We New Zealanders are a funny bunch.

People make fun of Canadians for being too apologetic. In Weird Al’s song Canadian Idiot, Yankovic complains, “Break their nose and they’ll just say ‘sorry’ – what kinds of freaks are that polite?”

One explanation is that Canada deported its rudest people to New Zealand and only the polite ones are left there.

But, if that were true, could we really explain this one? It looks like we are about to out-accommodate the most accommodating country around.

Just this week, Victoria University of Wellington’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Grant Guilford, proposed that Victoria University change its name. Why? Because it’s too potentially confusing for foreign students.

There’s a tendency to think the next generation of graduates are getting worse, but I really do hope that they would be able to find Victoria University of Wellington on a map. The name kind of gives it away.

But for the small number of the more geographically-challenged, I can see how there could be a bit of confusion.

Commentators were quick to point out this week that there is a Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia; a University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada; and a Victoria University in Kampala, Uganda.

None of that is surprising – Queen Victoria ruled for a very long time.

What they weren’t so quick to point out is the other thing these institutions have in common. All were founded after our very own Victoria University of Wellington. Including British Columbia’s University of Victoria.

New Zealand does have a bad history of being accommodating like this though. Not that long ago, we spent a cool $26 million in a bid to stop the rest of the world mistaking our flag for that of Australia. Wikipedia tells us that Australia’s flag came from a design competition run by the Melbourne Herald in 1900 and was adopted in 1903. But New Zealand’s flag was adopted in 1902 and had been in use since 1869.

So because Australia adopted an uglier version of our own flag, we agonised about changing ours.

Maybe if New Zealand imports enough of the less-accommodating Canadians and turns them into Kiwis, we can be a bit stroppier about defending our turf.