Faroe versus Faeroe for the tz database

Paul Eggert eggert at CS.UCLA.EDU
Mon Nov 27 20:18:03 UTC 2006


> From: Jonas Melian [mailto:jonas.esp at googlemail.com] 
> Sent: Monday, November 27, 2006 6:01 AM
>
> its actual name is Faroe.

I'm not sure why it's spelled "Faeroe" in the tz database.
Perhaps it was because the usno* files spelled it that way
(though I now note that they contain both spellings).

I just checked Altavista and Google, and they both found
about ten times as many hits for "Faroe" as for "Faeroe".
You mentioned ISO 3166.  The CIA country database and the
Prime Minsiter's Office English-language website
<http://www.tinganes.fo/Switch.asp?l=1> also use "Faroe".
It's safe to say that "Faroe" is by far preferred in
English.

So I plan to change Atlantic/Faeroe to Atlantic/Faroe in my
next proposed patch.  The patch will include a link to the
old spelling for backward compatibility purposes.

Thanks for letting us know about the problem.



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