John Craig likes to joke he's the only person who's been mayor of three different places in New Brunswick.
Formerly the mayor of St. Andrews and Blacks Harbour in the province's southwest, thanks to municipal government reform last year, he's now mayor of Eastern Charlotte.
But take a gander through his municipality, made up of former towns and villages, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a proud Eastern Charlotte-onian, if that even exists.
"All the names are still there, so if you're from St. George, you're still from St. George," Craig said with a chuckle.
"The whole region's Eastern Charlotte, but people will say 'What part of Eastern Charlotte?'and you'll say Bonny River, or Back Bay.
"Those names will continueand they won't go away."
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As of Jan. 1, 2023, the province slashed the number of local government entities from 340 to 77 municipalities and 12 rural districts.
But with new municipalities came a need for new names, followed in some cases by some confusion.
Craig said Eastern Charlotte councillors were clear they wanted a unique name instead of simply being named after the region's largest town.
"It's hard to make everybody happy, but the idea is just don't pick a name that's already there," Craig said.
He said people are starting to recognize "Eastern Charlotte," and he tries to educate residents about what it means when he's out and about. He's begun a little game of sorts when stopping into seniors' centres.
"I say, 'If you're from Back Bay, stand up. If you're from Pennfield, stand up.' So all the people stand up, they still recognize the names, and they won't go away.
"But at the end of the day, they all recognize they're part of Eastern Charlotte as one group."
New name hurts civic engagement, mayor says
While places like Eastern Charlotte have thebenefitof names linked totheir county, which people are already familiar with, others startedfrom scratch.
Derek Pleadwell is mayor of Arcadia, which includesthe former villagesGagetown, Cambridge-Narrowsand Jemseg, among other places.
Pleadwell has the sense people are less engaged with the new government than they were with the old.
"I wish there was more involvement from residents with our municipality and with our council," Pleadwell said.
People seemed to be more involved when he wasmayor of Gagetown, and the village was its own municipal entity.
When asked if confusion over the new name iscausingthe low civic engagement, Pleadwell does not hesitate.
"Yes, yes, and a little bit more yes mixed into that."
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He said some people don't even know the new names of their communities.
"There's times when I've been out in public and I've heard 'What is this Arcadia thing, what does this mean?' And I understand people asking that question, 'What do we need another name for?'"
Locals can go by both names
Dan Murphy,executive director of the Union of Municipalities of New Brunswick, said some names have started to stick, especially in areas that have undergone branding and other efforts to use their new names.
"I think it's a bit of a mixed bag," Murphy said. "I think it's going to take some time for people to get to the new community names,when you're from the same place that you've always been."
But people can use both names, he said.
"I always use the example of: I'm from Rexton, my community is now Five Rivers, but Rexton is my home, and it's a part of Five Rivers."
But it's only been a year, he said, and time will tell if people adapt to thenew names.
"There's a transition period here of people realizing they're within a municipal boundary, so what the name means sometimes does have an impact on that."
But if one year is not long enough to tell, Miramichi is a perfect example.
The city saw amalgamation not in 2023, but back in 1995, as it took in the surrounding towns of Chatham and Newcastle, and smaller areas, to form the new city of Miramichi.
Almost 30 years on, Mayor Adam Lordon said the old names have become like neighbourhoods within a larger community.
"We don't view it as having to be one or the other, or in conflict," Lordon said, adding that the city has street signs marking the boundaries of the former towns.
"I think you can honour the past and the history of your area while also embracing a shared future as well."
Maurice Basque, ahistorian from Moncton who studies place names, was chosen as an adviser to Daniel Allain, who was theminister overseeing local government reform as the new names were created.
In an email, he said most people livingwithin thenew and larger municipal boundaries are still using the former names. In predominantly francophone areas, however, he's heard people using the new names, althoughwithout forgetting the old ones.
"The intent of the reform was not to erase old names but to give new place names to the new municipal structures," Basque said.
Public meetings were held to discuss the new names, and Basque said he feels lucky to have been able to attend many of them as a historian.
"This was the minister's wish, that the citizens of New Brunswick would have a very important say in the process of choosing a place name that would 'fit' their representations of their new municipality."
When asked if the goal was ever for the new names to become used more than the old ones, Department ofLocal Government spokesperson Clarissa Andersen said local names will stay the same.
"The new names adopted were for the local government administrative body," Andersen said in an email.
Arcadia name dates back more than 500 years
Basque said the name Arcadia, which now take in Gagetown,dates back to a mythical region of Greece. In 1524, an Italian explorer, Giovanni da Verrazanno, named what is now the state of Maryland"Arcadia"for its natural beauty.
"The name Arcadia migrated to the north of new maps until it became Acadie in 1604," Basque said, adding that the Municipality of Arcadia chose the name to celebrate the area's beauty and natural surroundings.
Mayor Derek Pleadwellsaid he and his council have made"deliberate"efforts to appeal to its new broader citizenship, including selling the former Gagetown town hall instead of setting up shop as Arcadia because it wasn't in a centrally located area.
Councillors also rotate town meetings between several of the former villages to encourage turnout.
Pleadwell said people's addresses remain as Gagetown or Cambridge-Narrows.
"They're long-standing members of those communities, and those identities have not been lost," he said.
"But the official government at the municipal level is Arcadia."
