President tells UN to say his country's new name: Naoero, not Nauru
President David Adeang told the UN General Assembly the Pacific island nation is reclaiming its indigenous name Naoero, with a new country code NRO and citizens now known as dei-Naoero.
The tiny Pacific island nation long known to the world as Nauru has reclaimed its indigenous name — and its president made the announcement himself on the world’s biggest stage.
“I have traveled far,” David Adeang told the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, before explaining that his country was returning to the name and pronunciation of its past: Naoero.
“There are moments in the life of a nation when its people are called to remember who they have always been,” Adeang said. “This is such a moment for us.”
He described the shift not as a change but an effort to “affirm a truth”: “For many years, the world has known our country as Nauru. Nauru is how our name sounded to those who found it hard to say, and the world kept it. But it is not the name our people used among themselves.”
The eight-square-mile island, home to about 12,000 people and independent since 1968, announced the renaming in August. Its international country code is changing from NRU to NRO, its people will be known as dei-Naoero instead of Nauruans, and the name — spoken “Now-ero” rather than “Now-roo” — has already been updated in UN records.
“We do not make this choice to erase our past. We make it because we honor it,” Adeang said, closing his address with three words: “Say our name.”
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