The naming of the city was frankly more important. The symbolism of St. Petersburg was more about making a statement to the history of the nation and declaring to the world that Russia was freeing itself from the shackles of the past 60 years. Also a revert to Petrograd was also in the running as it was Russian in style. The council that proposed the name was very much divided and, according to personal conversations with one of the members (Dr. Sergey Podbolotov), involved many zero hour phone calls to make the change. This LA Times article really captures both sides of the argument.