Teulada referendum on name change

THERE will be a referendum at the end of the summer in the town of Teulada, to see if the good people of that town want it to be known by another name: Teulada-Moraira.

A meeting was called last week by Antonio Bertomeu, Mayor of Teulada, to inform opposition groups of his intention to hold this referendum. “I believe it would be appropriate to change the name of our town by officially adopting the name Teulada-Moraira.  It would help us be recognized as a tourism brand,” said the mayor.

It is not the first time that such a move has been attempted. In 2008 the idea was put forward but not followed through. In many parts of the municipality, the addresses adopted already bear the label Teulada-Moraira. It is unusual for a town to change its name for commercial or tourism purposes,  although the proposal here is more of an amalgam of two existing ones.

Aesthetically, the name Teulada sounds fine, and there are perhaps other better candidates for name change. As examples, Dole in France, Hell in Austria, my home town of Mold, and of course the proud Turkish city of Batman, which in 2008, sued the producers of Batman (the film) for using the cities name “without permission”.

“There is only one batman in the world” said Huseyin Kalkan, the cities mayor, to which no doubt anyone outside Turkey would agree; though unfortunately for Mr Kalkan, it’s probably not his one.

The serious side to this is that legitimate businesses from the city experience real difficulty in registering their address in other countries; for obvious reasons. Comical to us; not so funny to the hindered businessmen of Batman. And so with the threatened lawsuit, the headlines in Hollywood’s Variety Magazine, magnificently read: Batman Has a New Adversary: Batman. Teulada should have such problems.