h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A year or two ago, I read an article about the efforts to come up with
suitable names for the Northwest Territories. One rather humorous
possibility that was getting some votes was "Bob." Detractors thought
"Bob" was an insult, because it stood for "Bottom of (the) Barrel," while
others thought it stood for "Best of (the) Bunch". Fortunately it didn't
go through.

I'm curious about the names that finally won. What are they?

Wasn't the winner 'Nunavit'? As to the 'Bob' - my understanding was not that it stood for anything, but that people who voted for it actually were having a laugh at the idea that a province would have a common human nickname similar to 'Fred' or 'Joe'. That is the way I took it, andIi thought it was a great idea. I thought I had read also that it got a lot more than 'some' votes - that it was actually one of the leading vote-getters.

Here's how it worked - Nunavut (the new territory) was made by redesignating about half of the existing Northwest Territories. What was to remain of the Northwest Territories flirted with the idea of taking a new name for themselves, so they held the naming contest. After a little while it became fairly clear that Bob was by far the most popular name, so the government let the contest issue drop and the the remaining bit kept the name Northwest Territories.

Incedentally, the name Bob wasn't meant to stand for anything. Researcher 170889 is right - the joke is in giving a geographical region an unassuming human name. For anyone out there who wants to know how the Canadian sense of humour works, the Bob contest is a pretty good example. Personally, I think it's a shame that the name change didn't go through.