#5: Leningrad → Saint Petersburg (Russia)
It’s a city with three names and three centuries of reinvention. Founded by Peter the Great in 1703 as his “window to the West,” Saint Petersburg became Petrograd during World War I to sound less German, then Leningrad in 1924 after the death of Lenin. When the Soviet Union crumbled, residents voted to restore the original name in 1991.
The return to Saint Petersburg wasn’t rejection, but reconciliation; a way to honor history without erasing it. Today, its palaces and canals whisper all three eras at once, proof that names change, but identity endures.