The study presented herewith is based on three years of research conducted as part of a national grant scheme entitled "Cultural Memory of European Cities" (2012-2023). The authors build upon the research of Krško (2001-2024), Pandyian and Arangasamy (2014), and Rose-Redwood (2021), focusing on social semiotics and socio-onomastics. Specifically, they analyze the social and political contexts of alternative regional names (such as sobriquets, nicknames, aliases, abbreviations, and selected mottos) for 100 European destinations, which reveal the cultural memory of the city or region and communicate various alternative semiotic meanings, including real or projected emotions, attitudes, and statuses.Among these are adopted identities of a more significant counterpart (e.g., Little Italy, Venice of the North), megalomania (e.g., New Jerusalem), inferiority complexes related to certain imperfections (e.g., The city that is never ready), and many others. On the other hand, the absence of alternative name(s) may carry an important semiotic message of what Noam Chomsky named "non-identity" (2016); it may indicate the "silenced" and "suppressed identity" of locations with "unspeakable" histories, such as Auschwitz and Waterloo, which are beyond easily graspable linguistic notions.The study presented herewith examines the diverse ways in which informal regional names and naming shape, and are shaped by, words and worlds-in-the-making, and how they reflect and affect the identity or identities of the respective region. Research results will help to define taxonomy of various semiotic approaches to expressing diverse attitudes towards collective identities for the puropses of preservation of collective memory, as well as region branding.