The Pacific Island nation of Nauru (a tiny coral atoll of around 12,000 people and the world's third-smallest country by population) has officially renamed itself the Republic of Naoero, reverting to the traditional spelling and pronunciation used in the national language. President David Adeang said the change, approved by parliament through two rounds of constitutional voting, corrects a colonial-era distortion — the name "Nauru" had been adopted simply because foreigners found the indigenous name difficult to pronounce. The country's international code will shift from NRU to NRO, its citizens will be known as dei-Naoero, and the renaming follows similar post-colonial rebranding moves by nations such as Eswatini, which dropped the name Swaziland in 2018.