Same-named districts

While there are only five districts which have a non-unique name in Thailand - the five Chaloem Phra Kiat districts (อำเภอเฉลิมพระเกียรติ) created in various parts of the country in 1996 - there is one apparent case of two districts with the same name in Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya province. Two of the 16 districts of the province are named Bang Sai, but in fact the two districts don't have the same name. The origin of this confusion is the romanization system.

• Bang Sai (บางไทร), the district with geocode 1404, is pronounced with a short ai (in English the same as in the word I) at end. The name means "Banyan tree village".
• Bang Sai (บางซ้าย), the district with geocode 1413, is pronounced with a long ai sound at end. The name means "left village" - don't know what left side is meant by the name.

The reason why both districts share the same English name despite having a different Thai pronounciation is simply due to the over-simplification done by the RTGS transcription scheme. This system, the official standard of transcribing Thai to English, has left out not just the tone heights but also the distinction between the short and long vowels. While there is another pair of districts which share the same English name despite having different Thai names - Wiang Sa in Surat Thani (เวียงสระ) and in Nan (เวียงสา), again with different vowel lengths at end - what makes the two Bang Sai so confusing is the fact that they are located within the same province quite close to each other. For example, in Wikipedia the only way to get a unique name for the two district was to add the geocode to the name, so the articles are located at Bang Sai District (1404) and Bang Sai District (1413).

Going down one administrative level, there strangely is just one case where two subdistricts within one district share the same romanization - in Fang district there are two subdistricts named Mae Kha, one with a short a and one with a long one. For villages however, it is quite common to have more than one village with the same Thai name within one subdistrict, which is no big problem since the villages are more often identified by their number than by their name.

For municipalities, it gets much more confusing, as there are cases of two municipalities with the same Thai name in one district, which only differ by the municipal level, so only when using name and administrative status together the name becomes unique. I will write a separate blog post on those cases later.

Thursday linkage

Mark at travelfish takes a quick look at the most common words found in geographical names in Thailand, like the word Chiang found for several northern Thai provinces and districts.

 Richard Barrow visited Nakhon Phanom recently and posted a photo of the former residence of the province governor. This historic building now houses a local museum, photos of the interior are found in Richards Facebook gallery. If I'd ever make it to this remote northeastern province, this museum will be on the list of places I have to visit.

 Bangkok Library has posted two sets [1,2] of Bangkok district maps taken from documents of the BMA - see for example this map of Taling Chan showing the peculiar shape of Khlong Chakphra subdistrict (แขวงคลองชักพระ), covering just a narrow strip of land along the canal. The maps are however a bit outdated, the latest subdistricts aren't included, e.g. at Don Mueang.

Montone Puket - Part I

When my reader Ian explored Phuket recently, one of the locals he talked with showed him a book with some historical texts on Phuket. That book was "Old Phuket", published in 1986 by the Siam Society. While long out of print, luckily my friend hdamm already had one copy which he borrowed me - a physical book is much more comfortable to read than the photos Ian did for me.

The book is in fact a reprint of several articles published in the Journal of the Siam Society 1905 and 1906. The article I will cite is titled Montone Puket (Siam) Malay Peninsula by the missionary John Carrington, which contains a nice description of the provinces within the Monthon Phuket, including a etymology of their names.

It does not lie within the purpose of this paper to discuss the ancient history of this Montone, but to write of it more as it is at the present time, and as observed by the writer during five tours through this region.
This is a portion of Siam, Malay Peninsula, the "Tanah Malayu", or Malay Land. At Kra, กระ, or Kraburee is is about 45 miles wide, and at a line through Junkceylon and Nakhon it is about 200 miles in width.
It will be in place here to name the provinces into which Puket Montone is divided. We begin with the most northerly one and name them on down in their order of location.
1. Ranong - ระนอง - formerly Ranong and Kra. Ranong is said to signify a place of much water; and indeed this is true in the rainy season.
2. Takuapa - ตะ กั่ว ป่า - the place, or wilderness, of lead; named thus, perhaps, because the first tin discovered there was supposed to be lead.
3. Phangnga - พังงา - formerly Takuathoong (lead field) and Phangnga. พังงา undoubtedly means, in this connection, very beautiful, as it will be seen that this province of great beauty - and not Elephant tusk, as some Siamese think.
4. Puket, or Thalang, or Junkceylon. It may be the word puket is the Malay word bukit for hill or mountain. I am not satisfied by this definition. This is a large island separated from the mainland by a very narrow passage of water, and lies south of Phannga. The main town is Tongka - thoongkha - ทุ่งคา, field of grass, or grass field.
5. Krabee - very incorrectly called Gerbee. The Siamese word is กระ บี่ meaning a sword. This is a good Siamese word for that weapon, a lower word being dap, ดาบ, the high word being พระ แสง.
6. Trang, formerly Trang and some other small states. Trang ตรัง is said to mean "adhere" or "joined to." The application I am at loss to discover at the present. It may be that this territory was acquired by the Siamese later than that adjoining it in the North or East, and so was called "joined", that is joined to what they already possessed. This is merely conjecture on my part, and I do not insist.

Name of Bueng Kan province

The reporting on the first reading of the Bueng Kan law in parliament included some discussion on the naming of the new province. The draft law, as well as all earlier reporting, named the province simply as Bueng Kan (จังหวัดบึงกาฬ), after the name of the district which will become the capital district.

Bueng Kan is simply the name of a swamp near the small town, meaning "black swamp". Apparently, some consider such a profane name to be not auspicious enough for a province, so I have so far seen two other suggested names.

Mentioned within a news report on the first reading is the name จังหวัดนครบึงกาฬ (Nakhon Bueng Kan province), literally translated "Black Swamp city".

From an historical point of view more appropriate is the other suggested name Chaiburi (จังหวัดไชยบุรี), as that was the name of the district Bueng Kan until 1939 [Gazette]. This name goes back to the Mueang Chaiburi, and was changed as in 1914 the seat of administration was moved from Chaiburi to Bueng Kan [Gazette]. if I am not totally mistaken, the original capital an name-sake is now in Tha Uthen district of Nakhon Phanom province, thus the name Chaiburi for the new province would only be partially fitting as the historical origin would not be part of it.

Which of the names will finally be used will be known soon, as the new parliamentary session has just started, and both the constitutional amendments as well as this province are high on the priority list. I read one report today already which suggests that the province will be in effect in April, thus it must be finalized within the next week.

Numbered subdistricts

Among the 7255 subdistricts, there are several with an interesting history behind their naming. One group of subdistricts has their names being simply numbered, named from Khlong One to Khlong Twelve. The first seven of these subdistricts are within the district Khlong Luang of Pathum Thani province, and two futher are in Nong Chok district within Bangkok. However, while the whole number range from one to seven is covered in Pathum Thani, those two in Bangkok have the number 10 and 12 - as far as I know there never was a subdistrict named Khlong 8, 9 or 11.

When I was looking through some very old announcements in the Royal Gazette, one on the 1915 relocation of the district office on Mueang district in the no longer existing Thanyaburi province lists the previous location as being within the subdistrict Khlong Soi Thi 10 (ตำบลคลองซอยที่ 10) [Gazette]. By using the search function with the Gazette database, it seems the "soi thi" (meaning "branch number") was dropped from the subdistrict names in 1919. The same function also returns that there were subdistricts which had some additional words after the number, e.g. ตำบลคลองซอยที่ ๑๓ ฝั่งตะวันออก (Subdistrict Branch Canal number 13 east side). Sadly I have no complete list of subdistricts of that time, and also many of the subdistrict renamings back then were not announced in the Royal Gazette, so I have no overview how many subdistricts there were originally with this naming scheme.

Map of Rangsit area, source

But the base of this naming system is obvious, as the north-south oriented canals (Khlong, คลอง) branching from Khlong Rangsit are simply numbered, and thus the subdistricts were simply named after the canal where they are located. As the canals were the main way of transport at that time, all of the villages were located right at the canal anyway, the land between was then used for farming.

Tough it focuses more on the irrigation plans for the western rim of the Chao Phraya, the book King of the Waters: Homan Van Der Heide And the Origin of Modern Modern Irrigation in Siam by Han Ten Brummelhuis gives a great overview over the agricultural expansion at the beginning of the 20th century, of which the Rangsit area was only one part.

Adjoining municipalities with same name

As in the past, municipalities and sanitary districts only covered the densely populated areas, and often inherited the name from the subdistrict they are located. The remaining area of the subdistrict then became a subdistrict administrative organization (TAO) in the second half of the 1990s, so there are a lot of local administrative units sharing their name. As long as the two were on a completely different level the two are not that easy to confuse, but now recently many of the TAO got upgraded to subdistrict municipalities. In case the original municipality is still a subdistrict municipality, the newly upgraded one has to receive a new name, like e.g. TAO Wiang Sa in Surat Thani has been renamed to Mueang Wiang on its upgrade, to avoid confusion with the municipality Wiang Sa.

However, when the municipality has town status, this renaming is not done in all cases, as the full name includes the status and thus the subdistrict municipality Sattahip (เทศบาลตำบลสัตหีบ) and the town municipality Sattahip (เทศบาลเมืองสัตหีบ) have different full names. While it is therefore not ambiguous, it quickly becomes a problem once the reference is not dated. Sattahip town was upgraded in 2007, so "subdistrict municipality Sattahip (เทศบาลตำบลสัตหีบ)" means today's town if the text is from before 2007, or it means the former TAO if its from after 2008.

At least for the case of Sattahip, it was tried to avoid this confusion. In the board where the upgrade of the TAO was decided, the new municipality was planned to be named Khet Udom Sak (เทศบาลตำบลเขตอุดมศักดิ์). However this name wasn't approved by the naming board in its meeting 3/2008, so the new municipality wasn't renamed at all. Only just recently this was rectified, though not yet officially announced. Yet Sattahip isn't the only case where it has the adjoining municipalities with the same name and only different municipal levels.

• Sattahip, Chonburi - the town was created in 2007, the new subdistrict municipality in 2008.
• Ban Phru, Songkhla - the town was created in 2002, the new subdistrict municipality in 2007.
• Ban Chang, Rayong - the town was created in 2005, the new subdistrict municipality in 2007.

There were three more cases, where the TAO was already scheduled for upgrade last year, but then it wasn't found in the list of TAO actually upgraded - Mae Phrik in Lampang, Makha in Nakhon Ratchasima and Dok Khamtai in Phayao.

Even more confusiing is the subdistrict municipality Nong Phai in Udon Thani (เทศบาลตำบลหนองไผ่), of which there are two, one in Mueang Udon Thani district and one in Nong Han district. All other cases where there are more than one municipality with the same name and level, these are in different provinces, but in this case one has to add the district. But for example in the geocode list of DOPA this wasn't done, so I have no idea which of the codes 4168 and 4167 belong to which municipality.

Prince Damrong on the thesaphiban reforms

The article Hegemony and resistance in northeastern Thailand by Charles F. Keyes (in: Regions and National Integration in Thailand, 1892-1992) starts by citing Prince Damrong, Minister of the Interior 1892-1915 and father of the thesaphiban administrative reforms. It was first published in 1935 in the book "Historical anecdotes" (นิทานโบราณคดี).

When the domains of the hinterland of the kingdom were organized into monthon in about 1890 in the fifth reign (i.e. the reign of King Chulalongkorn), the monthon containing the domains of the black-bellied Lao was first called "Monthon Chiang" (and those containing) the white-bellied Lao were called "Monthon Lao Phuan" and "Monthon Lao Kao". [...]
... and the names of the monthon were changed in accord with their directional location within the kingdom: Monthon Chiang became Monthon Phayap, Monthon Lao Phuan became Monthon Udon, and Monthon Lao Kao became Monthon Isan.

The directoral terms from the Sanskrit I mentioned before already. The previous names refer to the older principalities, Chiang Mai of course became Chiang, Phuan to Chiang Khwang (Xieng Khoung) and Kao to Luang Prabang. The black-bellied refers to the traditional tattoo on the bellies, whereas the white-bellied did not do like that.

However these names don't fit with the announcement in the Royal Gazette, which in 1899 announced the creation of the four Monthon and renamed them in 1901.

• Tawan Tok Chiang Nuea (ตวันตกเฉียงเหนือ) around Chiang Mai, later named Phayap (พายัพ)
• Fai Nuea (ฝ่ายเหนือ) around Khon Kaen, later named Udon (อุดร)
• Tawan Ok Chiang Nuea (ตวันออกเฉียงเหนือ) around Ubon Ratchathani, later named Isan (อีสาณ)
• Tawan Ok (ตวันออก) around Battambang, later named Burapha (บูรพา)

Districts named after Royals

As Thailand is a monarchy and quite the majority is royalist, it's no wonder this love or respect towards the royal family also shows in several geographical entities named after them. Interestingly, only dams have been named after HM the King or the Queen, but none of the districts. But several other members of the royal family have given their names to a district in their honor.

At first, there are the three daughters of the royal family, each having one district named after them.

Princess Ubolratana gave her name to the district Ubolratana in Khon Kaen province, established in 1974.
• Princess Sirindhorn gave her name to the district Sirindhorn in Ubon Ratchathani province, established in 1992.
• Princess Chulabhorn gave her name to the district Chulabhorn in Nakhon Si Thammarat province in 1994.

However none is named after the Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn, but I don't know the reason.

Other members of the royal family have already been honored by district names. The older sister of the King, Princess Galyani Vadhana, had lend her name to the district Watthana in Bangkok, and of course also the recently new district Galyani Vadhana in Chiang Mai is of course also named after her. Also the mother of the King has a district named after her - Mae Fa Luang district in Chiang Rai, the name she was most well-known to the hill-tribes in the north. Also, the district Srinagarindra in Phatthalung is named in her honor. A more distant member of the family, Vibhavadi Rangsit has been honored by the district Vibhavadi in Surat Thani province, not that far from where she died when rebels shot down her helicopter in 1977.

One further district is named after a royal, Phaya Mengrai district is named after the founder of the Lanna kingdom of northern Thailand, 700 years ago. Unless I forgot one, the only other central government entity named after a person was the province Phibun Songkhram, the Cambodian province Siem Reap while it was annexed during World War II, named after the prime minister and military dictator of that time.

Board on name changes of province, districts, etc.

I had referenced the committee on name changes of province, district, subdistrict and villages (คณะกรรมการพิจารณาเรื่องการขอเปลี่ยนแปลงชื่อจังหวัด อำเภอ และตำบล หมู่บ้าน) in several postings on Royal Gazette announcements already, but the only details I had about this committee so far were the rules on administrative entity name changes. But when I researched a bit around the recent subdistrict renamings Google returned me the proceedings of this board from 2007 to 2009. Though these files only contain the decisions and not the rationale for each change, these are nevertheless very helpful.

Working through the files, most of the changes were either already announced in the Royal Gazette, or for the municipalities and TAO were mentioned in the board meeting transcripts on the municipality upgrades. Interestingly most of these municipal name changes were approved by this board after they were decided in the municipal board. Below are the changes which did not become official yet, or which I haven't found in the municipal decisions of the board to consider draft laws.

• Meeting 1/2009 on October 13 2009
  
  • TAO Ngim (อบต.งิม), Phayao province, renamed to Phu Kham (อบต.ภูคาม)
• Meeting 2/2009 on October 21 2009
  
  • TAO Pa Ko Dam (ป่าก่อดำ), Chiang Rai province, renamed to Pa Ko Dam Phatthana (ป่าก่อดำพัฒนา)
  • TAO Mae Suai (แม่สรวย), Chiang Rai province, renamed to Wiang Suai (เวียงสรวย)
  • TAO Phayu (พยุห์), Sisaket province, renamed to Nong Saket (หนองสระเกษ)
  • TAO Ban Dung (บ้านดุง), Udon Thani province, renamed to Dung Nuea (ดุงเหนือ)

Not listed here are the name changes of temples (วัด), which are also processed by this committee. For a full listing of items in XML format, take a look at this file, which also includes the romanized names (except for the temples) and geocodes to make it more accessible.

I hope future (and also those before 2007) meetings will be published like that as well, or even better in the same way like the board meeting with the municipal decisions in longer transcripts, so the rationales for each renaming (and also the denied name changes) can be found as well.

Pali/Sanskrit directional words

In our Thai class we recently learned the traditional directional terms as derived from Pali/Sanskrit, as shown in the table below.

อุดร	Udon	North
อีสาน	Isan	Northeast
บูรพา	Burapha	East
อาคเนย์	Akhane	Southeast
ทักษิณ	Thaksin	South
หรดี	Horadi	Southwest
ปราจีน	Prachin	West
พายัพ	Phayap	Northwest

A few of these terms one easily finds in the modern day names of provinces and regions as well - most notable Isan for the northeastern region, but also the town Udon Thani in the northern part of the Isan, and Prachin Buri east of Bangkok.

Much more of these words show up when looking at the Monthon, the administrative circles created in the thesaphiban reforms by Prince Damrong at the beginning of the 20th century. The Monthon Isan covered the southeastern part of the Khorat Plateau, which is now completely called Isan. Monthon Udon around the town Udon Thani covered the northern part of the Khorat Plateau. It also had the Monthon Phayap covering the area northwest as seen from Khorat - now this region is called northern Thailand, historically the Lan Na kingdom. Monthon Burapha were the provinces of western Cambodia, which in 1906 were ceded to French Indochina. Corresponding to this eastern Monthon, the western Monthon was around Prachinburi. I think this is the explanation why a town located east of the center of the kingdom is named "western town".

This naming scheme was even continued at the district level in the northeastern provinces. I discovered it two years ago without realizing that these names are in fact simply directional names. The names Udon (อุดร), Pachin (ปจิม), Thaksin (ทักษิณ) and Uthai (อุไทย) were used - Pachin is only a spelling variant of Prachin, but I don't know the meaning of Uthai, but since two of the districts named Uthai are now the Mueang district maybe it means "central"?

Etymology of district name Hot

The origins of place names sometimes quite interesting. I have stumbled upon the one for the district Hot in Chiang Mai reading a book I did not expect to find anything on the administrative entities - Sacred Mountains Of Northern Thailand And Their Legends by Donald K. Swearer. As the title says, the book is on religious folktales, especially on the travels of Lord Buddha in northern Thailand on which he left those footprints and other relics now worshiped by the local people.

After the Buddha spent seven days at Doi Kung he came down from the mountain and journeyed north through a forest for a distance of approximately 20,000 meters to the Mae Ping river. There he met a Lawa farmer who was using a wheel to irrigate a field. When he saw the Buddha approach, the farmer unwound the turban from his head in order to wash the Buddha's feet. After he removed the turban from his head, it miraculously turned into gold. Amazed, the farmer said to the Buddha, "O, Blessed One, by your kindness please reside here in the north with us."
[...]
After the Buddha had given the Lawa the precepts, he spoke to the monks: "Before the Tathagatha came here the Lawa had to use a water wheel to irrigate their fields because this a very dry area (Thai, heang hot). Consequently, this place shall be known as Hot.

However, it seems the word Hot (ฮอด) meaning "dry, arid" is not normal Thai, as even the most complete online dictionary Longdo does not have an entry on it.

Thaification of district and subdistrict names

The two premierships of Field Marshall Phibun Songkhram 1938 to 1944 and again 1948 to 1957 were marked with a strong nationalistic politics, like forcing to use the central Thai language instead of the regional dialects (or even the Yawi used in the deep south provinces), the banning of several occupations for the Chinese immigrants and so on. I first became aware of this policy with respect to the administrative subdivision via the Wikipedia article on Non Thai district in Nakhon Ratchasima province, which was renamed from Non Lao to Non Thai in 1941.

While this was the only district which got its non-Thai roots removed from the name, there were quite a lot of subdistrict which were equally renamed in the 1939 announcement.

• Lao (ลาว): Non Lao to Non Thai (Nakhon Ratchasima), Phueng Lao to Phueng Ruang, Ban Lao to Thap Kwang, Salari Lao to Mueang Kao, Muang Lao to Muang Ngam (Saraburi). In Saraburi it had a lot of Vientiane Lao forcibly resettled there in 1779.
• Chin(ese) (จีน): Ban Chin to Chalong (Satun), Nong Chin to Khok Sai (Phatthalung), Wat Sam Chin to Sam Yaek (Phra Nakhon, i.e. Bangkok), Bang Nang Chin to Thai Hat (Samut Songkhram)
• Mon (มอญ): Ban Mon to Sam Suan (Chaiyaphum), Ban Mon to Ban Kao (Chonburi), Ku Mon to Hua Sai (Chachoengsao), Tha Mon to Khun Kaeo (Nakhon Pathom) Na Mon Nuea to Ban Na and Na Mon Tai to Khlong Cham Long (Sukhothai), Bang Mon to Ton Pho (Singburi)
• Khmer (เขมร): Wang Khmer to Tha Dong Rang (Kanchanaburi)

And the above linked announcement isn't the only one, there was another in 1940 containing more subdistricts with Chin and Mon in their names removed.

Subdistrict spelling change in Nakhon Si Thammarat?

While ystematically adding the websites of all the subdistrict administrative organizations (TAO) in Nakhon Si Thammarat province to my XML, at first I could not find the one for Tha Phaya, Pak Phanang district. The only website which contained the term "องค์การบริหารส่วนตำบลท่าพยา" was the article on the district in the Thai wikipedia. This seemed strange, as even for TAO without a website there usually are some pages using the term. After a bit of searching I finally found the website at thapaya.go.th - the reason I could not find it before is that it is spelled "องค์การบริหารส่วนตำบลท่าพญา". The two letters Yo Yak (ย) and Yo Ying (ญ) are absolute equivalent, so this spelling change does not change the pronunciation at all.

However all of the sources from the Department of Provincial Administration (DOPA), e.g. the geocode list or the population statistics all use the spelling ท่าพยา. Also, the original announcement in the Royal Gazette on the creation of the TAO (see Item 699 on page 71) uses ท่าพยา, and I haven't seen any announcement on a spelling change. On the other hand, ThaiTambon.com uses the same spelling as the TAO, indicating that not only the TAO but also the Tambon changed its spelling.

Though I had not much hope of a reply, I tried to ask the TAO for an explantion, but thins time the email wasn't ignored - because they misconfigured the mail server so any email sent to manager@thapaya.go.th bounced right away. And I doubt anyone would ever find my question in the forum, as it seems only frequented by spam bots.

Etymology of the word Isan

In a footnote to the paper The Isan up to its integration into the Siamese state (in: Regions and National Integration in Thailand, 1892-1992) by Volker Grabowsky the author gives the etymology and history of the term Isan (อีสาน) for the northeastern part of Thailand.

"Isan" derives from the Pāli word for "northeast". The term "Isan" has been introduced by the Siamese government in 1900 to replace the old ethnic name for the administrative circle Monthon Lao Khao (capital: Ubon Ratchathani). Twelve years later, in 1912, Monthon Isan was divided up into the circles (monthon) of Roi-et and Ubon Ratchathani. At that time the term "Isan" was being transformed from a narrow administrative designation to a more general geographic term. Since c.1922 the so-called Northeastern region (phak isan) became a widely accepted designation for the whole of the Khorat plateau, comprising the territories of the former monthon of Isan (Roi-et, Ubon Ratchathani), Udon and Khorat. [...]

In the map to the right I have marked the administrative circles (monthon, มณฑล) of the northeast in their layout of 1915. The two circles which made up the circle Isan until 1912 are the blue and pink to the southeast, encircled in red.

The split of the circle was announced in the Royal Gazette in April 1912, with Isan then still spelled อิสาน with a short I (instead of the long I it has today). And that spelling is consistent in all the announcements of that time, so the word Isan really changed spelling.

An interesting further reading is a blog posting on Isan’s Holy Men and Holy Waters.

Etymology of Thesaban and Thesaphiban

I am sure Rikker on his blog on the Thai language would do a better job than me, but since the simple question whether the correct romanization of the word เทศบาล in the RTGS should be thesaban or thetsaban led to a real gem of etymological discussion on my Wikipedia talk page.

The spelling of the word in Thai will usually tell you which words are pronounced this way. In words like เทศบาล, which we might transliterate (not transcribe) as {thesbal}, the ศ /s/ has a dual role: it acts as the final consonant of the first syllable เทศ (from deśa "country"), pronounced /thet/ in isolation, but ศ /s/ also gives us an implicit /a/ vowel that becomes the linking syllable /sa/ connecting with บาล /ban/ (from pāl "protect").

Thus, the word thesaban (municipality) from its Indic Sanskrit roots means something like "protection of country".

I already was about ask Rikker if the word "thesaphiban" (เทศาภิบาล), used as the common term of all the administrative reforms under Prince Damrong in his time as Interior Minister 1894-1915. The "sa" syllable in the two words is totally different, for thesaban it's a short "a" (อะ), while in thesaphiban it is a long "a" (อา). But actually, the two words are related

Another reason to keep Thesaban occurred to me -- to maintain consistency with Thesaphiban (เทศาภิบาล), from the Indic roots เทศ (deśa) + อภิ (abhi) + บาล (pāl), but due to sandhi (สนธิ) compounding rules it becomes เทศาภิบาล (deśābhipāl, with a long ā vowel), and thus in RTGS must be Thesaphiban, and never *Thetsaphiban. Personally, I'd prefer to maintain consistency between these words with the same roots.

Tej Bunnag gives the etymology of the word thesaphiban in his book "The Provincial Administration of Siam 1892-1915" as follows

The word thesaphiban is compounded from three words of Pali origin, namely thet or thesa meaning ‘country’, aphi meaning ‘in particular' or ‘special’, ban or bala meaning ‘to be in charge of something’, and can be translated literally as ‘to be in special charge of an area of the country’.

Just the original question wasn't solved completely yet - it seems RTGS would suggest the spelling thetsaban, the actually pronunciation is however closer to thesaban.

I cannot recall why I did choose that spelling back then, whether I did not trust the output of the romanization tool by Wirote Aroonmanakun (see also this review in the LearningPost), or I chose the spelling from the ones I saw the web which looked most close to the way RTGS is applied to the non-Sanskrit words.

Names of districts and provinces

For a foreigner without knowledge on the Thai language all the names of towns, provinces or districts sound strange. For a few, the romanization has created more confusions as one is tempted to mispronounce the name - so Phuket gets to F*ck-it, and the inevitable Bang Cock of course. Or on a much higher intellectual level the pun that Ranong should be pronounced "Rain On", as it is the wettest area of all Thailand. But all this should not be the topic this time.

Many of the places in Thailand are named by some geographical or historical specialty of the area. For example Tha Song Yang means "Pier at two Yang trees", or the old name of Surat Thani, Ban Don, means something "village on a small hill". There are also several places named after persons, each of the three daughters of the King has one district named after her, also the district Mae Fa Luang is named after the mother of the King, and the district Watthana in Bangkok is named after the recently deceased princess Galyani Vadhana. However the only district named after a king is Phaya Mengrai, named after the first king of the northern Thai kingdom Lanna. The military dictator Phibun Songkhram even named one of the provinces annexed during World War II after himself.

Also a lot of the places have a name originating from Sanskrit, something which was very popular during the reign of King Rama VI, when many places were renamed. Four provinces got a new named originating from Sanskrit in 1915 - Surat Thani, Prachuap Khiri Khan, Narathiwat and Uttaradit.

But there are also some districts which - at least for a western - are somewhat odd when translating them to English. The province Roi Et - meaning 101 - is named after the exaggerated number of subordinate cities under it, which in real were just 11. Nam Som means "Ginseng water", Nam Khun means "muddy water", and Nam Nao simply "cold water". But maybe the oddest is the subdistrict municipality กม.5, Kilometer 5, located not far from the town Prachuap Khiri Khan.

The Etymology of Phetchaburi

The text below was written by King Mongkut (Rama IV, reigned 1851-1868) himself and was first published in the Bangkok Calendar, an annual almanac founded in 1859 until the death of its printer Dan Beach Bradley. It was later republished in the 1885 compendium Siam, The Land of the White Elephant, edited by George S. Bacon. I found it in the book Early Accounts of Phetchaburi, published by the Siam Society in 1987. The photo shows the temple Wat Phra Kaeo, part of the Phra Nakhon Khiri palace complex right next to the town. It was also King Mongkut who built this palace.

Though titled etymology, the text is not about the origin of the name of the city, but in fact King Mongkut complains about the inconsistent and varying spellings of the name in western source.

But as the city P'etch'ără-booree the masses of the people in all parts call it P'ripp'ree or P'et-pree. The name P'etch'ără-booree is Sanskrit, a royal name given to the place the same as T'on-booree, Non-booree, Năk'awn K'u'n k'ăn, Sămŏŏtă-pra-kan, and Ch'ă-chong-sow. Now if Mahá nak'awn be called Bangkok, and the other names respectively called Tălát-k'wan, Paklat, Paknam, and Păătrew, it is proper that P'etch'ără-booree should follow suit, and be called by her vulgar name P'rip-p'ree, or P'et-p'ree.

Now that the company of teachers and print­ers should coin a name purporting to be after the royal style and yet do not take the true Sanskrit, seems not at all proper. In trying to Romanize the name P'etch'ără-booree, they place the mark over the a thus P'etchă-booree, making foreigners read it P'etcha-booree, following the utterances of old dances in the temples, who boast that they know Balăm Bali, and not satisfied with that, they even call the place City P'et, setting fortn both the Bali and the meaning of the word; and thus boast­ing greatly of their knowledge and of being a standard of orthography for the name of that city.

Now what is the necessity of coining another name like this? There is no occasion for it. When the name is thus incorrectly printed, persons truly acquainted with Sanskrit and Bali (for such there are many other places) will say that those who write or print the name in the way, must be pupils of ignorant teachers - blind teachers not fol­lowing the real Sanskrit in full, taking only the utterances of woodsmen, and holding them forth [as the correct way.] In following such sounds they cannot be in accord with the Sanskrit, and they conclude that the name is Siamese. Where­as, in truth, it is not Siamese. The true Siamese name is P'rip-p'ree or P'et-p'ree. It matters not what letters are used to express it - follow your own mind; but let the sound come out clear and accu­rate either P'rip-p'ree or P'et-p'ree, and it will be true Siamese. But the mode of writing and print­ing the name P'etchă-booree with the letter a and mark over it and other marks in two places, resists the eye and the mouth greatly. What­ever be done in this matter let there be uniformi­ty. If it be determined to follow the vulgar mode of calling the name, let that be followed out fully and accurately; but if the royal mode be preferred, let the king be sought unto for the pro­per way of writing it, which shall be in full accord­ance with the Sanskrit. And should this happen not to be like the utterance of the people in the temples the difference cannot be great. And persons unacquainted with Sanskrit will be con­strained to acknowledge that you do really know Sanskrit; and comparing the corrected with the improper mode of Romanizing, will praise you for the improvement which you have made. Such per­sons there are a few, not ignorant and blind lead­ers and dunces like the inmates of the temples and of the jungles and forests, but learned in the San­skrit and residents in Siam.

Most common subdistrict names

While for the provinces and the districts the names are unique (except the 5 districts named Chaloem Phra Kiat), there are many subdistricts with the same name, sometimes even within one province there may be more than one subdistrict with the same name. Thus, out of the total of 7430 subdistricts (both tambon and khwaeng) 2398 have a non-unique name, 800 names are used more than once. The most common name is Nong Bua (หนองบัว), literally Lotus swamp, found 28 times. The second place goes to Nai Mueang (ในเมือง), meaning town center, found 22 times. Below is the list of all subdistricts found at least than 10 times.

Nong Bua	หนองบัว	28
Nai Mueang	ในเมือง	22
Nong Waeng	หนองแวง	18
Ban Mai	บ้านใหม	16
Tha Kham	ท่าข้าม	14
Ban Na	บ้านนา	13
Samrong	สำโรง	11
Nong Phai	หนองไผ่	11
Pak Nam	ปากน้ำ	10
Tha Chang	ท่าช้าง	10
Phon Thong	โพนทอง	10
Na Di	นาดี	10
Wiang	เวียง	10
Ban Klang	บ้านกลาง	10

Districts named after subdistricts

Usually newly created districts (Amphoe) are named after the main subdistrict, which normally is the subdistrict located in the center, containing the largest settlement and becoming the location of the district office. But there are some cases where the subdistrict which gave the district its name is no longer part of the district, but the district kept its name.

• Kranuan, Khon Kaen, was named after the subdistrict Kranuan, which has been split off to be part of Sam Sung district in 1994.
• Bang Rachan is named after the subdistrict Bang Rachan, the site of the historical battle between the army from Ayutthaya and Burma, fought shortly before the fall of Ayutthaya. However, the subdistrict containing the historical location was split off to form the new district Khai Bang Rachan in 1972.
  
• The subdistrict Sahatsakhan of Sahatsakhan district, Kalasin province, was split off to form Tha Khantho district in 1962. This subdistrict was further moved to be the central subdistrict of the newly established Nong Kung Si in 1973, and then renamed to Nong Kung Si in 1974. The subdistrict Sahatsakhan of Sahatsakhan district was created in 1982, and is thus named after the district, not the other way round.
• When in 1935 in Narathiwat province the minor district Pa Cho was created, it received the subdistrict Tomo from Tomo district, but the district Tomo kept its name. 1939 the name of Tomo district was changed to Waeng, and Pa Cho was renamed to Tomo. The minor district was abolished and incorporated into Waeng in 1953, which however kept its name then. 1957 the subdistrict was also abolished and incorporated into the subdistrict Mamong. In 1977, the area of the former minor district Tomo was split off again and formed the new minor district Sukhirin, with Tomo now being just one of the villages (muban) of subdistrict Phukhao Thong.
• There are also cases where the name gets applied the other way round, a newly created subdistrict gets the same name as the district it is located. One example for this can be Krasae Sin, the district was created in 1978, the subdistrict named Krasae Sin in 1995.

The above list of course are only examples and not the full list of such cases, but they illustrate the sometimes confusing ways of district and subdistrict namings.