Fergus Cassidy

Town limits

THE row over changing the name of Dingle to An Daingean stretched beyond the town's border and into the national media. For a while.

Coverage, though, was mostly negative, portraying modern and traditional values bumping up against each other.

The Americans, however, have no such problems with changing the name of their towns and do it willingly to bring perceived benefits to their communities.

Last August, a television satellite company called EchoStar came up with a marketing strategy to boost its take-up numbers. In return for a town changing its name to DISH (EchoStar's stock market ticker name), the company promised to install a satellite receiver in every home in that community.

On top of that, EchoStar would provide free subscription, worth $32 a month, to America's main cable channels. The deal would run for 10 years and would apply to any future residents moving into the area.

According to EchoStar's offer , the successful town would have to change its name on all "government buildings, post offices, official letterheads, schools and hospitals if applicable, street signs where necessary and any other government signage that contains the city or town's name".

Answering the call, the Texan town of Clark, population 125, voted to change its name to DISH. Bill Merritt, the town's mayor, was delighted. "About 80% of the town's residents turned out for the town meeting. We had 10 people give comments, and every one that stood up had nothing but favourable things to say about it and how they wanted to vote for it", he said. "We really look at this as kind of a rebirth for our community. We want everybody to come here."

Merritt, a property developer, hopes that free TV will motivate people to move to... er... DISH, bringing in more money and increasing the towns $50,000 budget.

The former mayor wasn't so happy. L E Clark founded the town - which took his surname - in June 2000. Earlier this year he was beaten in the mayoral election by Merritt. On the name change, Clark said he "didn't especially like it. I worked my butt off a little over a year getting incorporated".

In the past other American towns dabbled in name changing. In 1950, Hot Springs in New Mexico renamed itself to Truth or Consequences, after a radio show promised it would broadcast from the town which changed its name to the show.

At the height of the dotcom dizzyness in 2000, the town of Halfway in Oregon got cash and computers to rechristen itself for one year to a the name of a website, Half.com.

Agra, in Oklahoma, changed its name to Viagra in return for free concert tickets from a local radio station. The effects wore off after 24 hours when the town changed its name back.

In 1993, a Kansas radio station challenged any town in Montana to change its name to Joe, in honour of the famous football quarterback. So Ismay became Joe for a couple of years and the town raised $70,000 from selling souvenirs, which was used to build a combined community hall and fire station.

One city, Biggs in California, overwhelmingly rejected a state milk board's offer to change its name to Got Milk? in exchange for a milk museum and money for the school. The city's clerk said there was "a certain segment of the population that wanted to tar and feather the mayor for even suggesting it".

The latest name-changing wheeze has a festive angle to it. Last week the Idaho town of Santa agreed to change its name for a year to SecretSanta.com, an online gift exchange management service. Santa has about 100 residents and just two businesses - the post office and a pub.

In return, the town will get at least $20,000 between now and the end of December. It has to put up two signs, at each end of town, bearing the new name. It will also get 50% of the profits from a film about the residents of Santa and will include the "acclaimed Elvis impersonator Doug Spencer".

Santa district clerk, Gidget McQueen, welcomed the decision: "I'm all for it if it can benefit the district financially".

Maybe the next time there's a debate about changing the name of an Irish town, there'll be a different approach taken.

Kerry Council Council could go the whole hog and become Kerry Gold. Carnew could get a fat cheque off, say, Nissan and Tubbercurry could do a deal with Sharwoods. Hospital could cosy up to Bupa and the people of Kill could cut a deal with Vapona.

Hackballscross, though, may see its calls go unanswered.