The world’s third least populous country changed its name

President David Adeang said on August 3 that this move helps the country’s official name match the spelling and pronunciation of the local language. The country’s international code will switch from NRU to NRO and the people will be called dei-Naoero instead of Nauruan in English.

The above move will bring the remote island nation in the South Pacific back to its traditional name. The country was once known internationally as Nauru simply because the local name was difficult for foreigners to read. According to a previous announcement from the government, this is a temporary convenience, not a voluntary choice.

“The proposal to change the name aims to more fully honor the heritage, language and identity of our nation,” President Adeang said when submitting the proposal to change the country’s name to parliament in January.

With 12,000 inhabitants, the Republic of Naoero is the world’s third smallest country in terms of population, after Tuvalu and the Vatican. It was once a German colony and then administered by Australia before becoming an independent republic in 1968.

The island nation has gone through many ups and downs in its history. The phosphate mining industry brought prosperity to the island in the 1970s, but then collapsed, pushing the country to the brink of economic ruin in the 1990s.

Currently, the Naoero Republic is one of the countries most at risk in the world from rising sea levels due to climate change. This forces the government to seek foreign investment through the citizenship sale program, in order to get funds to relocate population and infrastructure away from the encroached sea.

Changing the country’s name marks “the beginning of a new national pride”, Mr. Adeang emphasized in the latest announcement. In the government’s most recent vote in May, the President announced that he would hold a referendum to finalize this decision.

But in a statement last week, the government said that after “many extensive discussions”, parliamentarians had decided there was no need to hold a referendum.

“Even though the referendum aims to determine the will of the people, the name Naoero has never been lost but is just waiting to be fully accepted,” the statement stated. “This name is a national identity, present on the national emblem and widely used in the community.”

This decision will entail changing the nationality of the island nation’s ships and aircraft. The government of this country is also trying to lobby other countries and international organizations to recognize the new name.

The United Nations website recorded the country by its new name, noting that the Naoero Republic government had requested the change in June. The Australian and New Zealand foreign ministries as well as the US and Chinese embassies in the region also use the name “Naoero” when referring to Nauru on their websites.

The last time a country changed its name was in 2022, when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan asked the United Nations to change the country’s international name from “Turkey” to “Türkiye” to best reflect the nation’s culture and values, while avoiding having the same name as “turkey” in English.