Chris Lüer wrote:

Tony Sidaway wrote:

...

Of course Ivory Coast is the real name of the country, just as Royaume Uni is the real French name of the UK, and it would be a very fatheaded French speaker indeed who insisted on parking the article on the UK under United Kingdom where hardly anybody would look for it.

The issue with Ivory Coast/ Côte d'Ivoire is not English versus French, but Colonialism versus Independence. Most African countries that used to have European names changed to local names by the time they got independent, e.g. Gold Coast to Ghana, Southwest Africa to Namibia, British West Africa to Nigeria. IC/CI didn't. So when they decided to fix that problem recently, they did not to do what neighboring Upper Volta did (they renamed themselves to Burkina and nobody knew where the place was anymore), but instead they said the country name shouldn't be translated anymore, as if it was a local name.

The question is whether a country should have the right to decide on its own name, and if we should respect that decision. Deutschland doesn't mind being called Germany in English, neither does Nihon mind being called Japan in English, but CI/IC and Myanmar/Burma do mind their traditional English names.

So in the interests of addressing systematic bias, I say we leave it the hell alone. If they want to be called "Côte d'Ivoire", that's where the article should be. End of discussion. MOS be damned; it's the spirit of the rules that counts.