Making a name for yourself
When Google asked US local governments to express their interest in becoming a test area for its gigabit fibre-based internet, one town decided to make its intentions clear by changing its name to Google.
Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana are both interested in hosting the Google network, but the town that has gone overboard with its eagerness to be chosen is Topeka, the state capital of Kansas, which decided to officially rename itself to Google. However, don't expect to see Google, Kansas appearing on a map any time soon. It only plans to keep the name for the month of March, after which it plans to rename itself back to Topeka again. Topeka is a native American name which means "good for potatoes".
Topeka's 79 year old mayor, Bill Bunten, said that he hoped that this move and the presence of Google's high speed internet would help improve the city's image and make it more attractive to younger residents. Strangely enough, this is not the first time Topeka has renamed itself. Back in 1998, the city's previous mayor, Joan Wagnon, temporarily renamed the city to ToPikachu (complete with the capital P in the middle) as a promotional stunt for Nintendo's Pokemon franchise.
Topeka isn't the first American city to sell out its name. The town of Clark, in Denton County, Texas, was permanently renamed in 2005 to DISH, written all in capital letters, in exchange for receiving 10 years worth of free satellite TV services from DISH Networks. During the dot com boom years, Halfway, Oregon renamed itself in 1999 to half.com in exchange for computers in schools. Even stranger, sixty years ago the town of Hot Springs, New Mexico, changed its name to Truth or Consequences in order to host the nationwide broadcast of the popular radio show of the same name, and still retains that name today.
26th March 2010