I have heard that the use of the apostrophe “s”, such as St George’s Terrace (St Georges Terrace in the database) to show possession is not allowed in geographic names. Why?
The Geographic Names Committee (GNC) of Western Australia has since its inception discouraged the use of the possessive form, which includes the apostrophe and the s. The possessive form using an s is allowed, but the apostrophe is removed. The reason is simply that the GNC does not want to show possession for natural features because “ownership of a feature is not in and of itself a reason to name a feature or change its name. The possessive form should be avoided wherever possible without destroying the euphony of the name or changing the descriptive application. For more information contact The Secretary.
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