Ooops! We Need To Rename This Russian City .. Again

I noticed that one my blog readers was from the Russian city of Novosibirsk. I was surprised that I didn't already know alot (or really probably just forgot) about this city because it is the 3rd largest city in Russia, after Moscow and St. Petersburg. It was originally named after the czar, Nicholas II, as Novonikolayevsk, where the prefix part novo means "new" then the czar's name. It was founded in 1893 as FUTURE site of the Tran-Siberian railroad crossing the large Ob river.

Later under Stalin it was renamed Novosibirsk. When I saw the name and broke it apart, I thought, hmm, "I wonder if that has the word 'Siberia' in it" - and sure enough, that is the etymology. So the meaning of the new name is: "New + Siberia + city suffix". It is the administrative center for its part of the country with that name, Siberia. As one of the fastest growing cities to ever reach a million people, in 1962 it was the youngest city in the world with a million people. I had never really thought about that ranking concept before, and just who would be keeping track of that sort of thing .... and even now it is making my suddenly severe headache go off the chart.

But, earlier today when I thought about it a little more, I remembered that Siberia meant 'East' or 'North', and when I checked it out, I confirmed that it has North as a root word in Russian. So if you look at the map of Russia, you see that this city is no where near the northern end of the country, but a relatively short distance from a SOUTHERN border! And in the middle. (Click to see map at Wikipedia article)

north северный (root) in English: si-bi-ri
south южный English: uzh
center центр English: tsyenter - very close to the English word 'center'

So here are my proposals for the new name (third times a charm) for the city:

First: Novo + uzh + sk

Novouzhsk

OR even better, to emphasize its location in the middle of the Asian land mass:

Novotsyentrsk -> New Central City

If you google 'Novotsyentrsk', you get nothing, absolutely nothing. Well, eventually you will when I publish this.

Actually, I think I have an even better name: Bellybutton - it sits right in the middle AND its on the OB river, perfect.

Bellybuttonsk or "живот + пуговица + sk" in Russian