Is the apostrophe (') supposed to be omitted in names like 'King's Cross', 'King's Singers'? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate:
Is it common for place names to lose the possessive?

I've always thought it should be 'King's Cross, London' as in a possessive sense. However the wiki page for King's Cross uses 'Kings Cross' in the title and 'King's Cross' throughout the article, and this newspaper article uses 'Kings Cross' throughout. And Google result for 'The King's Singers' returns a page title that reads:

The Official Kings Singers Website :About Us - The King's Singers

I've also seen other names like 'St Albans' or 'Harrods'. I thought these names are also possessive, as in 'Saint Alban's (city)' or '(Mr.) Harrod's (department store)', but the apostrophe seems routinely dropped. I thought maybe there is a rule that says 'drop the apostrophe if it's a proper name for some geographic location or shop name, etc', but 'Sainsbury's' seems to keep the apostrophe more often than not.

So I'm quite confused: am I expected to omit the apostrophe when spelling these names, or what? If yes, what's the rule to follow?

There really are no rules for the examples given. All the examples you offer are names of things -- and names generally don't have rules.

King's Cross, London is a proper noun, as is Kings Cross, Sydney. The presence or absence of the apostrophe is neither correct nor incorrect. Both are simply names.

Harrods was originally Harrod's, but the apostrophe was dropped from the name. This doesn't really matter as it's just a trade name (although some sticklers disagree).

Now if the words weren't part of a proper noun, then there would be rules.

• A king's cross would be a cross belonging to a king.
• A kings' cross would be a cross belonging to kings.
• A kings cross would be a cross composed of kings.

But for names the key is consistency. King's Cross (London), the King's Singers, St Albans, and Harrods are correct because each uses the punctuation preferred by its entity's representatives.

Don't trust Wikipedia or Google to give you the correct answer. Go to the source.

This gets tricky in these modern days. You might also care to consider:

• Queens' College, Cambridge.
• Queen's College, Oxford.

De facto, the apostrophe does often get dropped, but I'm not sure that there's an excuse for inconsistency. The college in Cambridge is King's College (see their web site). Since the singers originated there, it would be reasonable to expect that they'd be consistent with the use of the apostrophe, but if their main web site isn't self-consistent, it is hard to know what to make of it. Of course, it could just be careless proof-reading (and they might be grateful if it is pointed out).

Kings Cross Station's own web site drops the apostrophe; as you noted, Wikipedia does not.

St Albans (the town) has lost its apostrophe, though Google lists at least one church of St Alban's with the apostrophe.

I don't ever recall seeing an apostrophe in Harrods.

Generally, you should follow the lead of the place being described: if the nearest thing you can find to an official web site uses the apostrophe, so should you; if it does not, neither should you. In case of doubt, use the apostrophe (but be careful of Queen's and Queens' colleges, or analogous issues).