: Re: What name should I use? I am writing about my local airport which has had two other names which name should I use through out the writing about it? An example is JFK in New York was originally

@Angela458

When you're writing, the goal is to say something. Preferably, more than one something:

When discussing a real-world place, you (usually) want the reader to know what place you're talking about. If your primary concern is to communicate something about the place, obviously you should use the name readers are most likely to be familiar with.

When a character in your story is describing a place (or anything or anyone else), how that character chooses to do the describing says something about that character. If your character refers to JFK Airport as "Idlewild", that tells you something about the character - maybe that the character has not changed to get with the times, or perhaps that there is another (minor) JFK Airport somewhere that might be conflated... And if the character always refers to it as "John F. Kennedy Airport", without abbreviation, that says something else again.

When a narrator talks about a place in a particular way, it can say something about the story. If the narrator persistently refers to the land which JFK Airport happens to be built on by some fantasy name, this can signal what kind of story is being told - like an urban fantasy where locations have ancient magical significance. On the other hand, a story denouncing European colonization might try to use old Native American names for places in or around New York.


Whatever name or word choice you make can communicate one or more things to the reader, depending on what name you choose, as well as on "who" is saying whatever is being said.
Without knowing your intentions, your characters, and the location and history of the location, it's impossible to give a specific recommendation. But you can examine your possible choices through all of the above-discussed lenses.

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