Can someone tell me about the "Wh" in maori place names? Wanganui changed to Whanganui and so forth

Question

and yet there is no talk of changing the name of W(h)anaka or W(h)ellington. Also why are some place names changed to both english and maori eg Aoraki Mt Cook but others are not eg Mt Egmont is not called Taranaki Mount Egmont? and lastly since we have 2 versions of the national anthem why dont we have 2 versions of the haka?

Answer 1

I feel your pain. Zambia - some even today would still like to think it is and call it Northern Rhodesia and Zimbabwe - southern Rhodesia. In fact they have even set up sites embassy of rhodesia... Victoria falls is Mosi-o-tunya  - a good chunk of the African map still has confusing names. I guess it's hard to give back what was already named before. Someone somewhere is sitting in a boardroom trying to impress their boss with their creativity.

Answer 2

They did the same thing here in Australia.