‘Take the Windrush, then change on to the Suffragette’: onboard the renamed London Overground lines causing controversy

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan next to new line signage at Highbury and Islington station in north London. Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PA

The ancient Egyptians saw names as magical. It was said that Isis tricked Ra, the sun god, into telling her his true name, to give her power over him and put her son Horus on the throne.

Londoners have a different take. The Northern line was nearly named TootanCamden in the 1920s, the historian Robert Graves wrote – a pun on the Tutankhamun craze of the time and the line’s route through Tooting and Camden.

There were no such lazy portmanteaus in Sadiq Khan’s announcement last week. The mayor of London revealed that Transport for London maps would do away with the orange spaghetti of the London Overground in favour of six new lines. The Suffragette, Windrush, Lioness, Mildmay, Weaver and Liberty lines are a multicoloured nod to the capital’s diversity and some obscure elements of history.

Lioness runs through Wembley, Windrush includes east and south London stops traditionally popular with West Indian arrivals who often worked on the buses and tube, while Suffragette ends in Barking, where the longest-surviving suffragist, Annie Huggett, lived. Mildmay refers to the Shoreditch hospital that treated the first HIV patients, and Liberty, a short line in the borough of Havering, is a reference to one of London’s liberties – areas free of the monarch’s taxes able to set their own rules.

Ian Stone, an author and historian specialising in London, said that the Weaver line did pass through areas that were historically part of the city’s textile industry. “Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to have a stop there,” he said. “Spitalfields is where the Huguenot weavers were in the late 17th century. The textile industry was then something the Jewish community then the Bangladeshi community was very involved in.”

You might expect traditionalists to be happy with the Weaver line – since London’s oldest streets were named after the trades they supported, from Poultry to Bread Street – not to mention the patriotism of Lioness and the personal freedoms of Liberty. Not a bit of it. Khan has been savaged by rightwing critics for “wokery”, “virtue signalling” and supporting terrorism by choosing Suffragette, as well as wasting £6m of public money for the new maps. A few Londoners travelling on the overground on Saturday shared those views, but most were simply interested to hear more about the history behind the names, while others said it might take people a bit of time to get used to.

It’s nice to have the different sides of London, rather than just royalty. My only apprehension is that the names might be a bit hard to say for tourists.

Owen, Overground passenger

Others said the existing map was incredibly confusing. “It’s nice to have the different sides of London, rather than just royalty,” said Owen, who didn’t want to give his last name. “My only apprehension is that the names might be a bit hard to say for tourists.”

He pointed out at Gospel Oak station that the new Suffragette line already had an unofficial name – rail workers had abbreviated Gospel Oak to Barking line as the Goblin – while the Euston to Watford section, with stops at Harlesden and Queen’s Park, had been known as the Harlequin in the 1980s.

Politicians have long tried rebrand reality – it’s easier to change the name of the housing ministry than to build more houses – or try to bury a nickname they dislike: Milk Snatcher or Iron Lady, BoJo or BoZo, Dubya or Shrub and Bambi or Bliar. Some names stick, like the switch from Idlewild to John F Kennedy airport in New York, and some don’t, as when Cape Canaveral became Cape Kennedy and then switched back again, or the reluctance of some Mumbaikars to drop Bombay. In the UK, Belfast now has the George Best International Airport, but few remember the campaign by William Hague and the press to memorialise Diana, Princess of Wales by renaming Heathrow, previously known as London Airport and the Great West Aerodrome.

The London Underground itself was previously a mishmash of other railways, starting with the Metropolitan Railway and the City and South London Railway before eventually acquiring the Underground name and logo in 1908. By then, everyone knew it as the tube.

Tottenham Hotspur fans have often wanted Arsenal station on the Piccadilly line renamed since their rivals moved from Highbury to the Emirates. The station was originally called Gillespie Road, but nearly 20 years after the club moved to north London and dropped Woolwich from its name, the station was renamed Arsenal, thanks in large part to Herbert Chapman, one of the most influential managers in English football. Writing in the Guardian, Barney Ronay had suggested the West Croydon to Highbury and Islington branch should be called the Ian Wright Line.

Arsenal fans heading to watch their side play Manchester United in the Women’s Super League yesterday were broadly in favour of the Lioness line.

“I thought it was a nice idea ‘til I found out the price of it,” said Zoe Neale. Her mother, Rosalyn – not a fan of Khan – said the renaming was “ridiculous”. “Lioness is obviously good, but from what I’ve heard, people won’t call it that,” she said. “He should have asked us.”

But aren’t we the nation who came up with Boaty McBoatface? True, she said. “But it would have been more democratic.”