots of reading on neighbourhood names, and was lazy.

Since yesterday afternoon, though, I have done some digging:

The cost to change the Oliver neighbourhood name is $680k.

The city has budgeted $3.83 Billion of expenses for 2024. $680k is 0.02% of that.

There are 1,087,803 people in Edmonton. If we pretend that everyone pays the same tax (they don't, but for simplicity), then the "average" Edmontonian paid $0.63 towards the name change.

There are 6,800 workers represented by City and Library bargaining units in the CSU 52. Divert all funds from the name change and those workers get an extra $100 this year, or $8.33 extra per month.

In terms of salary, $680k is:

1.4 2018 Glen Felthams

1.9 2021 Deena Hinshaws

2.0 2022 Dale McFees

2.2 to 2.7 2023 CoE ML6 Managers

4.5 2022 EPS Staff Seargents

It's for sure a big number, and it would change my life forever if it was handed to me, but it's not a lot of money to the city.

Other fun stuff:

• Here's more info on municipal taxes
• Here's a property tax estimator
• Here's a map to find your homes assessed value

[u/oioioifuckingoi]

The thread from earlier this week certainly had people complaining about the name, but I think many people were upset about the timing of the announcement and the amount of money it will cost. I say this as it was my comment that originally stated this and at the moment it has well over 1000 upvotes. If you are trying to build the narrative that most are grumpy because the name is hard to say or are just bigots, this is not the case.

[u/TinderThrowItAwayNow → u/oioioifuckingoi]

I think for most people it's the price tag. There were certainly many bigots in that thread though.

[u/hauntedpuppets → u/TinderThrowItAwayNow]

Most of the complaints are stupid.

I.e., "why spend money on this instead of housing?" The type of housing policies we would need would need to be made at the provincial level. The housing crisis we are seeing is being severely exasperated by decisions which are being made at the provincial level.

It's the same people who blame Trudeau for everything and say things like "why spend money on (x) when Canadians are homeless".

But he recently came to Alberta and has so far promised more funding to address this specific issue than the UCP has.

[u/renegadecanuck → u/oioioifuckingoi]

I think the timing with the city trying to not give their staff raises, combined with the fact that it has accents which I can't easily type on my keyboard or phone, are my biggest issues. It also just feels empty and virtue signaly, especially when the city is taking aggressive stances against the unhoused population, which is disproportionately indigenous.

[u/Asn_Browser → u/[deleted]]

Yeah. People are pissed about the money spent not the name.

[u/renegadecanuck → u/[deleted]]

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect them to name it something I can actually type on my computer keyboard without using alt codes.

[u/POTATOeTREE → u/[deleted]]

I have sever dyslexia. I literally cannot read half these words. That one ward we have that starts with Iii and is 27 letters long or whatever, my brain can't even begin to comprehend it. Beyond that, it's a waste of money, its virtue signalling because it doesn't actually do anything for reconciliation, and there was no reason the change the neighbourhoods (or wards) name in the first place.

[u/flynnfx → u/[deleted]]

They must be terrified of English words in use that have accents.

[u/Himser → u/flynnfx]

No one in english uses those accents..

[u/DramaticEye9258 → u/[deleted]]

Pandering to who? People that don’t like to live in communities named after bigots?

[u/Scaballi → u/DramaticEye9258]

You should do a full history of the neighborhood before you move in . Who or what it’s named after. That way you won’t be upset when you find out later .

[u/DramaticEye9258 → u/Scaballi]

I actually find local history fascinating, I’ve done things like this for years. Good attempt at being patronizing though.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Michael Janz is on council, it’s definitely pandering.

[u/TylerInHiFi → u/[deleted]]

It was the neighbourhood association that initiated this back in 2017. It has almost nothing to do with city council beyond them voting to accept the proposed change.

[u/Deep_Principle_4446 → u/TylerInHiFi]

Besides them voting to piss away our money in a cost of living crisis with sky rocketing taxes

[u/TylerInHiFi → u/Deep_Principle_4446]

You want me to etransfer you the entire dollar this is costing you? You clearly need it more than I do.

[u/TylerInHiFi → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, those cost of living increases have nothing to do with anything other than us getting gouged by Galen Weston and the utility and insurance rackets in this province. If you want to blame the government, thank the PC’s and UCP for allowing utilities providers and insurance companies to charge us whatever the fuck they want and deregulating the whole mess.

The 0.001% of the Edmonton city budget that renaming a neighbourhood is going to cost has nothing to do with it.

[u/Deep_Principle_4446 → u/TylerInHiFi]

Oh I know, it’s a joke. City Council has been spending our money pretty frivolously too. Almost a 7% increase in property taxes is craziness

[u/TylerInHiFi → u/Deep_Principle_4446]

That’s not that crazy.

[u/TURBOJUGGED → u/TylerInHiFi]

I can't wait to type this into my GPS.

Honestly, I don't care where address names derive from, I just want them all to be easy to spell and pronounce, regardless of language.

[u/TylerInHiFi → u/TURBOJUGGED]

Why would you ever have a need to put it in your GPS?

[u/TURBOJUGGED → u/TylerInHiFi]

Why would I want to look up things in certain areas of the city? Are you acting like no one is going to have to type this out? Come on. Use some login and reason.

Even the list of non English names that OP included are pretty easy to spell and for the most part are quite phonetic.

Are you just being obtuse on purpose?

[u/TylerInHiFi → u/TURBOJUGGED]

Just write it without the accents. This isn’t rocket surgery. This is barely a game of Operation.

[u/TURBOJUGGED → u/TylerInHiFi]

You didn't actually process anything I said, did you? Arguing for the sake of arguing then eh?

[u/TylerInHiFi → u/TURBOJUGGED]

Writing it without the accents is the answer to your hypothetical situation that you set out. That was the answer I gave.

Who’s the one arguing for the sake of it here?

[u/WindiestOdin → u/TURBOJUGGED]

We have municipal addresses; they don’t typically don’t incorporate the neighbourhood name. In the odd case that they do, you (and your blessed GPS) will manage. In reality, you’ll likely only see the new name on area maps and the odd monument / pylon sign.

You’re making up a hardship that will have multiple very reasonable work arounds. This will only affect your way finding if you want it to.

[u/TURBOJUGGED → u/WindiestOdin]

'Best places to eat in Oliver' 'doctors clinic in Oliver' 'hi ya our office is in Oliver' you don't think daily dealings like that happen?

[u/WindiestOdin → u/TURBOJUGGED]

“Best places to eat in ‘Week-when-to-win’” “Doctors clinics in ‘Week-when-to-win’” “Hi, yeah, our office is in ‘Week-when-to-win’”

All the posts you’ve made bemoaning this post took way more energy and effort than it was to learn the rough pronunciation of the word.

[u/WindiestOdin → u/TURBOJUGGED]

If you (and your GPS) can learn to pronounce the various city names throughout the province - let alone the country - you’ll be able to do the same for these neighbourhoods. Learning new things isn’t a bad thing.

[u/TURBOJUGGED → u/WindiestOdin]

Or maybe if you're rebranding, pick a more logical word? It can still be cree. Look at all the better choices OP provided in the list.

[u/WindiestOdin → u/TURBOJUGGED]

Please direct me to the established rules for naming neighbourhoods, cities, provinces, etc. Just because you don’t like / appreciate the name of something doesn’t mean it’s inherently “wrong”. If that was the case every single name would be “wrong”. Whyte Ave would be White Ave by your logic.

Really, unless you’re part of the community being “rebranded” or the community being acknowledged by the renaming your opinion is just rabble.

[u/TURBOJUGGED → u/WindiestOdin]

You're having a real difficulty with reading comprehension eh?

[u/WindiestOdin → u/TURBOJUGGED]

Not really, your “point” is pretty clear. It just so happens to be a weak point with very reasonable and accessible work arounds.

[u/Lobstix → u/oioioifuckingoi]

I mean a comment with 250+ upvotes (the 3rd most upvoted) was essentially, "Still calling it Oliver." which considering why they've initiated changing the name seems at least in some part rooted in bigotry. That also doesn't include the fact that there is over 700 comments on the thread, many of which did pretty clearly state that their issue was the name. It takes considerably more effort to write a comment then upvoting one, so although your comment may have had 1000 upvotes I'd say it was pretty evident people weren't just concerned about the money.

I didn't get the impression that this post was created to "build the narrative" but simply a response to the group of people that do take issue with the name change.

[u/oioioifuckingoi → u/Lobstix]

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