To follow the 'based-in-English' comment above, Monaco should be called the Monaghasce(sp) Grand Prix, and the American Grand Prix, and the Bahrani GP, and, and, etc. I think it's just Bernie and his inconsistency in using country names as nouns or adjectives. The worst of all is the Abu Dhabi GP. Abu Dhabi is the equivalent to an English county, or an American state. Abu Dhabi's not a country, but merely one state in the United Arab Emirates.
In fact Monaco GP is just a 'common name' of that race. The official name is Grand Prix de Monaco. I think it's Monaco GP coz Monaco is also the name of a city. GP of Rome would've probably been Rome GP, not Roman GP.
Indeed, nagy díj means great prize however if written together and with a capital N its meaning transforms into Grand Prix. The phrase nagy díj evokes a shiny big trophy or a lot of money, whereas Nagydíj refers to a particular prestigious contest.
A bit similar to Finnish. 'Suuri palkinto' means a big prize, 'suurpalkinto' would mean a certain prestigios prize. We don't have an own word for Grand Prix, but suurpalkinto's meaning would be close to it.
What amuses me is when ordinary punters like ourselves use the sponsors name, e.g. the "PETRONAS MALAYSIA GRAND PRIX preview thread". I can understand that as part of sponsor's contract the organisers and possibly the TV commentators have to use the sponsor's name, but why should the rest of us give them free advertising. Seems a bit silly really.
We don't either speak about Vodafone McLaren or AT&T Williams. Lotus Renault GP is another story.
Nothing's worse than NASCAR, though.
The Autism Speaks 400.
The Hullevu Good 400.
The CARFAX 400.
The Emory Healthcare 500.
The TUMS 500.
In those cases it's IMO OK to speak with sponsors names as those races don't have an own name. But using only sponsor's name in the race's name makes it a bit more difficult to build the race a brand. But names like that suit well for sponsors, as people use sponsor's name in their speech, in F1 races they usually don't.
But what I was wondering is whether GPs can be named only after their sponsors, if the sponsor's name includes the country's name, like Grand Prix Air Canada.
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