Madras to Chennai

Two villages

In 1639 Damarla Venkatapathy Nayak, a chieftain under the Vijayanagar king Venkata III, granted the English a piece of land between the Cooum river, where it meets the sea, and the Egmore river. Fort St. George was built there.^[1] The East India Company built its fort and trading post in 1639–40, near the fishing village of Madraspatnam.^[2]

The settlement that grew up around the fort was named Chennapatanam, in honour of Venkatapathy Nayak’s father, Chennappa Nayak, who had controlled the coast from Pulicat to the Portuguese settlement of Santhome. The older Madraspatnam lay to its north. As the two filled in with new settlers’ houses they became one town, and the British called the whole of it Madras Patnam.^[1]

Madras

By 1652 Fort St. George was the seat of a presidency, and Madras became the capital of British southern India. At independence the Madras Presidency became Madras state, which was renamed Tamil Nadu in 1968. Madras remained its capital.^[2]

1996

The city officially changed its name from Madras to Chennai on 17 July 1996, and the law took effect on 1 August that year.^[3]

At the time, it was argued that Madras was a colonial hangover and Chennai a Tamil word. The city magazine Madras Musings wrote in 2015 that neither claim may be right, and that there is no clear evidence of which name is older.^[3]