Dec. 1--GALVESTON -- Friends of Galveston don't have to worry because nobody's in a rush to change its official name to the City of Galveston Island.

The proposed change was one of more than 50 suggestions made by North Star Destination Strategies, a Nashville-based company that conducted a $76,000, yearlong marketing study for the Galveston Island Convention and Visitors Bureau.

"The name change was a minuscule part of the report," said Brian Distefano, director of marketing for the bureau, as he made a presentation of the study to the City Council in a workshop Thursday.

Besides making every almanac and map in the world obsolete and calling for road signs to be changed and nightmares for the U.S. Postal Service, nobody seems to like the idea much.

"I'm not in favor of a name change," said Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas, who seemed to echo the feeling of the rest of the council. "There would be too many legal and legislative issues."

Dianna Puccetti, chairwoman of the city's Park Board, which oversees the Convention and Visitor's Bureau, was blunt: "The name's not going to change. It's part of the city charter, and it would be too hard to change it."

She said there are other ways to increase Galveston's island image.

Distefano said the name change isn't really being considered.

The suggestion was made because many people who live outside of Texas don't realize that this city is on an island of the same name. Including "Island" in the name would bolster Galveston's island identity to those who don't know it, he said.

Galveston got its first charter in 1839 from the Legislature of the Republic of Texas.

Both the city and the island got the name from Galveston Bay, which was named by Spanish cartographer Jose de Evia when he charted the Texas coast in 1785. He named it for his patron, Bernardo de Galvez, the viceroy of Mexico.

Distefano said many other suggestions from North Star probably will be adopted by the bureau.

Among them, he said, would be a logo of a conch shell in the shape of the state of Texas and the tag line "The legend continues."

Distefano said North Star gave him a thick stack of data it gathered about what Galvestonians think of their city and what potential visitors think.

If Galveston were a public figure, residents said, it would be a combination of Jimmy Buffett and Ernest Hemingway, Distefano said. "Laid back and friendly, but with a hint of adventure and full of tales."

He said Galveston presents a unique combination of history and beaches. "We do a better job with our history than we do our beaches," he said.

Lines for suggested ad campaigns include things like "Pirates hid out here, so can you."

One ad photo was of two people in a small outboard fishing boat, casting a shadow on the water that looked like a pirate ship.

Council members laughed when Distefano read a suggestion that Galveston should celebrate National Talk Like a Pirate Day. "There really is such a day," he said. (It's Sept. 19.)

More than 72 percent of the island's tourists come from Houston, and one suggestion was for Galveston to build a pirate park in Houston and fill it "with some of our fine brown sand," Distefano said.

The park would acquaint Houstonians with some of the fun to be had in Galveston.

All of the suggestions are still in the conceptional stage, he said.

The new ad campaign will probably start early next year, he said.

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