Wanganui or Whanganui? People can now please themselves how they spell it after Lands Minister Maurice Williamson said yesterday either was OK .
"My intention to assign alternative names for the city allows people to choose the name they prefer," he said.
"My expectation is that all official documents will be able to use either form of the spelling as the official city name.
Mayor Michael Laws, the most vocal of the anti-H camp, said the decision was "an early Christmas present for the city and district".
"Both variants are already used and the minister's decision recognises that reality," Mr Laws said.
But he fumed later in the evening when TVNZ said it would go with the "H' and pronounce it as "Faa-ganui", condemning it as "anti-democratic, PC garbage".
Ken Mair, a Maori activist and one of the driving forces in seeking a change in the spelling of the city's name, said the decision was a difficult and courageous one to make, but the correct one.
"The Crown have done the right thing from our point of view in that they have given clear directions to crown agencies to ensure that our name is spelled correctly. We are delighted."
Some of the city's, and the country's, oldest institutions are not planning any changes.
APN, owner of the Wanganui Chronicle, New Zealand's oldest daily newspaper, has no current plans to change the masthead.
Rick Neville, chief operating officer of APN NZ Regional Newspapers, said the company believed the current spelling of the paper's masthead reflected majority public opinion, as reflected by the referendum carried out earlier this year in the city.
The matter would be kept under review and if there was a clear shift in public opinion, then the company would be sympathetic to making a change.
Wanganui Jockey Club manager Fiona Pickering said the club would retain the name by which it had been known since 1848.
And it will be "business as usual" for Wanganui Collegiate, founded in the early 1850s. The board of trustees would retain the "h" that had been in its title since its institution, but the college would continue to be known as Wanganui Collegiate as it always had been.
Wanganui Rugby Union chief executive Dale Cobb said, without canvassing the board, it was unlikely the union would change its spelling.
"We are traditional and like to stick with what we have. That might need a constitutional change."
The union respected the wishes of local Maori by including the h in the union's Maori teams and had done so for many years, he said.
NZPA