Turin Olympics or Torino Olympics?

This article from the AP confirms why I had been confused. It is the Torino Olympics if you use the Italian name of the city. If you use the English translation, it is the Turin Olympics. NBC is using Torino. The AP and newspapers are sticking to Turin. The rest of America is most likely confused.

Turin or Torino? It's the Olympic version of "You say tomato, I say tomahto."

The city in northern Italy that’s hosting the Winter Olympics next month is "Torino" to the locals and NBC. For most of us non-Italians, it's always been Turin.

"I believe readers are seeing it on television with the NBC logo, it says 'Torino,' the Olympic Games," Ron Fritz, sports editor at The News Journal in Wilmington, Del., said Tuesday. "And then they see it in the paper, 'Turin,' and they’re thinking we got it wrong."[...]

"Turin is the English translation of the Italian word Torino," said Clara Orban, a professor of Italian at DePaul University. "Standard practice in the United States is if a city name has been translated differently, go with the English translation."

That's what The Associated Press is doing. Its policy — and it was around long before Turin was awarded the Olympic Games — is to use the English version of foreign cities. It's Rome, not Roma. Munich, not Muenchen. Moscow instead of Mockba or Moskva.

And Florence isn’t going to be called by its Italian name, Firenze. At least not without an accompanying map so people would know what city that is.

"We use Turin in accordance with our long-standing style to use English names on English-language wires," said Terry Taylor, AP sports editor. "It's the Shroud of Turin, for instance, not the Shroud of Torino. And when the World Cup comes to Germany this summer, we will write that games will be played in Munich, not Muenchen.

"Of course, in the interest of accuracy, we will not Anglicize the name in full references to the Olympic organizing committee, which uses Torino, and we will not change Torino to Turin in quotations."

The New York Times, Sports Illustrated and many other news organizations follow similar policies. Travel writers at the Times, for example, have been calling cities by their English names for years.[...]

The official name of the games is "Torino 2006," and the International Olympic Committee refers to the city by its Italian name. When the games were awarded in June 1999, then-IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch announced, "The hosts of the 2006 Games will be Torino."

After NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol took a trip to Turin, he decided the network would go with Torino, too. NBC has the U.S. broadcast rights to the games.

"Dick was hearing the way the locals were saying Torino, and how it’s so magnificently Italian how it rolls off the tongue," said Mike McCarley, vice president of communications and marketing for NBC Sports.

"He decided on that trip that we would call it Torino."

And with as many as 200 million people tuning in to watch the games, that means there’ll be a lot of Americans speaking at least one word of Italian for a few weeks.

USA Today also went with Torino because that is the official name, said Monte Lorell, the paper’s managing editor for sports.

"We had to decide what is the least confusing to our readers. You could say the Torino Olympics in Turin, but that just leads to confusion," Lorell said. "We decided to just make it uniform all the way throughout.

"I feel a little bit better that NBC is using Torino," Lorell said, "because that’s what readers will be seeing on TV."

So, Turin or Torino.

Either way, the Winter Olympics will simply call the city home next month.

"I think," Jolly said, "people will be able to figure it out."

Until they do, confusion is sure to be the rule.

"I had this woman call me up," said David Ledford, executive editor at The News Journal in Wilmington, Del. "She said, 'Don't you even know how to spell it? It’s in huge type on the front page. On the front page!' I didn’t get a chance to say anything, she hung up on me."

I hope this clarifies any confusion. When refering to the games in the future, I'll probably use Torino.