From today, The Times stops using the name Bombay in favour of Mumbai. It was not a decision taken lightly. Nor, since first announced in our news pages last week, has it been received indifferently by readers. This is as it should be. People mind about the names of the places where they live, the places they visit, and the places whose continuing histories shape the world.

The nomenclature of places is political as well as historic. Angles sailed up the Forth to conquer a town called Dunedin. They translated it as Edinburgh. But Scottish emigrants carried the former Gaelic name to New Zealand. Old cities collect many names down the millennia. One of the oldest was first named after a legendary king of Megara, became New Rome, then took the name of a “Great” Roman emperor, then became Stamboul and finally is named after the Turkish attempt at the Greek for “downtown to the city”.

Cities and countries have an inalienable right to choose their own names. This is, in essence, a democratic process, and The Timesrespects it. We respect our readers in equal measure, and they have known Mumbai as Bombay, an Anglicisation of the Portuguese Bombaim, for 223 years. But they have also long been aware of Mumbai as an alternative – an alternative that has grown from a statement of identity derived from the eponym of Mumba-Devi, the Hindu Mother Goddess, to the name used by most Indians and, in the past few days, the name used by most of the world.

The word Bombay will continue to appear in these pages as history and reported speech require. But we trust our readers will agree that for the purposes of news, and simple pragmatism, Mumbai’s time has come.