Why and when did village names change?
Γιατί και πότε άλλαξαν τα ονόματα των χωριών;
http://antikleidi.com/2015/10/07/onomata_xorion/
1) At that time folklore began to appear and with the first laws for the administrative division of the country began to borrow from Greek antiquity names for the regions, prefectures, provinces, municipalities and settlements, ignoring the old historical names. Very soon the name of Morea was replaced by the Peloponnese, Roumeli replaced by Sterea, Evropos by Euvoia. In the first decree of 3 April 1833, we see the first provincial denominations. But also the newly created Municipalities took ancient Greek names. The names of the mountains are also changed:
Vodias (Παναχαϊκό),
Ziria (Κυλλήνη),
Liakoura (Παρνασσός),
Helmo (Αροάνια).
2) Until 1909, 23 settlements were renamed. And then there is a great incision. It was decided that the organized national enterprise for the Hellenization of the names of the settlements with the decree "on setting up a committee to study the toponyms of Greece and the verification of their historical discourse". After the end of the Balkan wars and under the pressure of critical national issues, the Greek state decided
massive Hellenization by changing all the names of cities and villages that did not have a Greek root but Turkish, Slavic, Vlach, Arvanite or otherwise, with the reasoning that toponyms should be in line with the official language, Greek. For this reason, prefectural committees were set up by professors, archaeologists, ordinary civil servants, who officially took over the patriotic duty of the government under a legislative decree of 1926 (ratified by a new decree of 13 November 1927 and Law 4096/1929) Renaming the foreign-sounding names of settlements, villages and towns, even providing for legal sanctions for offenders.
3) The committees set up for these purposes, in their attempt to change the names, often came to grotesque results. They filled the map of Greece with 34 Kallitheas, 10 Achladies, 22 Milies, 18 Platanias, 21 Kastanies, 14 Cherrasia, 25 Kalyvia, 11 Kefalovrysa and so on.
4) Until 1928, about 2,500 settlements are renamed! This year, the first names changes were made in our area (meaning in a specific area in Peloponnese): Arphara were named Ampelokipoi and Vlovoka was named Aigai. Between 1929-1952 there are 354 names. During the five-year period of 1953-1957, there were 760. In 1955, in particular, it was the year of the mass change in the names of our villages, namely:
Arahova became Εξοχή,
Vergouvitsa became Μοναστήρι,
Svyro became Όαση,
Valkuvina became Άμπελος. In 1957, the renaming process was completed (locally) with
Versova (Βερσοβά), which became Chrysanthio.
5) The interior ministry approves sporadically a renaming of "barbarous" settlements, such as that of «Νέων Λιοσίων» to «’Ιλιον», in September 1994.
6) Apart from this historical review, it is also interesting to find out what those names mean, despite their compulsory change (through the national politics of the last century), they do not go out of the folk and they are used unchanged from generation to generation for hundreds of years.