List of country name etymologies - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

This list covers English language

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

country names with their etymologies. Some of these include notes on indigenous names and their etymologies. Countries in italics are endonyms or no longer exist as sovereign political entities.

Afghanistan

"Home of the Pashtuns

Pashtun people

Pashtuns or Pathans , also known as ethnic Afghans , are an Eastern Iranic ethnic group with populations primarily between the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan...

" in Persian

Persian language

Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

, attested in the Persian-influenced Chagatai

Chagatai language

The Chagatai language is an extinct Turkic language which was once widely spoken in Central Asia, and remained the shared literary language there until the early twentieth century...

memoirs

Baburnama

Bāburnāma is the name given to the memoirs of Ẓahīr ud-Dīn Muḥammad Bābur , founder of the Mughal Empire and a great-great-great-grandson of Timur...

of the Moghul emperor Babur

Babur

Babur was a Muslim conqueror from Central Asia who, following a series of setbacks, finally succeeded in laying the basis for the Mughal dynasty of South Asia. He was a direct descendant of Timur through his father, and a descendant also of Genghis Khan through his mother...

in 1525. A compound

Compound (linguistics)

In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word formation that creates compound lexemes...

of the exonym Afghân and the suffix -stân
-stan
The suffix -stan is Persian for "place of", a cognate to Pashto -tun and to Indo-Aryan -sthāna , a Sanskrit suffix with a similar meaning...

. "Afghan" was first recorded in Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

(أفغان, Afġān) in the 10th-century Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam and likely derives from the Prakrit

Prakrit

Prakrit is the name for a group of Middle Indic, Indo-Aryan languages, derived from Old Indic dialects. The word itself has a flexible definition, being defined sometimes as, "original, natural, artless, normal, ordinary, usual", or "vernacular", in contrast to the literary and religious...

Avagānā recorded in the 6th-century encyclopedia compiled by Varahamihira

Varahamihira

Varāhamihira , also called Varaha or Mihira, was an Indian astronomer, mathematician, and astrologer who lived in Ujjain...

or the Sassanid Persian Abgân first recorded in the 3rd century or both. Both ultimately derive from the Sanskrit

Sanskrit

Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

tribal name Aśvaka , describing the Kambojas south of the Hindu Kush

Hindu Kush

The Hindu Kush is an mountain range that stretches between central Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. The highest point in the Hindu Kush is Tirich Mir in the Chitral region of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.It is the westernmost extension of the Pamir Mountains, the Karakoram Range, and is a...

. -Stan ultimately derives from the proposed Proto-Indo-European

Pie

A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients....

root *stā- ("stand").

Until the 19th century, the name Afghanistan was used for the traditional Pashtun territory

Pashtunistan

Pakhtunistan or Pashtunistan, meaning the "land of Pakhtuns" or "land of Pashtuns", is a modern term used for the historical region inhabited by the native Afghans or Pashtun since at least the 1st millennium BC...

between the Hindu Kush

Hindu Kush

and the Indus River

Indus River

The Indus River is a major river which flows through Pakistan. It also has courses through China and India.Originating in the Tibetan plateau of western China in the vicinity of Lake Mansarovar in Tibet Autonomous Region, the river runs a course through the Ladakh district of Jammu and Kashmir and...

mostly in present-day Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

, while the kingdom as a whole was known as the "Kingdom of Kabul

Kabulistan

Kabulistan is a historical term referring to the eastern territories of Greater Khorasan that is centered around present-day Kabul, Afghanistan...

". This was abandoned in favor of Afghanistan after its English translation had appeared on treaties between the British Raj

British Raj

British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...

and Qajarid Persia

Qajar dynasty

The Qajar dynasty was an Iranian royal family of Turkic descent who ruled Persia from 1785 to 1925....

concerning the Barakzai dynasty

Barakzai dynasty

The Barakzai dynasty ruled Afghanistan from 1826 until 1929 or 1973 when the monarchy rule finally ended under Mohammad Zahir Shah. The Barakzai dynasty was established by Dost Mohammad Khan after the Durrani dynasty of Ahmad Shah Durrani was removed from power...

of Kabul. The change was confirmed by the 1919 Treaty of Rawalpindi

Treaty of Rawalpindi

The Treaty of Rawalpindi was an armistice made between the United Kingdom and Afghanistan during the Third Anglo-Afghan War...

and the 1923 constitution

Constitution of Afghanistan

The Constitution of Afghanistan is the supreme law of the state Afghanistan, which serves as the legal framework between the Afghan government and the Afghan citizens...

Kabul
Kabulistan
Kabulistan is a historical term referring to the eastern territories of Greater Khorasan that is centered around present-day Kabul, Afghanistan...

or Caboul, a former name: "Land of Kabul

Kabul

Kabul , spelt Caubul in some classic literatures, is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. It is also the capital of the Kabul Province, located in the eastern section of Afghanistan...

", a city probably deriving its name from the nearby Kabul River

Kabul River

Kabul River , the classical Cophes , is a 700 km long river that starts in the Sanglakh Range of the Hindu Kush Mountains in Afghanistan and ends in the Indus River near Attock, Pakistan. It is the main river in eastern Afghanistan and is separated from the watershed of the Helmand by the Unai Pass...

which was known in Sanskrit

Sanskrit

as the Kubhā, possibly from Scythian ku ("water"). Although the city has only been attested at its present site since the 8th century, after the Muslim invasions

Islamic conquest of Afghanistan

The Islamic conquest of Afghanistan began in the middle of the 7th century after the Islamic conquest of Persia was completed, when Arab Muslims defeated the Sassanid Empire at the battles of Walaja, al-Qādisiyyah and Nahavand. The Muslim Arabs then began to move towards the lands east of Persia...

made it preferable to the less defensible Bagram

Bagram

Bagram , founded as Alexandria on the Caucasus and known in medieval times as Kapisa, is a small town and seat in Bagram District in Parwan Province of Afghanistan, about 60 kilometers north of the capital Kabul. It is the site of an ancient city located at the junction of the Ghorband and Panjshir...

, it has been linked to the Kabolitae and Cabura (Κάβουρα, Káboura) found in some versions of Ptolemy

Ptolemy

Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...

, which in turn has been claimed to have originally been a "Kambojapura" derived from Kamboja above and -pura .

Albania

"Land of the Albanians

Albanians

Albanians are a nation and ethnic group native to Albania and neighbouring countries. They speak the Albanian language. More than half of all Albanians live in Albania and Kosovo...

", Latinized

Romanization

In linguistics, romanization or latinization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Roman script, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system . Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written...

from Byzantine Greek Albanía (Αλβανία), land of the rebel Albanoi (Αλβανοι) mentioned in the History of Michael Attaliates

Michael Attaliates

Michael Attaleiates or Attaliates was a Greek public servant and historian at Constantinople.Michael was probably a native of Attalia...

around AD 1080. In her Alexiad
Alexiad
The Alexiad is a medieval biographical text written around the year 1148 by the Byzantine historian Anna Comnena, daughter of Emperor Alexius I....

, Anna Comnena also mentions a settlement called Albanon or Arbanon. Both may be survivals of the earlier Illyrian tribe, the Albani of the Albanopolis

Albanopolis

Albanopolis was a city in ancient Roman Macedon specifically in Epirus Nova, the city of the Albanoi, an Illyrian tribe. The editors of the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World locate Albanopolis at the modern-day village of Zgërdhesh, near Krujë, Albania...

northeast of modern Durrës

Durrës

Durrës is the second largest city of Albania located on the central Albanian coast, about west of the capital Tirana. It is one of the most ancient and economically important cities of Albania. Durres is situated at one of the narrower points of the Adriatic Sea, opposite the Italian ports of Bari...

which appears in Ptolemy

Ptolemy

around AD 150. The demonym has been supposed to ultimately originate from Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

("white") or from the proposed Proto-Indo-European

Pie

A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients....

*alb ("hill") or *alb- ("white"). A formerly popular pseudoetymology traced the name to Caucasian Albania

Caucasian Albania

Albania is a name for the historical region of the eastern Caucasus, that existed on the territory of present-day republic of...

(see Azerbaijan below).

Arbëri, its medieval endonym: "Land of the Albanians" in Albanian

Albanian language

Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...

, presumably from the same source as above by way of rhotacism. An Arbanitai were mentioned in Attaliates's History as subjects of the Duke of Dyrrachium, near modern Durrës

Durrës

Arnavutluk, its Ottoman Turkish

Ottoman Turkish language

The Ottoman Turkish language or Ottoman language is the variety of the Turkish language that was used for administrative and literary purposes in the Ottoman Empire. It borrows extensively from Arabic and Persian, and was written in a variant of the Perso-Arabic script...

name: "Land of the Albanians", a metathesis

Metathesis (linguistics)

Metathesis is the re-arranging of sounds or syllables in a word, or of words in a sentence. Most commonly it refers to the switching of two or more contiguous sounds, known as adjacent metathesis or local metathesis:...

from Byzantine Greek Arbanitai and the Turkish locative suffix -lik or -luk.

Shqipëri, its modern endonym: "Land of the Understanding", from the Albanian adverb shqip, "understanding each other". A popular pseudoetymology ("Land of the Eagles") erroneously derives it instead from shqiponje ("eagle").

Algeria

"Land of Algiers

Algiers

' is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000...

", a Latinization

Romanization

of French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

colonial name L'Algérie
French Algeria
French Algeria lasted from 1830 to 1962, under a variety of governmental systems. From 1848 until independence, the whole Mediterranean region of Algeria was administered as an integral part of France, much like Corsica and Réunion are to this day. The vast arid interior of Algeria, like the rest...

adopted in 1839. The city's name derives from French

French language

Alger, itself from Catalan

Catalan language

Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...

Adjère, from the Ottoman Turkish

Ottoman Turkish language

Cezayir and Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

al-Jazāʼir (الجزائر, "The Islands"). This was a truncated form of the city's older name, Jazā’ir Banī Mazghannā (جزائر بني مازغان, "Islands of the sons of Mazgḥannā"), which referred to four islands off the city's coast which were held by a local Sanhaja

Sanhaja

The Sanhaja or Senhaja were once one of the largest Berber tribal confederations of the Maghreb, along with the Zanata and Masmuda...

tribe. (These islands joined the mainland in 1525.) An alternate theory traces the Arabic further back to a transcription of the Berber Ldzayer in reference to Ziri ibn-Manad, founder of the Zirid Dynasty, whose son resettled the city. In Berber, ziri means "moonlight".

Algiers or Algier, former names: As above.

Andorra

Etymology unknown. Andorra was established as part of Charlemagne

Charlemagne

Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...

's Marca Hispanica
Marca Hispanica
The Marca Hispanica , also known as Spanish March or March of Barcelona was a buffer zone beyond the province of Septimania, created by Charlemagne in 795 as a defensive barrier between the Umayyad Moors of Al-Andalus and the Frankish Kingdom....

and its name may derive from Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

al-Darra (الدرا, "The Forest"), Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

andar ("to walk"), or Navarro-Aragonese

Navarro-Aragonese

Navarro-Aragonese was a Romance language spoken south of the middle Pyrenees and in part of the Ebro River basin in the Middle Ages. The language extended over the County of Aragón, Sobrarbe, Ribagorza, the southern plains of Navarre on both banks of the Ebro including La Rioja and the eastern...

andurrial ("scrubland"). One folk etymology holds that it derives from the Biblical

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

Endor

Endor (village)

Endor was a Canaanite city which is listed in the Book of Joshua as one of the cities with its dependencies that the Israelites failed to dispossess. It is located between the Hill of Moreh and Mount Tabor in the Jezreel Valley....

, a name bestowed by Louis le Debonnaire after defeating the Moors in the "wild valleys of Hell".

Angola

"Land of Ndongo

Kingdom of Ndongo

The Kingdom of Ndongo, formerly known as Dongo or Angola, is the name of an early-modern African state located in what is now day Angola. Ndongo was built by the Northern Mbundu people, a Bantu-speaking people inhabiting northern Angola....

", from the Portuguese

Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

colonial name (Reino de Angola
Angola (Portugal)
Angola is the common name by which the Portuguese colony in southwestern Africa was known across different periods of time...

), which erroneously derived a toponym from the Mbundu

Mbundu

The Northern Mbundu or Ambundu are a people living in Angola's North-West, North of the river Kwanza. The Ambundu speak Kimbundu, and mostly also the official language of the country, Portuguese...

title ngola a kiluanje ("conquering ngola", a priestly title originally denoting a "chief smith", then eventually "king") held by Ndambi a Ngola as lord of Ndongo

Kingdom of Ndongo

, a state in the highlands between the Kwanza and Lukala Rivers.

Antigua and Barbuda

Antigua
Antigua
Antigua , also known as Waladli, is an island in the West Indies, in the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean region, the main island of the country of Antigua and Barbuda. Antigua means "ancient" in Spanish and was named by Christopher Columbus after an icon in Seville Cathedral, Santa Maria de la...

: "Ancient", corrected from earlier Antego, a truncation of the Spanish

Spanish language

Santa Maria la Antigua, bestowed in 1493 by Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...

in honor of the Virgen de la Antigua ("Virgin of the Old Cathedral"), a revered mid-14th-century icon in the Chapel of La Antigua in Seville Cathedral

Seville Cathedral

The Cathedral of Saint Mary of the See , better known as Seville Cathedral, is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Seville . It is the largest Gothic cathedral and the third-largest church in the world....

Barbuda
Barbuda
Barbuda is an island in the Eastern Caribbean, and forms part of the state of Antigua and Barbuda. It has a population of about 1,500, most of whom live in the town of Codrington.-Location:...

: "Bearded" in Spanish

Spanish language

, corrected from earlier Barbado, Berbuda, Barbouthos, &c. This may derive from the appearance of the island's fig trees or from the beards of the indigenous people.

Argentina

"" (lit. "Silvery"), from the 17th-century Spanish

Spanish language

La Argentina, a truncation of Tierra Argentina ("Land beside the Silvery River", lit. "Silvery Land"), named via poetic Spanish in reference to the Río de la Plata

Río de la Plata

The Río de la Plata —sometimes rendered River Plate in British English and the Commonwealth, and occasionally rendered [La] Plata River in other English-speaking countries—is the river and estuary formed by the confluence of the Uruguay River and the Paraná River on the border between Argentina and...

(Spanish

Spanish language

: "Silver River"; ), so-called by Sebastian Cabot

Sebastian Cabot (explorer)

Sebastian Cabot was an explorer, born in the Venetian Republic.-Origins:...

during his expedition there in the 1520s after acquiring some silver trinkets from the Guaraní along the Paraná

Paraná River

The Paraná River is a river in south Central South America, running through Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina for some . It is second in length only to the Amazon River among South American rivers. The name Paraná is an abbreviation of the phrase "para rehe onáva", which comes from the Tupi language...

near modern-day Asunción

Asunción

Asunción is the capital and largest city of Paraguay.The "Ciudad de Asunción" is an autonomous capital district not part of any department. The metropolitan area, called Gran Asunción, includes the cities of San Lorenzo, Fernando de la Mora, Lambaré, Luque, Mariano Roque Alonso, Ñemby, San...

, Paraguay

Paraguay

Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...

Armenia

Etymology unknown. Latinized

Romanization

from Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

Armenía , "Land of the Armenioi" attested in the 5th century BC, from Old Persian Armina (

) attested in the late 6th century BC, of uncertain origin.

It may be a continuation of the Assyrian

Akkadian language

Akkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate...

Armânum which was conquered by Naram-Sin in 2200 BC and has been identified with an Akkadian colony in the Diarbekr region. The name has also been claimed as a variant of the Urmani or Urmenu appearing in an inscription of Menuas of Urartu

Menuas of Urartu

Menua was the fifth known king of Urartu, an ancient country in the Eastern Anatolia, from circa 810 BC to approximately 786 BC.A younger son of the preceding Urartuan King, Ishpuini, Menua was adopted as co-ruler by his father in the last years of his reign...

, as a proposed tribe of the Hayasa-Azzi

Hayasa-Azzi

Hayasa-Azzi or Azzi-Hayasa was a Late Bronze Age confederation formed between two petty kingdoms of Anatolia, Hayasa located South of Trabzon and Azzi, located North of the Euphrates and to the South of Hayasa...

known as the Armens or as a continuation of the Biblical

Bible

Minni
Minni
Minni may be:*an ethnonym attested in the Hebrew Bible, possibly the Mannaeans*the Old Norse for "remembrance", see minnisveig...

and Assyrian Minnai, corresponding to the Mannai. (Addition of the Sumerogram

Sumerogram

A Sumerogram is the use of a Sumerian cuneiform character or group of characters as an ideogram or logogram rather than a syllabogram in the graphic representation of a language other than Sumerian, such as Akkadian or Hittite....

^ḪAR would make this name equivalent to "the mountainous region of the Minni".) Diakonoff derived the name from a proposed Urartian

Urartian language

Urartian, Vannic, and Chaldean are conventional names for the language spoken by the inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Urartu that was located in the region of Lake Van, with its capital near the site of the modern town of Van, in the Armenian Highland, modern-day Eastern Anatolia region of...

and Aramaic

Aramaic language

Aramaic is a group of languages belonging to the Afroasiatic language phylum. The name of the language is based on the name of Aram, an ancient region in central Syria. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic family, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic subfamily,...

amalgam *Armnaia ("inhabitant of Arme" or "Urme"), a region held by Proto-Armenians in the Sason

Sason

Sason is a district in the Batman Province of Turkey. It was formerly part of the sanjak of Siirt, which was in Diyarbakır vilayet until 1880 and in Bitlis vilayet in 1892. Later it became part of Muş sanjak in Bitlis vilayet, and remained part of Muş until 1927...

mountains. Ultimately, the name has been connected to the Proto-Indo-European

Pie

A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients....

root *ar- ("assemble", "create") also found in Ararat, Aryan

Aryan

Aryan is an English language loanword derived from Sanskrit ārya and denoting variously*In scholarly usage:**Indo-Iranian languages *in dated usage:**the Indo-European languages more generally and their speakers...

, Arta, &c.

The Armenians traditionally traced the name to an eponymous ancestor Aram

Aram, son of Shem

Aram is a son of Shem, according to the Table of Nations in Genesis 10 of the Hebrew Bible, and the father of Uz, Hul, Gether and Mash. The Book of Chronicles confirms Aram as one of Shem's sons, confirming Uz, Hul, Gether and Mash, as also on the list of Shem's descendants. Aram son of Shem is ...

, sometimes equated with Arame, the earliest known king of Urartu

Urartu

Urartu , corresponding to Ararat or Kingdom of Van was an Iron Age kingdom centered around Lake Van in the Armenian Highland....

. Strabo derived the etymology from an Armenius of Armenium, a city on Lake Boebeïs in Thessaly

Ancient Thessaly

Ancient Thessaly or Thessalia was one of the traditional regions of Ancient Greece. During the Mycenaean period, Thessaly was known as Aeolia, a name which continued to be used for one of the major tribes of Greece, the Aeolians, and their dialect of Greek, .-History:Thessaly was home to an...

, while Herodotus called them Phrygia

Phrygia

In antiquity, Phrygia was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now modern-day Turkey. The Phrygians initially lived in the southern Balkans; according to Herodotus, under the name of Bryges , changing it to Phruges after their final migration to Anatolia, via the...

n colonists.

Hayastan, the local endonym: Etymology unknown. The modern Armenian

Armenian language

The Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian people. It is the official language of the Republic of Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The language is also widely spoken by Armenian communities in the Armenian diaspora...

Hayastan derives from earlier Armenian Hayk’ and Persian

Persian language

-stān . Hayk’ derives from Old Armenian Haykʿ , traditionally derived from a legendary patriarch named Hayk . Aram above was considered to be one of his descendants.

Australia

"Southern Land" in New Latin

New Latin

The term New Latin, or Neo-Latin, is used to describe the Latin language used in original works created between c. 1500 and c. 1900. Among other uses, Latin during this period was employed in scholarly and scientific publications...

, adapted from the legendary pseudo-geographical Terra Australis Incognita ("Unknown Southern Land") dating back to the Roman era. First appearing as a corruption of the Spanish name for an island in Vanuatu

Vanuatu

Vanuatu , officially the Republic of Vanuatu , is an island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is some east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, west of Fiji, and southeast of the Solomon Islands, near New Guinea.Vanuatu was...

in 1625, "Australia" was slowly popularized following the advocacy of the British explorer

European exploration of Australia

The European exploration of Australia encompasses several waves of seafarers and land explorers. Although Australia is often loosely said to have been discovered by Royal Navy Lieutenant James Cook in 1770, he was merely one of a number of European explorers to have sighted and landed on the...

Matthew Flinders

Captain Matthew Flinders RN was one of the most successful navigators and cartographers of his age. In a career that spanned just over twenty years, he sailed with Captain William Bligh, circumnavigated Australia and encouraged the use of that name for the continent, which had previously been...

in his 1814 description of his circumnavigation of the island. Lachlan Macquarie

Lachlan Macquarie

Major-General Lachlan Macquarie CB , was a British military officer and colonial administrator. He served as the last autocratic Governor of New South Wales, Australia from 1810 to 1821 and had a leading role in the social, economic and architectural development of the colony...

, a Governor of New South Wales, used the word in his dispatches to England and recommended it be formally adopted by the Colonial Office in 1817. The Admiralty agreed seven years later and the continent became officially known as Australia in 1824.

Oz, a colloquial endonym: Likely a contraction from above. Folk etymology traces the name to the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)
The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The lyrics for the songs...

, but the Oxford English Dictionary

Oxford English Dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...

records the first occurrence as "Oss" in 1908. Frank Baum

L. Frank Baum

Lyman Frank Baum was an American author of children's books, best known for writing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...

's original book

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a children's novel written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. Originally published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago on May 17, 1900, it has since been reprinted numerous times, most often under the name The Wizard of Oz, which is the name of...

predates this and may have inspired the name, but it is also possible Baum himself was influenced by Australia in his development of Oz.

Nova Hollandia
New Holland (Australia)
New Holland is a historic name for the island continent of Australia. The name was first applied to Australia in 1644 by the Dutch seafarer Abel Tasman as Nova Hollandia, naming it after the Dutch province of Holland, and remained in use for 180 years....

, a former name: "New Holland" in New Latin

New Latin

, after the Dutch province, bestowed by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman

Abel Tasman

Abel Janszoon Tasman was a Dutch seafarer, explorer, and merchant, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the VOC . His was the first known European expedition to reach the islands of Van Diemen's Land and New Zealand and to sight the Fiji islands...

in 1644. For the further etymology of Holland, see the Netherlands below.

Austria

"Eastern March", Latinized as early as 1147 from German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

Österreich, from Old High German

Old High German

The term Old High German refers to the earliest stage of the German language and it conventionally covers the period from around 500 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the second half of the 8th century, and some treat the period before 750 as 'prehistoric' and date the start of...

Ostarrîchi
Ostarrîchi
The German name of Austria, , derives from the Old High German word . A variant is recorded in the Ostarrîchi Document of 996. This word is thought to be a translation of Latin Marchia Orientalis into a local dialect. This was a march, or borderland, of the Duchy of Bavaria created in 976. Reich...

(996) or Osterrîche (998), from Medieval Latin

Medieval Latin

Medieval Latin was the form of Latin used in the Middle Ages, primarily as a medium of scholarly exchange and as the liturgical language of the medieval Roman Catholic Church, but also as a language of science, literature, law, and administration. Despite the clerical origin of many of its authors,...

Marchia Orientalis, an eastern prefecture for the Duchy of Bavaria

Duchy of Bavaria

The Duchy of Bavaria was the only one of the stem duchies from the earliest days of East Francia and the Kingdom of Germany to preserve both its name and most of its territorial extent....

established in 976. A common pseudoetymology renders Österreich as "Eastern Empire", but this is a false cognate

False cognate

False cognates are pairs of words in the same or different languages that are similar in form and meaning but have different roots. That is, they appear to be, or are sometimes considered, cognates, when in fact they are not....

. Similarly, it is completely unrelated etymologically to Australia.

Azerbaijan

"Land of Aturpat", a Hellenistic-era king over a region in present-day Iranian Azarbaijan

Azerbaijan (Iran)

Azerbaijan or Azarbaijan , also Iranian Azerbaijan, Persian Azarbaijan is a region in northwestern Iran. It is also historically known as Atropatene and Aturpatakan....

and Iranian Kurdistan

Iranian Kurdistan

Iranian Kurdistan is an unofficial name for the parts of Iran inhabited by Kurds and has borders with Iraq and Turkey. It includes Kurdistan Province, Kermanshah Province, Ilam Province and parts of West Azerbaijan province....

, south of the modern state. Despite this difference, the present name was chosen by the Musavat to replace the Russian

Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

names Transcaucasia

Special Transcaucasian Committee

Special Transcaucasian Committee was established on March 9, 1917, with Member of the State Duma V. A...

and Baku

Baku Governorate

Baku Governorate was one of the guberniyas of the Russian Empire, with its centre in Baku. Area : 34,4000 sq. verstas, population : 789,659. The only foreign border of the governorate was Persia, in the south...

in 1918. "Azerbaijan" derives from Persian Āzarbāydjān, from earlier Ādharbāyagān and Ādharbādhagān, from Middle Persian

Middle Persian

Middle Persian , indigenously known as "Pârsig" sometimes referred to as Pahlavi or Pehlevi, is the Middle Iranian language/ethnolect of Southwestern Iran that during Sassanid times became a prestige dialect and so came to be spoken in other regions as well. Middle Persian is classified as a...

Āturpātākān, from Old Persian Atropatkan. (The name is often derived from the Greek

Koine Greek

Koine Greek is the universal dialect of the Greek language spoken throughout post-Classical antiquity , developing from the Attic dialect, with admixture of elements especially from Ionic....

Atropatene
Atropatene
Atropatene was an ancient kingdom established and ruled under local ethnic Iranian dynasts first with "Darius" of Persia and later "Alexander" of Macedonia, starting in the 4th century BC and includes the territory of modern-day Iranian Azarbaijan and Iranian Kurdistan. Its capital was Gazaca...

, Atropátios Mēdía , or Tropatēnē , although these were exonyms and Atropatkan was never thoroughly Hellenized.) Atropatkan was a renaming of the Achaemenian XVIII Satrapy of Eastern Armenia, comprising Matiene

Matiene

Matiene was the name of a kingdom in northwestern Iran which overran the kingdom of the Mannae. The Mannaeans were non-Indo-European, probably speaking either an Hurro-Urartian language like the Nairi or a Northeast Caucasian language like the Albanians to the north...

and the surrounding Urartians

Urartu

Urartu , corresponding to Ararat or Kingdom of Van was an Iron Age kingdom centered around Lake Van in the Armenian Highland....

and Saspirians, upon Aturpat's declaration of independence from the Diadochi

Diadochi

The Diadochi were the rival generals, family and friends of Alexander the Great who fought for the control of Alexander's empire after his death in 323 BC...

Seleucus

Seleucus I Nicator

Seleucus I was a Macedonian officer of Alexander the Great and one of the Diadochi. In the Wars of the Diadochi that took place after Alexander's death, Seleucus established the Seleucid dynasty and the Seleucid Empire...

following the death of Alexander the Great. Aturpat's own name (Old Persian:

; , Atropátēs) is the Old Persian for "protected by atar
Atar
Atar is the Zoroastrian concept of holy fire, sometimes described in abstract terms as "burning and unburning fire" or "visible and invisible fire" ....

", the holy fire of Zoroastrianism

Zoroastrianism

Zoroastrianism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of prophet Zoroaster and was formerly among the world's largest religions. It was probably founded some time before the 6th century BCE in Greater Iran.In Zoroastrianism, the Creator Ahura Mazda is all good, and no evil...

Albania, a former name: From the Latin , from the Greek

Ancient Greek

Albanía , related to the Old Armenian Ałuankʿ . The native Lezgic

Lezgic languages

The Lezgic languages are one the seven branches of the Northeast Caucasian language family. Lezgian and Tabasaran are literary languages.-Classification:* Peripheral: Archi – 1200 speakers* Samur ** Eastern Samur*** Udi – 5000 speakers...

name(s) for the country is unknown, but Strabo reported its people to have 26 different languages and to have only been recently unified in his time. It is often referenced as "Caucasian Albania" in modern scholarship to distinguish it from the European country above.

Arran, a former name: From the Middle Persian

Middle Persian

Arran, from Parthian

Parthian language

The Parthian language, also known as Arsacid Pahlavi and Pahlavanik, is a now-extinct ancient Northwestern Iranian language spoken in Parthia, a region of northeastern ancient Persia during the rule of the Parthian empire....

Ardhan, derived via rhotacism from earlier names as above.

Transcaucasia, a former name: A Latinization

Romanization

of the Russian

Russian language

name Zakavkaz'e (Закавказье), both meaning "across the Caucasus Mountains

Caucasus Mountains

The Caucasus Mountains is a mountain system in Eurasia between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea in the Caucasus region .The Caucasus Mountains includes:* the Greater Caucasus Mountain Range and* the Lesser Caucasus Mountains....

" — i.e., from Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

. It appeared in the names of two states, the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic

Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic

The Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic , was a short-lived state composed of the modern-day countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia in the South Caucasus.-...

and the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic.

The Bahamas

"The Shallows", from the Spanish

Spanish language

name Archipiélago de las Bahamas, likely from a variant spelling of baja mar ("low" or "shallow sea") in reference to the reef-filled Bahama Banks

Bahama Banks

The Bahama Banks are the submerged carbonate platforms that make up much of the Bahama Archipelago. The term is usually applied in referring to either the Great Bahama Bank around Andros Island, or the Little Bahama Bank of Grand Bahama Island and Great Abaco, which are the largest of the...

. First attested on the c. 1523 "Turin Map", Bahama originally referred to Grand Bahama

Grand Bahama

Grand Bahama is one of the northernmost of the islands of the Bahamas, and the closest major island to the United States, lying off the state of Florida. Grand Bahama is the fifth largest island in the Bahamas island chain of approximately 700 islands and 2,400 cays...

alone but was used inclusively even in English by 1670. The Spanish name has been alternately derived from a translation

Homophonic translation

Homophonic translation renders a text in one language into a near-homophonic text in another language, usually with no attempt to preserve the original meaning of the text. In one homophonic translation, for example, English "sat on a wall" is rendered as French "s'étonne aux Halles" 'is...

of the Lucayan Taíno

Taíno language

Taíno, an Arawakan language, was the principal language of the Caribbean islands at the time of the Spanish Conquest, including the Bahamas, Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, the Florida Keys, and the Lesser Antilles...

name of Grand Bahama, Ba ha ma (lit. "Big upper middle land"), or from the Palombe of John Mandeville

John Mandeville

"Jehan de Mandeville", translated as "Sir John Mandeville", is the name claimed by the compiler of The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, a book account of his supposed travels, written in Anglo-Norman French, and first circulated between 1357 and 1371.By aid of translations into many other languages...

's Travels whose fountain of youth

Fountain of Youth

The Fountain of Youth is a legendary spring that reputedly restores the youth of anyone who drinks of its waters. Tales of such a fountain have been recounted across the world for thousands of years, appearing in writings by Herodotus, the Alexander romance, and the stories of Prester John...

became conflated with Caribbean legends about Bimini

Bimini

Bimini is the westernmost district of the Bahamas composed of a chain of islands located about 53 miles due east of Miami, Florida. Bimini is the closest point in the Bahamas to the mainland United States and approximately 137 miles west-northwest of Nassau...

and Boinca.

Bahrain

"The Two Seas" in Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

. However, which two seas were originally intended remains in dispute. A popular folk etymology relates Bahrain to the "two seas" mentioned five times in the Quran. The passages, however, do not refer to the modern island but rather to the Saudi deserts

Bahrain (historical region)

Bahrain is a historical region in eastern Arabia that was known as the Province of Bahrain until the 16th Century. It stretched from the south of Basra along the Persian Gulf coast and included the regions of Kuwait, Al-Hasa, Qatif, Qatar, and the Awal Islands, now known as Bahrain. The name...

opposite modern Bahrain. It is possible Bahrain (previously known as Awal

Awal

Awal is the ancient name of Bahrain, an island country in the Persian Gulf. The name Awal had remained in use, probably for eight centuries. Awal was derived from the name of a god that used to be worshiped by the inhabitants of the islands before the advent of Islam. Awal resembled the head of an...

) simply acquired its name when that region became known as Al-Hasa

Al-Hasa

Al-Ahsa is the largest governorate in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, named after Al-Ahsa oasis. The name Al-Ahsa is also given to the biggest city in the region, Hofuf. In classic Arabic, Ahsa means the sound of water underground. It has one of the largest oases in the world with Date Palms of...

, but today the name is generally taken to refer to the island itself. The two seas are then the bay east and west of the island, the seas north and south of the island, or the salt water surrounding the island and the fresh water beneath it which appears in wells and also bubbling up at places in the middle of the gulf. An alternate theory offered by al-Ahsa was that the two seas were the Great Green Ocean and a peaceful lake on the mainland; still another provided by al-Jawahari is that the original formal name Bahri (lit. "belonging to the sea") would have been misunderstood and so was opted against.

Bangladesh

"Country of Bengal

Bengal

Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...

", a compound

Compound (linguistics)

In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word formation that creates compound lexemes...

of Bengali

Bengali language

Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...

Bangla ' onMouseout='HidePop("7070")' href="/topics/Bengal">Bengal

Bengal

") and -desh which appeared in Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's 1971 declaration of independence

Bangladeshi Declaration of Independence

The independence of Bangladesh was declared by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman through a message on 26 March 1971 just before he was arrested at about 1:30 a.m....

for East Pakistan

East Pakistan

East Pakistan was a provincial state of Pakistan established in 14 August 1947. The provincial state existed until its declaration of independence on 26 March 1971 as the independent nation of Bangladesh. Pakistan recognized the new nation on 16 December 1971. East Pakistan was created from Bengal...

. The earliest reference to Bengal has been traced in the early-9th-century Nesari plates. It is derived from the ancient Vanga

Vanga Kingdom

Vanga orBengal was a kingdom located in the eastern part of the Indian Subcontinent, comprising part of West Bengal, India and present-day modern Bangladesh. It was a seafaring nation of Ancient India.- References in Mahabharata :...

or Banga Kingdom mentioned in the Mahabharata

Mahabharata

The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India and Nepal, the other being the Ramayana. The epic is part of itihasa....

as located in eastern Bengal, which in turn is thought to preserve the name of a Dravidian-speaking tribe called the Bang who settled the region around the year 1000 BC.

Folk etymologies also trace the name to the Austric Bonga (a sun god) and bhang

Bhang

Bhang is a preparation from the leaves and flowers of the female cannabis plant, smoked or consumed as a beverage in the Indian subcontinent.- India:...

, a preparation of cannabis.

East Pakistan
East Pakistan
East Pakistan was a provincial state of Pakistan established in 14 August 1947. The provincial state existed until its declaration of independence on 26 March 1971 as the independent nation of Bangladesh. Pakistan recognized the new nation on 16 December 1971. East Pakistan was created from Bengal...

, a former name: See Pakistan below.

East Bengal
East Bengal
East Bengal was the name used during two periods in the 20th century for a territory that roughly corresponded to the modern state of Bangladesh. Both instances involved a violent partition of Bengal....

, a former name: See above.

Barbados

"Bearded ones", from the Portuguese

Portuguese language

Las Barbadas, corrected from earlier Barbata, Barbuda, S. Barduda, Barbadoes, &c. First attested by a 1519 map done by the Genoese

Republic of Genoa

The Most Serene Republic of Genoa |Ligurian]]: Repúbrica de Zêna) was an independent state from 1005 to 1797 in Liguria on the northwestern Italian coast, as well as Corsica from 1347 to 1768, and numerous other territories throughout the Mediterranean....

cartographer Visconte Maggiolo

Visconte Maggiolo

Visconte Maggiolo , also spelled Maiollo and Maiolo, was an Italian cartographer and sailor.He was born in Florence and was a fellow sailor of explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano. He died of malaria in 1530....

. As with Barbuda, the name may derive from the appearance of the island's fig trees or from the beards of the indigenous people. (Taylor was of the opinion that Barbuda was named for its men, Barbados for its figs.)

Belarus

"White Russia", a compound

Compound (linguistics)

In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word formation that creates compound lexemes...

of the Belarussian bel- (-, "white") and Rus .gif", event)' onMouseout='HidePop("42796")' href="/topics/Rus'_(people)">Rus'

Rus' (people)

The Rus' were a group of Varangians . According to the Primary Chronicle of Rus, compiled in about 1113 AD, the Rus had relocated from the Baltic region , first to Northeastern Europe, creating an early polity which finally came under the leadership of Rurik...

) adopted in 1991. The meaning is "Russian" in the cultural and historic ' onMouseout='HidePop("92167")' href="/topics/Old_Belarusian_language">Old Belarusian

Old Belarusian language

Old Belarusian was a historic East Slavic language, written and spoken at least in the 14th–17th century, and reported spoken as late as the very beginning of the 19th century, in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later in the East Slavic territories of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, probably...

: , ruski; , russkiy) but not national sense , a distinction sometimes made by translating the name as "White Ruthenia", although "Ruthenian" has other meanings

Ruthenia

Ruthenia is the Latin word used onwards from the 13th century, describing lands of the Ancient Rus in European manuscripts. Its geographic and culturo-ethnic name at that time was applied to the parts of Eastern Europe. Essentially, the word is a false Latin rendering of the ancient place name Rus...

as well. The name is first attested in the 13th century as German

German language

Weissrussland and Latin

Medieval Latin

Russia Alba, first in reference to Russia's White

White Sea

The White Sea is a southern inlet of the Barents Sea located on the northwest coast of Russia. It is surrounded by Karelia to the west, the Kola Peninsula to the north, and the Kanin Peninsula to the northeast. The whole of the White Sea is under Russian sovereignty and considered to be part of...

and then Black Sea

Black Sea

The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...

coasts. The exonym was next applied to Great Novgorod and then Muscovy after its conquest of that region, finally being applied to its present region in the late 16th century to describe ethnically Russian regions being conquered from Poland. This last change was politically motivated, with Russia

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

employing the foreign term to justify its revanchism at Poland's expense

Partitions of Poland

The Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland for 123 years...

. The original meaning of "white" in Belarus's name is unknown. It may simply have arisen from confusion with legends concerning Caucasian Albania

Caucasian Albania

Albania is a name for the historical region of the eastern Caucasus, that existed on the territory of present-day republic of...

or from a use of colors to distinguish cardinal directions as seen in "Red Russia

Red Ruthenia

Red Ruthenia is the name used since medieval times to refer to the area known as Eastern Galicia prior to World War I; first mentioned in Polish historic chronicles in the 1321, as Ruthenia Rubra or Ruthenian Voivodeship .Ethnographers explain that the term was applied from the...

". Other theories include its use to distinguish Belarus as "free" or "pure", particularly of Mongolian

Golden Horde

The Golden Horde was a Mongol and later Turkicized khanate that formed the north-western sector of the Mongol Empire...

control, or to distinguish the region from "Black Russia

Black Ruthenia

Black Ruthenia, Black Rus or Black Russia are variant conventional terms used for a region around Navahrudak , in the western part of contemporary Belarus on the upper reaches of the Neman River for the time period between the 13th and 14th centuries...

", a region of productive soil. For the further etymology of Rus, see Russia below.

Belorussia or Byelorussia, a former name: "White Russia" in Russian

Russian language

, truncated from the White Russian Soviet Socialist Republic declared in 1919.

White Russia, a former name: a translation of the above.

Belgium

"Land of the Belgae

Belgae

The Belgae were a group of tribes living in northern Gaul, on the west bank of the Rhine, in the 3rd century BC, and later also in Britain, and possibly even Ireland...

", from the Roman province

Roman province

In Ancient Rome, a province was the basic, and, until the Tetrarchy , largest territorial and administrative unit of the empire's territorial possessions outside of Italy...

of Gallia Belgica
Gallia Belgica
Gallia Belgica was a Roman province located in what is now the southern part of the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, northeastern France, and western Germany. The indigenous population of Gallia Belgica, the Belgae, consisted of a mixture of Celtic and Germanic tribes...

("Belgic Gaul") derived from the Latinized

Romanization

name of a Celt

Celt

The Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Roman-era Europe who spoke Celtic languages.The earliest archaeological culture commonly accepted as Celtic, or rather Proto-Celtic, was the central European Hallstatt culture , named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria....

ic tribe. The present Kingdom of Belgium adopted the name upon its independence from the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

in 1830 based on the French-language

French language

name of Henri Van der Noot's brief-lived United States of Belgium

United States of Belgium

The United States of Belgium, part of Brabant.In October, he invaded Brabant and captured Turnhout, defeating the Austrians in the Battle of Turnhout on October 27. Ghent was taken on November 13, and on November 17 the imperial regents Albert of Saxony and Archduchess Maria Christina fled Brussels...

which had declared its independence from Austria

Archduchy of Austria

The Archduchy of Austria , one of the most important states within the Holy Roman Empire, was the nucleus of the Habsburg Monarchy and the predecessor of the Austrian Empire...

in 1790. The tribe's exact endonym remains unknown, but the name Belgae is usually traced to the proposed Proto-Celtic root *belg- from the Proto-Indo-European

Pie

A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients....

*bhelgh-, both meaning "to bulge" or "to swell" (particularly with anger) and cognate with the Old English belgan, "to be angry". An alternate etymology takes it from a proposed Proto-Indo-European

Pie

A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients....

root meaning "dazzling" or "bright"

Belize

Etymology unknown. Traditionally derived from a Spanish

Spanish language

transcription of "Wallace", a Scottish buccaneer who established an eponymous settlement (on Spanish maps, Valize and Balize) along the Belize River

Belize River

Belize River is a 180-mile river in Belize that drains more than one-quarter of the country as it winds along the northern edge of the Maya Mountains across the center of the country to the sea just north of Belize City . However, the Belize River/Mopan River Catchment contains over 45 percent of...

(which he also named after himself) in the early 17th century. Alternatively taken from the Mayan word beliz ("muddy water"), presumably in reference to the river, or from Kongolese

Kingdom of Kongo

The Kingdom of Kongo was an African kingdom located in west central Africa in what are now northern Angola, Cabinda, the Republic of the Congo, and the western portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo...

Africans who brought the name with them from Cabinda

Belize, Angola

Belize is a town and municipality in Cabinda Province in Angola....

. Adopted in 1973 while still a self-governing colony

Self-governing colony

A self-governing colony is a colony with an elected legislature, in which politicians are able to make most decisions without reference to the colonial power with formal or nominal control of the colony...

of the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

A previous folk etymology took it from the French

French language

("beacon").

British Honduras
British Honduras
British Honduras was a British colony that is now the independent nation of Belize.First colonised by Spaniards in the 17th century, the territory on the east coast of Central America, south of Mexico, became a British crown colony from 1862 until 1964, when it became self-governing. Belize became...

, a former name: See Honduras and Great Britain below.

Benin

"[Land beside] the Bight of Benin

Bight of Benin

The Bight of Benin is a bight on the western African coast that extends eastward for about 400 miles from Cape St. Paul to the Nun outlet of the Niger River. To the east it is continued by the Bight of Bonny . The bight is part of the Gulf of Guinea...

", the stretch of the Gulf of Guinea

Gulf of Guinea

The Gulf of Guinea is the northeasternmost part of the tropical Atlantic Ocean between Cape Lopez in Gabon, north and west to Cape Palmas in Liberia. The intersection of the Equator and Prime Meridian is in the gulf....

west of the Niger delta

Niger River

The Niger River is the principal river of western Africa, extending about . Its drainage basin is in area. Its source is in the Guinea Highlands in southeastern Guinea...

, a purposefully neutral name chosen to replace Dahomey

Republic of Dahomey

The Republic of Dahomey was established on December 11, 1958, as a self-governing colony within the French Community. Prior to attaining autonomy it had been French Dahomey, part of the French Union...

(see below) in 1975. The Bight itself is named after a city

Benin City

Benin City, is a city and the capital of Edo State in southern Nigeria. It is a city approximately twenty-five miles north of the Benin River. It is situated 200 miles by road east of Lagos...

and a kingdom

Benin Empire

The Benin Empire was a pre-colonial African state in what is now modern Nigeria. It is not to be confused with the modern-day country called Benin, formerly called Dahomey.-Origin:...

in present-day Nigeria

Nigeria

Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...

having no relation to the modern Benin. The English name comes from a Portuguese transcription (Benin) of a local corruption (Bini) of the Itsekiri

Itsekiri language

The Itsekiri language is a major branch of the Yoruboid group of languages, which as a group, is a key member of the Volta–Niger sub-family of the Niger–Congo family of African Languages. Itsekiri is spoken by nearly 900,000 people in Nigeria as a first language and by many others as an additional...

form (Ubinu) of the Yoruba

Yoruba language

Yorùbá is a Niger–Congo language spoken in West Africa by approximately 20 million speakers. The native tongue of the Yoruba people, it is spoken, among other languages, in Nigeria, Benin, and Togo and in communities in other parts of Africa, Europe and the Americas...

Ile-Ibinu ("Home of Vexation"), a name bestowed on the Edo

Edo people

Edo is the name for the place, people and language of an ethnic group in Nigeria. Other Edo-speaking ethnic groups include the Esan and the Afemai...

capital by the irate Ife

Ife

Ife is an ancient Yoruba city in south-western Nigeria. Evidence of inhabitation at the site has been discovered to date back to roughly 560 BC...

oba

Oba of Benin

The Oba of Benin, or Omo N'Oba, is both the oba of the Edo people and the pretender to the defunct title of the king of the Benin Kingdom...

Oranyan

Oranyan Omoluabi, King of the Yoruba, also known as Oranmiyan, was a Yoruba king from the kingdom of Ile-Ife and heir to Oduduwa. According to Yoruba history, he founded Oyo at around the year 1170 and one of his children, Eweka I, went on to become the first Oba of the Benin Empire...

in the 12th century.

An alternate theory derives Bini from the Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

bani (بني, "sons" or "tribe").

Dahomey
Dahomey
Dahomey was a country in west Africa in what is now the Republic of Benin. The Kingdom of Dahomey was a powerful west African state that was founded in the seventeenth century and survived until 1894. From 1894 until 1960 Dahomey was a part of French West Africa. The independent Republic of Dahomey...

or Dahomy, a former name: "Belly of Dã" in Fon

Fon language

Fon is part of the Gbe language cluster and belongs to the Volta–Niger branch of the Niger–Congo languages. Fon is spoken mainly in Benin by approximately 1.7 million speakers, by the Fon people...

(Dã Homè), from the palace of the ahosu Akaba, traditionally built over the entrails of a local ruler. In Fon, the name "Dã" or "Dan" can also mean "snake" or the snake-god Damballa

Damballa

In Vodou, Damballah is one of the most important of all the loa . Damballah is the Sky God and considered the primordial creator of all life. The veve of Damballah comprises two serpents prominent among other emblems.-Family:...

. Upon the restoration of independence, the name was deemed no longer appropriate since the historic kingdom comprised only the southern regions and ethnicities of the modern state.

Abomey
Abomey
When UNESCO designated the royal palaces of Abomey as a World Heritage Site in 1985 it statedFrom 1993, 50 of the 56 bas-reliefs that formerly decorated the walls of King Glèlè have been located and replaced on the rebuilt structure...

, a former name: "Ramparts" in Fon

Fon language

(Agbomè), from the palace of the ahosu Houegbadja

Houegbadja

Aho Houegbadja was the third King of Dahomey. He succeeded his uncle, Dakodonou, and ruled from 1645 to 1685.Houegbadja was the first of the dynasty to set up the kingdom in Abomey proper: he founded the city by building his palace near the area of Guedevi, a few kilometers to the northwest of...

Bhutan

Etymology unknown. Names similar to Bhutanincluding Bottanthis, Bottan, Bottanterbegan to appear in Europe around the 1580s. Jean-Baptiste Tavernier

Jean-Baptiste Tavernier

Jean-Baptiste Tavernier was a French traveller and pioneer of trade with India, and travels through Persia , most known for works in two quarto volumes, Les Six Voyages de Jean-Baptiste Tavernier and diamond merchant for some important diamonds of the century...

's 1676 Six Voyages is the first to record the name Boutan. However, in every case, these seem to have been describing not modern Bhutan but the Kingdom of Tibet. The modern distinction between the two did not begin until well into George Bogle's 1774 expeditionrealizing the differences between the two regions, cultures, and states, his final report to the East India Company

East India Company

The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...

formally proposed labeling the Druk Desi

Druk Desi

The Druk Desi ;The original title is Dzongkha: སྡེ་སྲིད་ཕྱག་མཛོད་; Wylie: sde-srid phyag-mdzod. was the title of the secular rulers of Bhutan under the dual system of government between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries...

's kingdom as "Boutan" and the Panchen Lama

Panchen Lama

The Panchen Lama , or Bainqên Erdê'ni , is the highest ranking Lama after the Dalai Lama in the Gelugpa lineage of Tibetan Buddhism...

's as "Tibet". Subsequently, the EIC's surveyor general James Rennell

James Rennell

Major James Rennell, FRS was an English geographer, historian and a pioneer of oceanography.-Early life:Rennell was born near Chudleigh in Devon...

first anglicized the French name as Bootan and then popularized the distinction between it and greater Tibet. The name is traditionally taken to be a transcription of the Sanskrit

Sanskrit

Bhoṭa-anta (भोट-अन्त, "end of Tibet

Tibet

Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...

"), in reference to Bhutan's position as the southern extremity of the Tibetan plateau and culture. "Bhutan" may have been truncated from this or been taken from the Nepali

Nepali language

Nepali or Nepalese is a language in the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family.It is the official language and de facto lingua franca of Nepal and is also spoken in Bhutan, parts of India and parts of Myanmar...

name Bhutān (भूटान). It may also come from a truncation of Bodo Hathan ("Tibetan place"). All of these ultimately derive from the Tibetan

Tibetan language

The Tibetan languages are a cluster of mutually-unintelligible Tibeto-Burman languages spoken primarily by Tibetan peoples who live across a wide area of eastern Central Asia bordering the Indian subcontinent, including the Tibetan Plateau and the northern Indian subcontinent in Baltistan, Ladakh,...

endonym Bod (See Tibet below). An alternate theory derives it from the Sanskrit

Sanskrit

Bhu-Utthan (भू-उत्थान, "highlands").

Druk Yul, the local endonym: "Land of the Thunder Dragon" in Bhutanese (འབྲུག་ཡུལ་). Variations of this were known and used as early as 1730. The first time a Kingdom of Bhutan separate from Tibet did appear on a western map, it did so under its local name as "Broukpa".

Bolivia

"Land of Bolivar

Simón Bolívar

Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Yeiter, commonly known as Simón Bolívar was a Venezuelan military and political leader...

" in New Latin

New Latin

, in honor of Simón Bolívar

Simón Bolívar

Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Yeiter, commonly known as Simón Bolívar was a Venezuelan military and political leader...

, one of the leading generals in the Spanish American wars of independence. Bolívar had given his lieutenant Antonio José de Sucre

Antonio José de Sucre

Antonio José de Sucre y Alcalá , known as the "Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho" , was a Venezuelan independence leader. Sucre was one of Simón Bolívar's closest friends, generals and statesmen.-Ancestry:...

the option to keep Upper Peru

Upper Peru

Upper Peru was the region in the Viceroyalty of Peru, and after 1776, the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, comprising the governorships of Potosí, La Paz, Cochabamba, Los Chiquitos, Moxos and Charcas...

under Peru, to unite it with the United Provinces of Rio de la Plata, or to declare its independence. A national assembly opted for independence, then sought to placate Bolívar's doubts by naming Bolívar as the first president of a country named in his honor. The original name "Republic of Bolivar" was swiftly changed to Bolivia at the urging of the congressman Manuel Martín Cruz.

Bolívar's own name derives from the village of Bolibar

Ziortza-Bolibar

Ziortza-Bolibar is a municipality in the province of Biscay, Basque Country , in the comarca of Lea-Artibai. It has 383 inhabitants according to the 2006 census, and has an area of 18.94 km²....

in Spanish Biscay

Biscay

Biscay is a province of Spain and a historical territory of the Basque Country, heir of the ancient Lord of Biscay. Its capital city is Bilbao...

. Its name comes from the Basque bolu ("windmill") and ibar ("valley").

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Self-descriptive, originally translated from the Ottoman Turkish

Ottoman Turkish language

for the union of the Pashaluks of Bosna and Hersek following the death of the latter's governor, Ali Pasha Rizvanbegović

Ali-paša Rizvanbegovic

Ali Rizvanbegović was the Herzegovinian Muslim Bosniak Ottoman captain of Stolac from 1813 to 1833 and the semi-independent ruler of Herzegovina from 1833 to 1851.-Early Life:...

, in 1851.

Bosnia: "Land of the Bosna" in Latin

Medieval Latin

, first attested in the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII

Constantine VII

Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos or Porphyrogenitus, "the Purple-born" was the fourth Emperor of the Macedonian dynasty of the Byzantine Empire, reigning from 913 to 959...

's 958 De Administrando Imperio
De Administrando Imperio
De Administrando Imperio is the Latin title of a Greek work written by the 10th-century Eastern Roman Emperor Constantine VII. The Greek title of the work is...

. (The 12th-century Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja

Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja

The Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja is a medieval chronicle originally written by a Catholic monk of the Cistercian order by the name of Roger for the Croatian Ban Paul Šubić because an order form by Ban Šubić and a quote of Catholic monk have been discovered...

also mentions an 8th-century source for the name which, however, has not survived.) "Bosna" was the medieval name of the classical Latin Bossina. Anton Mayer proposed a connection with the proposed Proto-Indo-European

Pie

A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients....

roots *bos or *bogh ("running water"). Certain Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

sources similarly mention Bathinus flumen as a name of the Illyrian

Illyrian languages

The Illyrian languages are a group of Indo-European languages that were spoken in the western part of the Balkans in former times by groups identified as Illyrians: Ardiaei, Delmatae, Pannonii, Autariates, Taulanti...

Bosona, both of which would mean "running water" as well. Other theories involve the rare Latin

Latin

Bosina ("boundary") or possible Slavic

Slavic peoples

The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...

origins.

Herzegovina
Herzegovina
Herzegovina is the southern region of Bosnia and Herzegovina. While there is no official border distinguishing it from the Bosnian region, it is generally accepted that the borders of the region are Croatia to the west, Montenegro to the south, the canton boundaries of the Herzegovina-Neretva...

: "Duchy" or "Dukedom", an amalgam of German

German language

herzog ("duke") and the Serbo-Croatian

Serbo-Croatian

Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...

-ovina ("-land"). The duke was Stjepan Vukčić

Stjepan Vukcic Kosaca

Stjepan Vukčić Kosača was a Herzegovina nobleman. He was a member of the House of Kosača, a Grand Duke of Herzegovina, Lord of Zahumlje and Primorje and also Herzog of Serbian Saint Sava...

, Grand Voivode of Bosnia, who proclaimed himself "Duke of Hum

Zachlumia

Zachlumia or Zahumlje was a medieval principality located in modern-day regions of Herzegovina and southern Dalmatia...

and the Coast" and then either proclaimed himself or was bestowed the title "Duke of Saint Sava

Saint Sava

Saint Sava was a Serbian Prince and Orthodox monk, the first Archbishop of the autocephalous Serbian Church, the founder of Serbian law and literature, and a diplomat. Sava was born Rastko Nemanjić , the youngest son of Serbian Grand Župan Stefan Nemanja , and ruled the appanage of Hum briefly in...

of Serbia

Serbia

Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

" by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III

Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor

Frederick the Peaceful KG was Duke of Austria as Frederick V from 1424, the successor of Albert II as German King as Frederick IV from 1440, and Holy Roman Emperor as Frederick III from 1452...

around 1448. The Ottoman sanjak

Sanjak

Sanjaks were administrative divisions of the Ottoman Empire. Sanjak, and the variant spellings sandjak, sanjaq, and sinjaq, are English transliterations of the Turkish word sancak, meaning district, banner, or flag...

formed in the area after its 1482 conquest was simply called Hersek, but the longer Croatian form was adopted by Austria

Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...

and English.

Botswana

"Country of the Tswana" in Setswana, after the country's dominant ethnic group. The etymology of "Tswana" is uncertain. Livingstone derived it from the Setswana tshwana ("alike", "equal"), others from a word for "free". However, other early sources suggest that while the Tswana adopted the name, it was an exonym they learned from the Germans and British.

Bechuanaland, a former name: from "Bechuana", an alternate spelling of "Botswana".

Brazil

"Brazilwood

Brazilwood

Caesalpinia echinata is a species of Brazilian timber tree in the pea family, Fabaceae. Common names include Brazilwood, Pau-Brasil, Pau de Pernambuco and Ibirapitanga . This plant has a dense, orange-red heartwood that takes a high shine, and it is the premier wood used for making bows for...

", from the Portuguese

Portuguese language

Terra do Brasil, from pau-brasil ("brazilwood", lit. "red-wood"), a name derived from its similarity to red-hot embers . The name may have been a translation of the Tupi

Old Tupi language

Old Tupi or Classical Tupi is an extinct Tupian language which was spoken by the native Tupi people of Brazil, mostly those who lived close to the sea. It belongs to the Tupi–Guarani language family, and which has a written history spanning the 16th, 17th and early 18th centuries...

ibirapitanga, also meaning "red-wood". The ending -il derives from the diminutive Latin suffix -ilus.

The appearance of islands named "Bracile"

Brazil (mythical island)

Brasil, also known as Hy-Brasil or several other variants, is a phantom island which was said to lie in the Atlantic ocean west of Ireland. In Irish myths it was said to be cloaked in mist, except for one day each seven years, when it became visible but still could not be reached...

, "Hy-Brazil", or "Ilha da Brasil" on maps as early as the c. 1330 portolan chart

Portolan chart

Portolan charts are navigational maps based on realistic descriptions of harbours and coasts. They were first made in the 14th century in Italy, Portugal and Spain...

of Angelino Dulcert

Angelino Dulcert

Angelino Dulcert , probably also the same person known as Angelino de Dalorto , and who's real name was probably Angelino de Dulceto or Dulceti or possibly Angelí Dolcet, was an Italian-Majorcan cartographer....

sometimes leads etymologists to question the standard etymology. While most of these islands of Brazil are found off the coast of Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

and may be taken to stem from a Celtic

Celtic languages

The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...

rendering of the legendary Isle of the Blessed

Fortunate Isles

In the Fortunate Isles, also called the Isles of the Blessed , heroes and other favored mortals in Greek mythology and Celtic mythology were received by the gods into a winterless blissful paradise...

, the 1351 Medici Atlas

Medici Atlas

The Medici Atlas, also known as the Medici-Laurentian Atlas is an anonymous 14th century set of maps, probably composed by an Genoese cartographer and explicitly dated 1351, although most historians believe it was composed, or at least retouched, later...

places one Brazil near Ireland an a second one off the Azores

Azores

The Archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is located about west from Lisbon and about east from the east coast of North America. The islands, and their economic exclusion zone, form the Autonomous Region of the...

near Terceira Island

Terceira Island

Referred to as the “Ilha Lilás” , Terceira is an island in the Azores archipelago, in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean. It is one of the larger islands of the archipelago, with a population of 56,000 inhabitants in an area of approximately 396.75 km²...

. That use may derive from its four volcanoes

Stratovolcano

A stratovolcano, also known as a composite volcano, is a tall, conical volcano built up by many layers of hardened lava, tephra, pumice, and volcanic ash. Unlike shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes are characterized by a steep profile and periodic, explosive eruptions...

or reference its dragon's blood

Dragon's blood

Dragon's blood is a bright red resin that is obtained from different species of a number of distinct plant genera: Croton, Dracaena, Daemonorops, Calamus rotang and Pterocarpus. The red resin was used in ancient times as varnish, medicine, incense, and dye...

, a red resin dye. Regardless, the initial names of present-day Brazil were Ilha de Vera Cruz ("Island of the True Cross") and thenafter it was discovered to be a new mainlandTerra de Santa Cruz ("Land of the Holy Cross"); this only changed after a Lisbon

Lisbon

Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...

-based merchant consortium led by Fernão de Loronha leased the new colony for massive exploitation of the costly dyewood which had previously been available only from India.

Pindorama, a former name: "Land of the Palm Trees" in Guarani

Guaraní language

Guaraní, specifically the primary variety known as Paraguayan Guaraní , is an indigenous language of South America that belongs to the Tupí–Guaraní subfamily of the Tupian languages. It is one of the official languages of Paraguay , where it is spoken by the majority of the population, and half of...

, the language of the Indians of Paraguay and southwest Brazil.

Brunei

Etymology unknown. Modern folk etymology derives it from a Malay

Malay language

Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...

exclamation Barunah! ("There!"), supposedly exclaimed by Awang Alak Betatar, the legendary 14th-century sultan, upon landing on Borneo

Borneo

Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....

or upon moving from Garang

Garang

Garang is a Dinka surname, which may refer to:*John Garang, former vice president of Sudan and leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Army*Joseph Garang, a southern Sudanese politician in the 1960s...

to the Brunei river

Brunei River

The Brunei River is a river which flows through Brunei and empties into Brunei Bay towards the North-east direction. The Istana Nurul Iman, the official residence of the Sultan of Brunei, stands on its banks. The Brunei River is the shortest major river in Brunei Darussalam. Brunei Darussalam's...

delta. An earlier folk etymology traced it to his alleged membership in an Arabian tribe called the Buranun. Chinese sources recording a mission from the king of "Boni" as early as 978 and a later "P'o-li" seem to contradict these but may refer to Borneo

Borneo

Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....

as a whole. It is mentioned in the 15th-century history of Java

Java

Java is an island of Indonesia. With a population of 135 million , it is the world's most populous island, and one of the most densely populated regions in the world. It is home to 60% of Indonesia's population. The Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is in west Java...

as a country conquered by Adaya Mingrat, general of Angka Wijaya, and around 1550 by the Italian Ludovico di Varthema

Ludovico di Varthema

Ludovico di Varthema, also known as Barthema and Vertomannus was an Italian traveller and diarist, known for being the first non-Muslim European to enter Mecca as a pilgrim...

under the name "island of Bornei". Other derivations include an Indian word for "seafarers" (from , varunai), another for "land" (from Sanskrit

Sanskrit

: bhumi), or the Kelabit

Kelabit language

Kelabit is one of the remotest languages of Borneo, on the Sarawak–Kalimantan border, and spoken by one of the smallest ethnicities in Borneo, the Kelabit people....

for the Limbang River.

Kingdom of Bulgaria

"Land of the Bulgars

Bulgars

The Bulgars were a semi-nomadic who flourished in the Pontic Steppe and the Volga basin in the 7th century.The Bulgars emerge after the collapse of the Hunnic Empire in the 5th century....

", Latinized

Romanization

from Greek Boulgaría (Βουλγαρία), attested in the peace treaty signed between the Bolgar khan Asparukh

Asparukh of Bulgaria

Asparuh was ruler of a Bulgar tribe in the second half of the 7th century and is credited with the establishment of the First Bulgarian Empire in 680/681...

and the Byzantine emperor Constantine IV

Constantine IV

Constantine IV , , sometimes incorrectly called Pogonatos, "the Bearded", by confusion with his father; was Byzantine emperor from 668 to 685...

in 681. The name "Bulgar" is now generally derived from the Turkic tribe, the proto-Turkic bulģha ("to mix", "shake", "stir") and its derivative bulgak ("revolt", "disorder") Alternate etymologies include derivation from a Mongolic cognate bulğarak ("to separate", "split off") or from a compound of proto-Turkic bel ("five") and gur ("arrow" in the sense of "tribe

Turkic tribal confederations

The Turkic term oğuz or oğur is a historical term for "military division; clan, tribe".The oguz were divisions of the early Turkic Nomadic empires of the 6th to 11th centuries, including Khazars, Avars, Bulgars and Uyghurs.With the Mongol invasions of 1206-1221, the Turkic khaganates were...

"), a proposed division within the Utigurs or Onogurs

Onogurs

The Onogurs, also known as Utigurs, were a horde of equestrian nomads in the North Eurasian steppe east of the Don River during the 5th to 8th centuries. The Onogurs crossed the Volga and entered into Europe around the year 460 within the larger context of the Great Migrations and the Turkic...

("ten tribes").

Within Bulgaria, some historians question the identification of the Bulgars as a Turkic tribe, citing certain linguistic evidence (such as Asparukh's name) in favor of a North Iranian

Iranian languages

The Iranian languages form a subfamily of the Indo-Iranian languages which in turn is a subgroup of Indo-European language family. They have been and are spoken by Iranian peoples....

or Pamiri

Pamir languages

The Pamir languages are a group of the Eastern Iranian languages, spoken by numerous people in the Pamir Mountains, primarily along the Panj River and its tributaries. This includes the Badakhshan Province of northeastern Afghanistan and the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province of eastern Tajikistan...

origin.

Burkina Faso

"Land of Honest Men", from an amalgam of More

More language

The Mossi language, Mòoré is one of two official regional languages of Burkina Faso, closely related and mutually intelligible with the Dagbani language spoken in northern Ghana...

burkina ("honest", "upright", or "incorruptible men") and Dioula

Dioula language

Jula is a Mande language spoken in Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire and Mali. It is one of the Manding languages, and is most closely related to Bambara, being mutually intelligible with Bambara as well as Malinke. It is a trade language in West Africa and is spoken by millions of people, either as a...

faso ("father's house"), selected by President Thomas Sankara

Thomas Sankara

Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara was a Burkinabé military captain, Marxist revolutionary, Pan-Africanist theorist, and President of Burkina Faso from 1983 to 1987...

following his 1983 coup to replace Upper Volta

Republic of Upper Volta

The Republic of Upper Volta was established on December 11, 1958, as a self-governing colony within the French Community. Before attaining autonomy it had been French Upper Volta and part of the French Union. On August 5, 1960 it attained full independence from France.Thomas Sankara came to power...

Upper Volta
Republic of Upper Volta
The Republic of Upper Volta was established on December 11, 1958, as a self-governing colony within the French Community. Before attaining autonomy it had been French Upper Volta and part of the French Union. On August 5, 1960 it attained full independence from France.Thomas Sankara came to power...

, a former name: "Land of the Upper Volta River

Volta River

The Volta is a river in western Africa that drains into the Gulf of Guinea. It has three main tributaries—the Black Volta, White Volta and Red Volta...

", whose main tributaries originate in the country. The Volta itself (Portuguese

Portuguese language

: "twist", "turn") was named by Portuguese gold traders exploring the region.

Myanmar

"Burmans

Bamar

The Bamar are the dominant ethnic group of Burma , constituting approximately two-thirds of the population. The Bamar live primarily in the Irrawaddy basin, and speak the Burmese language, which is also the official language of Burma. Bamar customs and identity are closely intertwined with general...

", in reference to the nation's largest ethnic group, a correction from 18th century "Bermah" and "Birma", from Portuguese

Portuguese language

Birmania, probably from Barma in various Indian languages, ultimately from Burmese

Burmese language

The Burmese language is the official language of Burma. Although the constitution officially recognizes it as the Myanmar language, most English speakers continue to refer to the language as Burmese. Burmese is the native language of the Bamar and related sub-ethnic groups of the Bamar, as well as...

Bama (

), a colloquial oral version of the literary Myanma (

), the eventual pronunciation of the Old Burmese

Old Burmese

Old Burmese is the language attested in the stone inscriptions of Pagan and is the oldest phase of Burmese linguistic history. The earliest monument in Old Burmese is the Old Burmese face of the Myazedi inscription....

Mranma, first attested in a 1102 Mon

Mon language

The Mon language is an Austroasiatic language spoken by the Mon, who live in Burma and Thailand. Mon, like the related language Cambodian—but unlike most languages in Mainland Southeast Asia—is not tonal. Mon is spoken by more than a million people today. In recent years, usage of Mon has...

inscription as Mirma, of uncertain etymology. It was not until the mid-19th century that King Mindon

Mindon Min

Mindon Min was the penultimate king of Burma from 1853 to 1878. He was one of the most popular and revered kings of Burma. Under his half brother King Pagan, the Second Anglo-Burmese War in 1852 ended with the annexation of Lower Burma by the British Empire. Mindon and his younger brother Kanaung...

referred to his position as "king of the Myanma people", as it was only during the Konbaung Dynasty

Konbaung dynasty

The Konbaung Dynasty was the last dynasty that ruled Burma from 1752 to 1885. The dynasty created the second largest empire in Burmese history, and continued the administrative reforms begun by the Toungoo dynasty, laying the foundations of modern state of Burma...

that Burman

Bamar

s fully displaced the Mon

Mon people

The Mon are an ethnic group from Burma , living mostly in Mon State, Bago Division, the Irrawaddy Delta, and along the southern Thai–Burmese border. One of the earliest peoples to reside in Southeast Asia, the Mon were responsible for the spread of Theravada Buddhism in Burma and Thailand...

within the Irrawaddy valley.

The Indian name is alternatively derived from Brahmadesh , "land of Brahma

Brahma

Brahma is the Hindu god of creation and one of the Trimurti, the others being Vishnu and Shiva. According to the Brahma Purana, he is the father of Mānu, and from Mānu all human beings are descended. In the Ramayana and the...

". A folk etymology of Myanma derives it from myan ("fast") and mar ("tough", "strong").

Myanmar
Myanmar
Burma , officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar , is a country in Southeast Asia. Burma is bordered by China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest, the Bay of Bengal to the southwest, and the Andaman Sea on the south....

, the present endonym: As above. The terminal r included in the official English translation arose from the nation's status as a former British colony and reflects non-rhotic accents such as Oxford English.

Burundi

"Land of the Rundi-Speakers" in Rundi, adopted upon independence from Belgian

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

Ruanda-Urundi

Ruanda-Urundi was a Belgian suzerainty from 1916 to 1924, a League of Nations Class B Mandate from 1924 to 1945 and then a United Nations trust territory until 1962, when it became the independent states of Rwanda and Burundi.- Overview :...

in 1962.

Cambodia

"Land of the Kambojas

Kambojas

The Kambojas were a kshatriya tribe of Iron Age India, frequently mentioned in Sanskrit and Pali literature.They were an Indo-Iranian tribe situated at the boundary of the Indo-Aryans and the Iranians, and appear to have moved from the Iranian into the Indo-Aryan sphere over time.The Kambojas...

", Latinized

Romanization

from French

French language

Cambodge, from Sanskrit

Sanskrit

Kambojadeśa . These Kambojas are apparently the same Kambojas mentioned above in Afghanistan, whose etymologyor even relationship with Cambodiais uncertain and highly disputed. Yaska

Yaska

' ) was a Sanskrit grammarian who preceded Pāṇini , assumed to have been active in the 5th or 6th century BC.He is the author of the Nirukta, a technical treatise on etymology, lexical category and the semantics of words...

in the 7th century BC and Nirukta

Nirukta

Nirukta is one of the six disciplines of Hinduism, treating etymology, particularly of obscure words, especially those occurring in the Vedas. The discipline is traditionally attributed to , an ancient Sanskrit grammarian...

derived the name Kamboja from "enjoyers of beautiful things" (Sanskrit

Sanskrit

: kamaniya bhojah). The AD 947 Baksei Chamkrong inscription and Cambodian tradition derive Kambuja from the descendants (-ja) of Svayambhuva Kambu, a legendary Indian sage who journeyed to Indochina

Indochina

The Indochinese peninsula, is a region in Southeast Asia. It lies roughly southwest of China, and east of India. The name has its origins in the French, Indochine, as a combination of the names of "China" and "India", and was adopted when French colonizers in Vietnam began expanding their territory...

and married an naga

Naga

Naga or NAGA may refer to:* Nāga, a group of serpent deities in Hindu and Buddhist mythology.-People:* Nayan / Nayar/Nair people of Kerala Society* Naga people, a diverse ethnic identity in Northeast India...

princess there named Mera. Others suppose it to be an exonym derived from Old Persian Kambaujiya ("weak") or the cognate Avestan Kambishta ("the least") an amalgam of Sanskrit and Avestan roots meaning "unshaken". Others derive it from Cambay or Khambhat in Gujurat.

Kampuchea, an endonym and former name: As above, from the Khmer

Khmer language

Khmer , or Cambodian, is the language of the Khmer people and the official language of Cambodia. It is the second most widely spoken Austroasiatic language , with speakers in the tens of millions. Khmer has been considerably influenced by Sanskrit and Pali, especially in the royal and religious...

Kampuchea , from Sanskrit

Sanskrit

Kambojadeśa .

Srok Khmer, a local endonym: "Land of the Khmers" in Khmer

Khmer language

Cameroon

"Shrimp

Shrimp

Shrimp are swimming, decapod crustaceans classified in the infraorder Caridea, found widely around the world in both fresh and salt water. Adult shrimp are filter feeding benthic animals living close to the bottom. They can live in schools and can swim rapidly backwards. Shrimp are an important...

", from the singular French

French language

Cameroun derived from the German

German language

Kamerun, from the Anglicized "Cameroons" derived from the Portuguese

Portuguese language

or ("Shrimp River") bestowed in 1472 on account of a massive swarm of the Wouri River

Wouri River

The Wouri is a river in Cameroon. The river is formed at the confluence of the rivers Nkam and Makombé, northeast of the city of Yabassi. The Wouri then flows about southeast to the Wouri estuary at Douala, the chief port and industrial city in the southwestern part of Cameroon on the Gulf of...

's ghost shrimp

Lepidophthalmus turneranus

Lepidophthalmus turneranus , the Cameroon ghost shrimp, is a species of "ghost shrimp" or "mud lobster" that lives off the coast of West Africa...

Kamerun
Kamerun
German Cameroon was a West African colony of the German Empire from 1884 to 1916 in the region of today's Republic of Cameroon.-History:-1800s:...

, a former name: The German

German language

name for their colony there between 1884 and the end of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, as above. Formerly also known simply as German Cameroon.

Cameroun
Cameroun
Cameroun was a French and British mandate territory in central Africa, now constituting the majority of the territory of the Republic of Cameroon....

, a former name: The French

French language

name for their colony there between World War I

World War I

and 1960, as above. Formerly also known simply as French Cameroons.

Canada

"Village", from Laurentian

Laurentian language

Laurentian, or St. Lawrence Iroquoian, was an Iroquoian language spoken until the late 16th century along the shores of the Saint Lawrence River in present-day Quebec and Ontario, Canada. It is believed to have disappeared with the extinction of the St...

Kanada, adopted for the entire Canadian Confederation

Canadian Confederation

Canadian Confederation was the process by which the federal Dominion of Canada was formed on July 1, 1867. On that day, three British colonies were formed into four Canadian provinces...

in 1867, from name of the British

British America

For American people of British descent, see British American.British America is the anachronistic term used to refer to the territories under the control of the Crown or Parliament in present day North America , Central America, the Caribbean, and Guyana...

Province of Canada

The Province of Canada, United Province of Canada, or the United Canadas was a British colony in North America from 1841 to 1867. Its formation reflected recommendations made by John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham in the Report on the Affairs of British North America following the Rebellions of...

formed by the 1841 reunification of Upper

Upper Canada

The Province of Upper Canada was a political division in British Canada established in 1791 by the British Empire to govern the central third of the lands in British North America and to accommodate Loyalist refugees from the United States of America after the American Revolution...

and Lower Canada

Lower Canada

The Province of Lower Canada was a British colony on the lower Saint Lawrence River and the shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence...

, previously established by a division of Quebec, the British renaming of the French territory of Canada. French Canada had received its name when its administrators adopted the name used by the explorer

French colonization of the Americas

The French colonization of the Americas began in the 16th century, and continued in the following centuries as France established a colonial empire in the Western Hemisphere. France founded colonies in much of eastern North America, on a number of Caribbean islands, and in South America...

Jacques Cartier

Jacques Cartier was a French explorer of Breton origin who claimed what is now Canada for France. He was the first European to describe and map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the shores of the Saint Lawrence River, which he named "The Country of Canadas", after the Iroquois names for the two big...

to refer to St. Lawrence River and the territory along it belonging to the Iroquoian

St. Lawrence Iroquoians

The St. Lawrence Iroquoians were a prehistoric First Nations/Native American indigenous people who lived from the 14th century until about 1580 CE along the shores of the St. Lawrence River in present-day Quebec and Ontario, Canada, and New York State, United States. They spoke Laurentian...

chief Donnacona

Donnacona

Chief Donnacona was the chief of Stadacona located at the present site of Quebec City, Canada. French Explorer Jacques Cartier, concluding his second voyage to what is now Canada, returned to France with Donnacona. Donnacona was treated well in France but died there...

. In 1535, he had misunderstood the Laurentian Kanada as the name of Donnacona's capital Stadacona

Stadacona

Stadacona was a 16th century St. Lawrence Iroquoian village near present-day Quebec City.French explorer and navigator Jacques Cartier, travelling and charting the Saint Lawrence River, reached it on 7 September 1535. He returned to Stadacona to spend the winter there with his group of 110 men...

A former folk etymology derived the name from Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

or Portuguese

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

acá or cá nada ("nothing here") in reference to the region's lack of gold or silver.

Quebec, a former name: "Where the river narrows", from Algonquin

Algonquin language

Algonquin is either a distinct Algonquian language closely related to the Ojibwe language or a particularly divergent Ojibwe dialect. It is spoken, alongside French and to some extent English, by the Algonquin First Nations of Quebec and Ontario...

kébec via French, in reference to the St. Lawrence River near modern Quebec City

Quebec City

Quebec , also Québec, Quebec City or Québec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in Quebec after Montreal, which is about to the southwest...

. Samuel de Champlain

Samuel de Champlain

Samuel de Champlain , "The Father of New France", was a French navigator, cartographer, draughtsman, soldier, explorer, geographer, ethnologist, diplomat, and chronicler. He founded New France and Quebec City on July 3, 1608....

chose the name in 1608 for the new town there, which gave its name to a section of French Canada and then the British province of Quebec, which eventually became modern Canada and even briefly included the entire Ohio River valley between the enactment of the Quebec Act

Quebec Act

The Quebec Act of 1774 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain setting procedures of governance in the Province of Quebec...

in 1774 and the surrender of the region to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

in 1783. (Modern Quebec was formed from Canada East

Canada East

Canada East was the eastern portion of the United Province of Canada. It consisted of the southern portion of the modern-day Canadian Province of Quebec, and was primarily a French-speaking region....

during the Canadian Confederation in 1867.)

Cape Verde

"Green Cape

Cape (geography)

In geography, a cape or headland is a point or body of land extending into a body of water, usually the sea.A cape usually represents a marked change in trend of the coastline. Their proximity to the coastline makes them prone to natural forms of erosion, mainly tidal actions. This results in capes...

", from the Portuguese

Portuguese language

Cabo Verde, from its position across from the mainland cape of that name since its discovery in 1444. The cape is located beside Gorée Island in the modern nation of Senegal

Senegal

Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...

and is now known by its French

French language

form "Cap-Vert

Cap-Vert

Cap-Vert is a peninsula in Senegal, and the westernmost point of the continent of Africa and of the Old World mainland. Originally called Cabo Verde or "Cape Green" by Portuguese explorers, it is not to be confused with the Cape Verde islands, which are some further west...

". Ironically, the islands' lack of fresh water and rainfall leave them fairly sere.

Central African Republic

Self-descriptive, from its French name

French language

République centrafricaine. For further etymology of "Africa", see List of continent-name etymologies.

Ubangi-Shari, a former name: From the French Oubangui-Chari, from the Ubangi

Ubangi River

The Ubangi River , also spelled Oubangui, is the largest right-bank tributary of the Congo River of Central Africa. It begins at the confluence of the Mbomou and Uele Rivers and flows west, then bends to the southwest and passes through Bangui, after which it flows south to the Congo at Liranga....

and the Chari River

Chari River

The Chari or Shari River is a 949-kilometer-long river of central Africa. It flows from the Central African Republic through Chad into Lake Chad, following the Cameroon border from N'Djamena, where it joins the Logone River waters....

s, which ran through the territory.

Chad

"Lake", from Lake Chad

Lake Chad

Lake Chad is a historically large, shallow, endorheic lake in Africa, whose size has varied over the centuries. According to the Global Resource Information Database of the United Nations Environment Programme, it shrank as much as 95% from about 1963 to 1998; yet it also states that "the 2007 ...

in the country's southwest, whose name derives from the Kanuri

Kanuri language

Kanuri is a dialect continuum spoken by some four million people, as of 1987, in Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon, as well as small minorities in southern Libya and by a diaspora in Sudan. It belongs to the Western Saharan subphylum of Nilo-Saharan...

tsade ("lake").

Chile

Etymology unknown. The name dates to the "men of Chilli", the survivors of the first Spanish expedition into the region in 1535 under Diego de Almagro

Diego de Almagro

Diego de Almagro, , also known as El Adelantado and El Viejo , was a Spanish conquistador and a companion and later rival of Francisco Pizarro. He participated in the Spanish conquest of Peru and is credited as the first European discoverer of Chile.Almagro lost his left eye battling with coastal...

. Almagro applied the name to the Mapocho

Mapocho River

The Mapocho River flows from the Andes mountains onto the west and divides Chile's capital Santiago in two.-Course:...

valley, but its further etymology is debated. The 17th-century Spanish chronicler Diego de Rosales

Diego de Rosales

Diego de Rosales was a Spanish chronicler and author of Historia General del Reino de Chile.He studied in his hometown, where he also joined the Society of Jesus. He came to Chile in the year 1629, without having taken his last vows still being sent to the residence that the Jesuits had in Arauco...

derived it from the Quechua Chili, a toponym for the Aconcagua

Aconcagua River

For other uses, see Aconcagua .The Aconcagua River is a river in Chile that rises from the joint of two minor tributary rivers at above sea level in the Andes, Juncal river from the east and Blanco river from the south east...

valley, which he considered a corruption of Tili, the name of a Picunche

Picunche

The Picunche , also referred to as picones by the Spanish, were a mapudungun speaking Chilean people living to the north of the Mapuches or Araucanians and south of the Choapa River and the Diaguitas...

chief

Cacique

Cacique is a title derived from the Taíno word for the pre-Columbian chiefs or leaders of tribes in the Bahamas, Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles...

who ruled the area at the time of its conquest by the Inca. Modern theories derive it from the similarly named Incan settlement and valley of Chili in Peru

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

's Casma Valley

Casma Valley

The Casma Valley, a coastal valley situated about north of Lima, Peru, lies between the towns of Chimbote and Huarmey. It is notable for the grand scale of numerous archaeological sites, including stone-faced pyramids and the Thirteen Towers of Chankillo. Sechin Alto is the largest American...

, the Quechua chiri ("cold"), the Aymara

Aymara language

Aymara is an Aymaran language spoken by the Aymara people of the Andes. It is one of only a handful of Native American languages with over three million speakers. Aymara, along with Quechua and Spanish, is an official language of Peru and Bolivia...

tchili ("snow" or "depths"), the Mapuche chilli ("where the land ends" or "runs out"), or the Mapuche cheele-cheele ("yellow-winged blackbird

Yellow-winged Blackbird

The Yellow-winged Blackbird is a species of bird in the Icteridae family.It is found in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay.Its natural habitats are swamps, intertidal marshes, and pastureland....

").

A folk etymology connects the name to chili pepper

Chili pepper

Chili pepper is the fruit of plants from the genus Capsicum, members of the nightshade family, Solanaceae. The term in British English and in Australia, New Zealand, India, Malaysia and other Asian countries is just chilli without pepper.Chili peppers originated in the Americas...

s, sometimes via the Mexican Spanish

Mexican Spanish

Mexican Spanish is a version of the Spanish language, as spoken in Mexico and in various places of Canada and the United States of America, where there are communities of Mexican origin....

chile ("chili"), but the two are almost certainly unrelated.

China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

Etymology unknown. First recorded in English

English language

in 1555 in Richard Eden

Richard Eden

Richard Eden was an alchemist and translator. His translations of the geographic works of other writers helped foster a spirit of overseas exploration in Tudor England.-Early life:...

's Decades of the New World, probably from Malay

Malay language

Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...

China via Portuguese

Portuguese language

ultimately from Sanskrit

Sanskrit

Cīnāh

Chinas

The Chinas or Chīnaḥ are a people mentioned in ancient Indian literature from the first millennium BC, such as the Mahabharata, Laws of Manu, as well the Puranic literature...

, found in the Laws of Manu and the Mahabharata
Mahabharata
The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India and Nepal, the other being the Ramayana. The epic is part of itihasa....

in reference to a people of the south Tibet

Tibet

an or Burmese highlands, the region of the modern Chin peoples. An alternate derivation traces it from Marco Polo

Marco Polo

Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant traveler from the Venetian Republic whose travels are recorded in Il Milione, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned about trading whilst his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, travelled through Asia and apparently...

's Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

Chin (used in Il Milione only for the East China Sea

East China Sea

The East China Sea is a marginal sea east of China. It is a part of the Pacific Ocean and covers an area of 1,249,000 km² or 750,000 square miles.-Geography:...

and not for the country itself), from Middle Persian

Middle Persian

Cin , to the Sanskrit.

The common folk etymology derives the name from Shi Huangdi's 3rd century BC Qin dynasty

Qin Dynasty

The Qin Dynasty was the first imperial dynasty of China, lasting from 221 to 207 BC. The Qin state derived its name from its heartland of Qin, in modern-day Shaanxi. The strength of the Qin state was greatly increased by the legalist reforms of Shang Yang in the 4th century BC, during the Warring...

, the first imperial one of China's history. However, the Indian name may predate this and refer instead to the earlier state of Qin, some other Indo-Chinese people such as the Zina or Tsen of Guizhou

Guizhou

' is a province of the People's Republic of China located in the southwestern part of the country. Its provincial capital city is Guiyang.- History :...

's Yelang

Yelang

Yelang , initially known as Zangke , was an ancient political entity first described in the 3rd century BC that was centered in what is now western Guizhou province, China...

kingdom, or Jihnan. Additionally, the very close correlation of "Qín" , traditionally

Wade-Giles

Wade–Giles , sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a romanization system for the Mandarin Chinese language. It developed from a system produced by Thomas Wade during the mid-19th century , and was given completed form with Herbert Giles' Chinese–English dictionary of 1892.Wade–Giles was the most...

Romanized "Ch'in", to the modern "China" is deceiving, since the Old Chinese

Old Chinese

The earliest known written records of the Chinese language were found at a site near modern Anyang identified as Yin, the last capital of the Shang dynasty, and date from about 1200 BC....

pronunciation was closer to *dzin or even *Nʌ-tsir.

Cathay
Cathay
Cathay is the Anglicized version of "Catai" and an alternative name for China in English. It originates from the word Khitan, the name of a nomadic people who founded the Liao Dynasty which ruled much of Northern China from 907 to 1125, and who had a state of their own centered around today's...

, a former & literary name: "Khitai", from Marco Polo's Italian Catai, used for northern but not southern China, ultimately from the Khitan

Khitan language

The Khitan language is a now-extinct language once spoken by the Khitan people . Khitan is generally deemed to be genetically linked to the Mongolic languages. It was written using two mutually exclusive writing systems known as the Khitan large script and the Khitan small script...

endonym Kitai Gur ("Kingdom of the Khitai"), possibly via Persian

Persian language

Khitan or Chinese

Chinese language

The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

Qìdān .

Seres and Serica, former names: "Land of Silk" in Greek

Ancient Greek

(Σηρες, Sēres) and Latin

Medieval Latin

, respectively. The further etymology is typically derived from the Chinese for silk (t , s , p

Pinyin

Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...

sī), but the modern correspondence belies the Old Chinese pronunciation *sə.

Taiwan, the common name for the Republic of China

Republic of China

The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...

: Etymology unknown. The present Chinese name ' onMouseout='HidePop("71157")' href="/topics/Pinyin">pinyin

Pinyin

: Táiwān) conveys the meaning "Terraced Bay", but older versions such as have entirely different meanings and suggest that the Chinese is merely a transcription of an olderpossibly Austronesian

Austronesian languages

The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...

name. This is supported by Dutch East India Company

Dutch East India Company

The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...

records from Fort Zeelandia

Fort Zeelandia (Taiwan)

Fort Zeelandia was a fortress built over ten years from 1624–1634 by the Dutch Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, in the town of Anping on the island of Formosa, present day Taiwan, during their 38-year rule over the western part of it...

(today's Tainan City) which list a tribe as "Tayouan" or "Teyowan". A former pseudoetymology derived the name from Hokkien 埋冤, meaning "burying the unjustly dead" and suggesting the riskiness of the sea journey to the island.

Zhongguo or Chung-kuo (Chinese

Chinese language

: t , s , p

Pinyin

Zhōngguó), the most common endonym: originally meaning "Central Demesne

Demesne

In the feudal system the demesne was all the land, not necessarily all contiguous to the manor house, which was retained by a lord of the manor for his own use and support, under his own management, as distinguished from land sub-enfeoffed by him to others as sub-tenants...

", then "Middle Kingdom", now equivalent to "Central Nation". (For many other endonyms, see Names of China

Names of China

In China, common names for China include Zhonghua and Zhongguo , while Han and Tang are common names given for the Chinese ethnicity. Other names include Huaxia, Shenzhou and Jiuzhou...

Colombia

"Land of Columbus

Christopher Columbus

" in Spanish

Spanish language

, adopted in 1863 in honor of the earlier Gran Colombia

Gran Colombia

Gran Colombia is a name used today for the state that encompassed much of northern South America and part of southern Central America from 1819 to 1831. This short-lived republic included the territories of present-day Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Panama, northern Peru and northwest Brazil. The...

formed by Simón Bolívar

Simón Bolívar

Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Yeiter, commonly known as Simón Bolívar was a Venezuelan military and political leader...

in 1819 after a proposal of Francisco de Miranda

Francisco de Miranda

Sebastián Francisco de Miranda Ravelo y Rodríguez de Espinoza , commonly known as Francisco de Miranda , was a Venezuelan revolutionary...

for a single pan–Hispanic America

Hispanic America

Hispanic America or Spanish America is the region comprising the American countries inhabited by Spanish-speaking populations.These countries have significant commonalities with each other and with Spain, whose colonies they formerly were...

n state.

Cundinamarca
Free and Independent State of Cundinamarca
The Free and Independent State of Cundinamarca was a rebel state in modern Colombia between 1810 and 1815 during the Patria Boba period at the beginning of the Latin American wars of independence...

, a former name: "Condor's Nest" in Quechua phono-semantically matched

Phono-semantic matching

Phono-semantic matching is a linguistic term referring to camouflaged borrowing in which a foreign word is matched with a phonetically and semantically similar pre-existent native word/root....

with the Spanish marca ("march"), adopted upon independence from Spain in 1810 on the erroneous assumption it had been the indigenous Chibcha

Chibcha language

Chibcha, also known as Muisca or Mosca, is an extinct Chibchan language of Colombia, formerly spoken by the Muisca people, a complex indigenous civilization of South America and the present-day Colombian region. Scholars believe the Chibcha language arose in South America and then migrated with...

name for the native kingdom around Bogotá

Bogotá

Bogotá, Distrito Capital , from 1991 to 2000 called Santa Fé de Bogotá, is the capital, and largest city, of Colombia. It is also designated by the national constitution as the capital of the department of Cundinamarca, even though the city of Bogotá now comprises an independent Capital district...

and the Magdalena Valley.

New Granada
Republic of New Granada
The Republic of New Granada was a centralist republic consisting primarily of present-day Colombia and Panama with smaller portions of today's Ecuador, and Venezuela. It was created after the dissolution in 1830 of Gran Colombia. It was later abolished in 1858 when the Granadine Confederation was...

, a former name: Self-descriptive, from the earlier Spanish Viceroyalty of New Granada

Viceroyalty of New Granada

The Viceroyalty of New Granada was the name given on 27 May 1717, to a Spanish colonial jurisdiction in northern South America, corresponding mainly to modern Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela. The territory corresponding to Panama was incorporated later in 1739...

, named after the region of Province of Granada in Spain. Adopted in 1835 following the secession of Venezuela

Venezuela

Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

and Ecuador

Ecuador

Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...

from Gran Colombia. For further etymology of "Granada", see Grenada below.

Granadine Confederation
Granadine Confederation
The Granadine Confederation was a short-lived federal republic established in 1858 as a result of a constitutional change replacing the Republic of New Granada. It comprised the present day nations of Colombia and Panama...

, a former name: From the adjectival form of Granada .

Comoros

"Moons", from the Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

Jazā'ir al-Qamar (جزائر القمر, "Islands of the Moon").

"[Land beside] the Congo River

Congo River

The Congo River is a river in Africa, and is the deepest river in the world, with measured depths in excess of . It is the second largest river in the world by volume of water discharged, though it has only one-fifth the volume of the world's largest river, the Amazon...

", adopted by the country upon independence in 1960 from the previous French autonomous colony Republic of the Congo established in 1958, ultimately from the name of the original French colony French Congo

French Congo

The French Congo was a French colony which at one time comprised the present-day area of the Republic of the Congo, Gabon, and the Central African Republic...

established in 1882. The river itself derived its name from Kongo

Kingdom of Kongo

, a Bantu kingdom which occupied its mouth around the time of its discovery by the Portuguese

Kingdom of Portugal

The Kingdom of Portugal was Portugal's general designation under the monarchy. The kingdom was located in the west of the Iberian Peninsula, Europe and existed from 1139 to 1910...

in 1483 or 1484 and whose name derived from its people, the Bakongo, an endonym said to mean "hunters" .

French Congo
French Congo
The French Congo was a French colony which at one time comprised the present-day area of the Republic of the Congo, Gabon, and the Central African Republic...

, a former name: As above, with the inclusion of its occupier to distinguish it from the Belgian-controlled Congo

Congo Free State

The Congo Free State was a large area in Central Africa which was privately controlled by Leopold II, King of the Belgians. Its origins lay in Leopold's attracting scientific, and humanitarian backing for a non-governmental organization, the Association internationale africaine...

to its south. For further etymology of "France", see below.

Middle Congo, a former name: From its position along the river, a translation of the French Moyen-Congo, adopted as the colony's name between 1906 and 1958.

Congo (Brazzaville) and Congo-Brazzaville, alternate names: As above, with the inclusion of the country's capital to distinguish it from Congo (Léopoldville)

Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a state located in Central Africa. It is the second largest country in Africa by area and the eleventh largest in the world...

or (Kinshasa) to its south. Brazzaville

Brazzaville

-Transport:The city is home to Maya-Maya Airport and a railway station on the Congo-Ocean Railway. It is also an important river port, with ferries sailing to Kinshasa and to Bangui via Impfondo...

itself derives from the colony's founder, Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza

Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza

Pietro Paolo Savorgnan di Brazzà, best known as Pierre Paul François Camille Savorgnan de Brazza , was a Franco-Italian explorer, born in Italy and later naturalized Frenchman...

, an Italian nobleman whose title referred to the Italian

Italian language

name of the Croatia

Croatia

Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...

n island of Brač

Brac

Brač is an island in the Adriatic Sea within Croatia, with an area of 396 km², making it the largest island in Dalmatia, and the third largest in the Adriatic. Its tallest peak, Vidova Gora, or Mount St. Vid, stands at 778 m, making it the highest island point in the Adriatic...

, derived from the Latin Brattia.

As above, adopted upon independence in 1960 as Republic of the Congo .

Congo Free State
Congo Free State
The Congo Free State was a large area in Central Africa which was privately controlled by Leopold II, King of the Belgians. Its origins lay in Leopold's attracting scientific, and humanitarian backing for a non-governmental organization, the Association internationale africaine...

, a former name: As above, a translation of the French

French language

État indépendant du Congo ("Free State of the Congo"), formed by Leopold II of Belgium

Leopold II of Belgium

Leopold II was the second king of the Belgians. Born in Brussels the second son of Leopold I and Louise-Marie of Orléans, he succeeded his father to the throne on 17 December 1865 and remained king until his death.Leopold is chiefly remembered as the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free...

in 1885 to administer the holdings of the International Congo Society

International Congo Society

The International Association of the Congo, also known as the International Congo Society , was an association founded on November 17, 1879 by Leopold II of Belgium to further his interests in the Congo. It replaced the Belgian Committee for studies of High-Congo , which was part of the Association...

acknowledged as separate from the country of Belgium at the 1884 Berlin Conference

Berlin Conference

The Berlin Conference of 1884–85 regulated European colonization and trade in Africa during the New Imperialism period, and coincided with Germany's sudden emergence as an imperial power...

Belgian Congo
Belgian Congo
The Belgian Congo was the formal title of present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo between King Leopold II's formal relinquishment of his personal control over the state to Belgium on 15 November 1908, and Congolese independence on 30 June 1960.-Congo Free State, 1884–1908:Until the latter...

, a former name: As above, following the Free State's union with Belgium in 1908, whose name was often included to distinguish the colony from the French-controlled Congo

French Congo

The French Congo was a French colony which at one time comprised the present-day area of the Republic of the Congo, Gabon, and the Central African Republic...

to its north. For further etymology of "Belgium", see above.

Congo (Léopoldville) and Congo-Léopoldville, former names: As above, with the inclusion of the country's capital to distinguish it from Congo (Brazzaville)

Republic of the Congo

The Republic of the Congo , sometimes known locally as Congo-Brazzaville, is a state in Central Africa. It is bordered by Gabon, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo , the Angolan exclave province of Cabinda, and the Gulf of Guinea.The region was dominated by...

to its north. This usage was especially common when both countries shared identical official names prior to Congo-Léopoldville's adoption of the name "Democratic Republic of the Congo" in 1964. Léopoldville

Leopoldville

Leopoldville may refer to:* The capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, today known as Kinshasa* SS Leopoldville, a troopship sunk in 1944...

itself was named for Leopold II of Belgium

Leopold II of Belgium

upon its founding in 1881. Leopold's own name derives from Latin leo ("lion") or Old High German

Old High German

liut ("people") and OHG bald ("brave").

Congo (Kinshasa) and Congo-Kinshasa, alternate names: As above, following the renaming of Léopoldville after the nearby native settlement of Kinshasa

Kinshasa

Kinshasa is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The city is located on the Congo River....

or Kinchassa to its east as part of the Mobutist

Mobutism

Mobutism was an official party ideology of the Popular Movement of the Revolution as well as the official state ideology in Zaire during the latter half of the 20th century...

Authenticity movement

Authenticité (Zaire)

Authenticité was an official state ideology of the Mobutu regime that originated in the late 1960s and early 1970s in what was first the Democratic Republic of the Congo, later renamed Zaire...

Zaire
Zaire
The Republic of Zaire was the name of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo between 27 October 1971 and 17 May 1997. The name of Zaire derives from the , itself an adaptation of the Kongo word nzere or nzadi, or "the river that swallows all rivers".-Self-proclaimed Father of the Nation:In...

or Zaïre, a former name: "[Land beside] the Congo River", a French form of a Portuguese

Portuguese language

corruption of the Kongo

Kongo language

The Kongo language, or Kikongo, is the Bantu language spoken by the Bakongo and Bandundu people living in the tropical forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo and Angola. It is a tonal language and formed the base for Kituba, a Bantu creole and lingua franca...

Nzere ("river"), a truncation of Nzadi o Nzere ("river swallowing rivers"), adopted for the river and the country between 1971 and 1997 as part of the Authenticity movement

Authenticité (Zaire)

Authenticité was an official state ideology of the Mobutu regime that originated in the late 1960s and early 1970s in what was first the Democratic Republic of the Congo, later renamed Zaire...

Costa Rica

"Rich Coast" in Spanish

Spanish language

, although the origin of the epithet is disputed. Some claim it was bestowed by Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus

in 1502 as Costa del Oro ("Gold Coast"), others by the explorer Gil González Dávila

Gil González Dávila

Gil González Dávila was a Spanish Conquistador and the first European to arrive in present-day Nicaragua.González Dávila first appears in historical records in 1508, when he received a royal commission to examine accounts and tax records of estates. He probably traveled soon afterward to Santo...

Côte d'Ivoire

"Ivory Coast" in French

French language

, from its previous involvement in the ivory trade

Ivory trade

The ivory trade is the commercial, often illegal trade in the ivory tusks of the hippopotamus, walrus, narwhal, mammoth, and most commonly, Asian and African elephants....

. Similar names for Côte d'Ivoire and other nearby countries include the "Grain Coast", the "Gold Coast

Gold Coast (region)

The Gold Coast was the region of West Africa which is now the nation of Ghana. Early uses of the term refer literally to the coast and not the interior. It was not until the 19th century that the term came to refer to areas that are far from the coast...

", and the "Slave Coast

Slave Coast

The Slave Coast is the name of the coastal areas of present Togo, Benin and western Nigeria, a fertile region of coastal Western Africa along the Bight of Benin. In pre-colonial time it was one of the most densely populated parts of the African continent...

Ivory Coast, an alternative name: Self-descriptive, the English translation of the above.

Independent State of Croatia

Etymology uncertain. From Medieval Latin

Medieval Latin

Croātia, from Cruati ("Croatians") attested in the Šopot Inscription, from North-West Slavic Xrovat-, by liquid metathesis from proposed Common Slavic *Xorvat-, from proposed Proto-Slavic *Xarwāt- (*Xъrvatъ) or *Xŭrvatŭ (*xъrvatъ).

The most common theory derives it from Harahvat-, the Old Persian name for the Arachosia

Arachosia

Arachosia is the Latinized form of the Greek name of an Achaemenid and Seleucid governorate in the eastern part of their respective empires, around modern-day southern Afghanistan. The Greek term "Arachosia" corresponds to the Iranian land of Harauti which was between Kandahar in Afghanistan and...

or Helmand River

Helmand River

The Helmand River is the longest river in Afghanistan and the primarily watershed for the endorheic Sistan Basin....

, or from , the land surrounding it. This is cognate with the with the Vedic

Vedic Sanskrit

Vedic Sanskrit is an old Indo-Aryan language. It is an archaic form of Sanskrit, an early descendant of Proto-Indo-Iranian. It is closely related to Avestan, the oldest preserved Iranian language...

Sarasvatī

Sarasvati River

The Sarasvati River is one of the chief Rigvedic rivers mentioned in ancient Hindu texts. The Nadistuti hymn in the Rigveda mentions the Sarasvati between the Yamuna in the east and the Sutlej in the west, and later Vedic texts like Tandya and Jaiminiya Brahmanas as well as the Mahabharata...

and Avestan Harax^vaitī. This derivation seems to be supported by a 3rd century Scythian

Scythian languages

Scythian languages refers to all the languages spoken by all the peoples of a vast region of Eurasia named Scythia extending from the Vistula river in East Europe to Mongolia during ancient times. Included also are some languages of eastern Iran and the Central Asian subcontinent...

form Xoroathos (ΧΟΡΟΑΘΟΣ) appearing in the Tanais Tablets.

Alternate theories include Zbigniew Gołąb

Zbigniew Gołąb

Zbigniew Gołąb was a Polish American linguist and Slavist. He was described as "one of the world's greatest experts on the Macedonian language and the leading expert on Macedonian-Arumanian contact"...

's proposal that it is a borrowing from Proto-Germanic *C(h)rovati, presumed to mean "warriors clad with horn-armor" or chrawat, "mountaineers".

Cuba

Etymology unknown. First bestowed by Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus

as Cabo de Cuba (the modern Punta de Mulas) after a supposed local settlement named "Cuba", probably from the Taino

Taíno language

cubao ("abundant fertile land") or coabana ("great place").

Scholars who believe that Christopher Columbus was Portuguese rather than Genovese argue "Cuba" is derived from the town of Cuba

Cuba (Portugal)

Cuba is a town and municipality in Portugal with a total area of 172.1 km² and a total population of 4,775 inhabitants.The municipality is composed of 4 parishes, and is located in the District of Beja....

near Beja

Beja (Portugal)

Beja is a city in the Beja Municipality in the Alentejo region, Portugal. The municipality has a total area of 1,147.1 km² and a total population of 34,970 inhabitants. The city proper has a population of 21,658....

in Portugal

Kingdom of Portugal

The Kingdom of Portugal was Portugal's general designation under the monarchy. The kingdom was located in the west of the Iberian Peninsula, Europe and existed from 1139 to 1910...

Cyprus

Etymology unknown. Latinized from the Greek

Ancient Greek

Kúpros (Κύπρος), first attested as Mycenaean Greek

(Kupirijo, "Cypriot"). Possible etymologies include the Greek kypárissos (κυπάρισσος, "cypress

Cupressus

The genus Cupressus is one of several genera within the family Cupressaceae that have the common name cypress; for the others, see cypress. It is considered a polyphyletic group...

") or kýpros (κύπρος, "henna

Henna

Henna is a flowering plant used since antiquity to dye skin, hair, fingernails, leather and wool. The name is also used for dye preparations derived from the plant, and for the art of temporary tattooing based on those dyes...

").

The most common folk etymology derives its name from "copper", since the island's extensive supply gave Greek and Latin words for the metal. Although these words derived from Cyprus rather than the other way around, the name has more recently been derived from an Eteocypriot word for "copper" and even from the Sumerian

Sumerian language

Sumerian is the language of ancient Sumer, which was spoken in southern Mesopotamia since at least the 4th millennium BC. During the 3rd millennium BC, there developed a very intimate cultural symbiosis between the Sumerians and the Akkadians, which included widespread bilingualism...

zubar ("copper") or kubar ("bronze").

Czechoslovakia

"Land of the Czechs and Slovaks

Slovaks

The Slovaks, Slovak people, or Slovakians are a West Slavic people that primarily inhabit Slovakia and speak the Slovak language, which is closely related to the Czech language.Most Slovaks today live within the borders of the independent Slovakia...

", Latinized from the country's original name"the Czechoslovak Nation"upon independence in 1918, from the Czech

Czech language

Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...

endonym Češivia its Polish

Polish language

Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

orthographyfor the people of the Austrian provinces of Bohemia

Bohemia

Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...

and Moravia

Moravia

Moravia is a historical region in Central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, and one of the former Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Silesia. It takes its name from the Morava River which rises in the northwest of the region...

and the Hungarian

Kingdom of Hungary

The Kingdom of Hungary comprised present-day Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia , Transylvania , Carpatho Ruthenia , Vojvodina , Burgenland , and other smaller territories surrounding present-day Hungary's borders...

province of Slovakia

Slovakia

The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...

, which together with Austrian Silesia

Austrian Silesia

Austrian Silesia , officially the Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia was an autonomous region of the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Austrian Empire, from 1867 a Cisleithanian crown land of Austria-Hungary...

formed the new state. For further etymology of "Czech", see Czech Republic below; for further etymology of "Slovak", see Slovakia below.

Czech Republic

Self-descriptive, adopted upon the Velvet Divorce

Dissolution of Czechoslovakia

The dissolution of Czechoslovakia, which took effect on 1 January 1993, was an event that saw the self-determined separation of the federal state of Czechoslovakia. The Czech Republic and Slovakia, entities which had arisen in 1969 within the framework of Czechoslovak federalisation, became...

in 1993. The name "Czech" derives from the Czech

Czech language

endonym Češi via Polish

Polish language

Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

, from the archaic Czech Čechové, originally the name of the West Slavic tribe

West Slavs

The West Slavs are Slavic peoples speaking West Slavic languages. They include Poles , Czechs, Slovaks, Lusatian Sorbs and the historical Polabians. The northern or Lechitic group includes, along with Polish, the extinct Polabian and Pomeranian languages...

whose Premyslid dynasty

Premyslid dynasty

The Přemyslids , were a Czech royal dynasty which reigned in Bohemia and Moravia , and partly also in Hungary, Silesia, Austria and Poland.-Legendary rulers:...

subdued its neighbors in Bohemia

Bohemia

Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...

around AD 900. Its further etymology is disputed. The traditional etymology derives it from an eponymous leader Čech who led the tribe into Bohemia

Bohemia

Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...

. Modern theories consider it an obscure derivative, e.g. from četa, a medieval military unit.

Czechia, an uncommon alternate name: A Latinized version of the above.

Czechy or Čechy, a former endonym: "Land of the Czechs" in archaic Czech

Czech language

. Now typically considered to refer only to the area of Bohemia

Bohemia

Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...

proper, excluding Moravia

Moravia

and other areas.

Česko, a current endonym: "Land of the Czechs" in modern Czech

Czech language

. Although it appeared as early as the 18th century, Česko remained uncommon enough that most Czechs only associated it with its appearance in the Czech name for Czechoslovakia and avoided it following the division of the country. Given the inability to use the former name Čechy either, government campaigns have attempted to made Česko more common.

Denmark

Etymology uncertain, but probably "The Danish forest" or "march" in reference to the forests of southern Schleswig

Schleswig

Schleswig or South Jutland is a region covering the area about 60 km north and 70 km south of the border between Germany and Denmark; the territory has been divided between the two countries since 1920, with Northern Schleswig in Denmark and Southern Schleswig in Germany...

. First attested in Old English as Denamearc in Alfred

Alfred the Great

Alfred the Great was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.Alfred is noted for his defence of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of southern England against the Vikings, becoming the only English monarch still to be accorded the epithet "the Great". Alfred was the first King of the West Saxons to style himself...

's translation of Paulus Orosius's Seven Books of History against the Pagans. The etymology of "Danes" is uncertain, but has been derived from the proposed Proto-Indo-European

Pie

A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients....

root *dhen ("low, flat"); -mark from the proposed Proto-Indo-European

Pie

A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients....

root *mereg- ("edge, boundary") via Old Norse

Old Norse

Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....

merki ("boundary") or more probably mörk ("borderland, forest").

The former folk etymology derived the name from an eponymous king Dan

Dan (king)

Dan is the name of one or more legendary kings of the Danes in medieval Scandinavian texts.-The Lejre Chronicle:The Chronicle of Lejre written about 1170 introduces a primeval King Ypper of Uppsala whose three sons were Dan, who afterwards ruled Denmark, Nori, who afterwards ruled Norway, and...

of the region.

Djibouti

Etymology unknown, named for its eponymous capital Djibouti

Djibouti (city)

The City of Djibouti is the capital and largest city in the Republic of Djibouti, a nation in the Horn of Africa. The biggest settlement on the Gulf of Tadjoura, it lies on a peninsula that separates that basin from the Gulf of Aden.-History:...

, founded in 1888 by the Catalan

Catalan people

The Catalans or Catalonians are the people from, or with origins in, Catalonia that form a historical nationality in Spain. The inhabitants of the adjacent portion of southern France are sometimes included in this definition...

Eloi Pino and the capital of the previous French colonies French Somaliland

French Somaliland

French Somaliland was a French colony in the Horn of Africa. Established after the French signed various treaties between 1883 and 1887 with the then ruling Somali Sultans, the colony lasted from 1896 until 1946, when it became an overseas territory of France....

and Afars & Issas

French Territory of the Afars and the Issas

The French Territory of Afars and Issas was the name given to present-day Djibouti between 1967 and 1977, while it was still a colony of France...

. The city's name has been traced to its district Gaboot, the Afar

Afar language

Afar is a Lowland East Cushitic language spoken in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti. It is believed to have 1.5 million speakers, the Afar. The basic word order in Afar, like in other East Cushitic languages, is subject–object–verb. Its speakers have a literacy rate of between one and three per cent...

gabouti (a kind of doormat made from palm fibers), and "Land of Tehuti", after Thoth

Thoth

Thoth was considered one of the more important deities of the Egyptian pantheon. In art, he was often depicted as a man with the head of an ibis or a baboon, animals sacred to him. His feminine counterpart was Seshat...

, the ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

ian moon god.

French Somaliland
French Somaliland
French Somaliland was a French colony in the Horn of Africa. Established after the French signed various treaties between 1883 and 1887 with the then ruling Somali Sultans, the colony lasted from 1896 until 1946, when it became an overseas territory of France....

, a former name: From its position near Somalia

Somalia

Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...

, with the colonial ruler distinguishing it from British Somaliland

British Somaliland

British Somaliland was a British protectorate in the northern part of present-day Somalia. For much of its existence, British Somaliland was bordered by French Somaliland, Ethiopia, and Italian Somaliland. From 1940 to 1941, it was occupied by the Italians and was part of Italian East Africa...

and Italian Somaliland

Italian Somaliland

Italian Somaliland , also known as Italian Somalia, was a colony of the Kingdom of Italy from the 1880s until 1936 in the region of modern-day Somalia. Ruled in the 19th century by the Somali Sultanate of Hobyo and the Majeerteen Sultanate, the territory was later acquired by Italy through various...

. For the further etymology of France and Somalia, see below here and here.

Afars and Issas
French Territory of the Afars and the Issas
The French Territory of Afars and Issas was the name given to present-day Djibouti between 1967 and 1977, while it was still a colony of France...

, a former name: From the country's two main ethnic groups, the Afars and Issas

Issa (clan)

The Issa are a Somali clan, a sub-clan of the Dir. The Issa primarily reside in Djibouti, the extreme northwestern fringe in the Awdal district of Somaliland in northern Somalia, as well as the Shinile Zone located in the Somali Region of Ethiopia.-Lineage:...

Dominica

"Sunday Island" in Latin

Late Latin

Late Latin is the scholarly name for the written Latin of Late Antiquity. The English dictionary definition of Late Latin dates this period from the 3rd to the 6th centuries AD extending in Spain to the 7th. This somewhat ambiguously defined period fits between Classical Latin and Medieval Latin...

, feminized from diēs Dominicus ("Sunday", lit "Lordly Day"), possibly via Spanish

Spanish language

Dominga, for the day of the island's sighting by Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus

on 3 November 1493. At the time of Dominica's discovery, there was no special saint's day on that date and Columbus's own father had been named Domenego

Domenico Colombo

Domenico Colombo was the father of the Christopher Columbus and Bartholomew Columbus. He was also a weaver....

Wai'tu Kubuli, a former endonym: "Tall is her body" in the local Carib

Carib language

Carib, also known as Caribe, Cariña, Galibi, Galibí, Kali'na, Kalihna, Kalinya, Galibi Carib, Maraworno and Marworno, is an Amerindian language in the Cariban language family....

dialect.

Dominican Republic

"Republic of Santo Domingo

Santo Domingo

Santo Domingo, known officially as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is the capital and largest city in the Dominican Republic. Its metropolitan population was 2,084,852 in 2003, and estimated at 3,294,385 in 2010. The city is located on the Caribbean Sea, at the mouth of the Ozama River...

", the capital city of the Spanish-held region of Hispaniola

Hispaniola

Hispaniola is a major island in the Caribbean, containing the two sovereign states of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The island is located between the islands of Cuba to the west and Puerto Rico to the east, within the hurricane belt...

since its incorporation by Bartholomew Columbus on 5 August 1498 as La Nueva Isabela, Santo Domingo del Puerto de la Isla de la Española ("New Isabela, Saint Dominic of the Port of Hispaniola

Hispaniola

") either in honor of Sunday (see Dominica above), his father Domenego, or Saint Dominic

Saint Dominic

Saint Dominic , also known as Dominic of Osma, often called Dominic de Guzmán and Domingo Félix de Guzmán was the founder of the Friars Preachers, popularly called the Dominicans or Order of Preachers , a Catholic religious order...

's feast day on 4 August. Nicolás de Ovando

Nicolás de Ovando

Fray Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres was a Spanish soldier from a noble family and a Knight of the Order of Alcántara. He was Governor of the Indies from 1502 until 1509...

shortened the name to Santo Domingo de Guzmán upon the city's refounding at a new site after a major hurricane in 1502. Dominic himself was named for Saint Dominic of Silos

Dominic of Silos

Saint Dominic of Silos was a Spanish saint, to whom the Monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos is dedicated....

, the monk at whose shrine his mother was said to have prayed. Dominic (from the Latin

Late Latin

, "lordly" or "belonging to the Lord

Yahweh

Yahweh is the name of God in the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jews and Christians.The word Yahweh is a modern scholarly convention for the Hebrew , transcribed into Roman letters as YHWH and known as the Tetragrammaton, for which the original pronunciation is unknown...

") was a common name for children born on Sunday (see "Dominica" above) and for religious name

Religious Name

A religious name is a type of given name bestowed for a religious purpose, and which is generally used in religious contexts. Different types of religious names may be in use among the clergy of a religion, as well in some cases among the laity....

Hispaniola
Hispaniola
Hispaniola is a major island in the Caribbean, containing the two sovereign states of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The island is located between the islands of Cuba to the west and Puerto Rico to the east, within the hurricane belt...

, a former name: "Spanish [island]", Latinized by Peter Martyr d'Anghiera

Peter Martyr d'Anghiera

Peter Martyr d'Anghiera was an Italian-born historian of Spain and its discoveries during the Age of Exploration...

from Bartolomé de las Casas

Bartolomé de Las Casas

Bartolomé de las Casas O.P. was a 16th-century Spanish historian, social reformer and Dominican friar. He became the first resident Bishop of Chiapas, and the first officially appointed "Protector of the Indians"...

's truncated Spanish

Spanish language

Española, from the original La Isla Española ("Spanish Island") bestowed by Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus

in 1492. Replaced by the Royal Audiencia of Santo Domingo theoretically in 1511 and actually in 1526.

Spanish Haiti, a former name: Self-descriptive, translated from the Spanish

Spanish language

name República del Haití Español chosen upon independence in 1821. The "Spanish" distinguished it from the adjacent French-speaking Haiti

Haiti

Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...

. For further etymology of "Haiti", see below.

Ozama and Cibao, a former name: From the French Départements de l'Ozama et du Cibao, from the Taino

Taíno language

cibao ("abounding in rocks", referring to the island's Central Range

Cordillera Central, Dominican Republic

The Cordillera Central is the highest mountain range in the Dominican Republic and in all of the West Indies. Connected to the Massif du Nord in Haiti, it gradually bends southwards and finishes near the town of San Cristóbal on the Caribbean coastal plains. Because of its altitude, cool...

) and the Ozama River

Ozama River

The Ozama River in the Dominican Republic can trace its source to the Loma Siete Cabezas in the Sierra de Yamasá close to Villa Altagracia....

, from Taino ozama ("wetlands", "navigable waters").

East Timor

"Eastern East [Island]", from the Portuguese

Portuguese language

Timor-Leste ("East Timor"), in reference to the state's position on the eastern half of the island of Timor

Timor

Timor is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, north of the Timor Sea. It is divided between the independent state of East Timor, and West Timor, belonging to the Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara. The island's surface is 30,777 square kilometres...

, whose name derives from the Malay

Malay language

Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...

timur ("east"), from its position in the Lesser Sundas.

Portuguese Timor
Portuguese Timor
Portuguese Timor was the name of East Timor when it was under Portuguese control. During this period, Portugal shared the island of Timor with the Netherlands East Indies, and later with Indonesia....

, a former name: As above, with the addition of its colonizer to distinguish it from Dutch and later Indonesian Timor on the western half of the island. For further etymology of Portugal, see below.

Timor-Leste, an alternate name: "East Timor" in Portuguese.

Ecuador

"Equator

Equator

An equator is the intersection of a sphere's surface with the plane perpendicular to the sphere's axis of rotation and containing the sphere's center of mass....

" in Spanish

Spanish language

, truncated from the Spanish República del Ecuador (lit "Republic of the Equator"), from the former Ecuador Department

Ecuador Department

Ecuador Department was one of the departments of Gran Colombia.It had borders to:* Azuay Department in the South.* Guayaquil Department in the West.- Subdivisions :3 provincias y 15 cantones:...

of Gran Colombia

Gran Colombia

established in 1824 as a division of the former territory of the Royal Audience of Quito

Royal Audience of Quito

The Royal Audience of Quito was an administrative unit in the Spanish Empire which had political, military, and religious jurisdiction over territories that today include Ecuador, parts of northern Peru, parts of southern Colombia and parts of northern Brazil...

. Quito, which remained the capital of the department and republic, is located only about 25 miles (40.2 km), ¼ of a degree, south of the equator.

Quito
Royal Audience of Quito
The Royal Audience of Quito was an administrative unit in the Spanish Empire which had political, military, and religious jurisdiction over territories that today include Ecuador, parts of northern Peru, parts of southern Colombia and parts of northern Brazil...

, a former name: "Quitus", after its capital Quito

Quito

San Francisco de Quito, most often called Quito , is the capital city of Ecuador in northwestern South America. It is located in north-central Ecuador in the Guayllabamba river basin, on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active stratovolcano in the Andes mountains...

, truncated from the original Spanish "Santiago de Quito" and "San Francisco de Quito", after an Andean Indian tribe

Indigenous peoples in Ecuador

Indigenous peoples in Ecuador are the groups of people who were present in what became the South American nation of Ecuador when Europeans arrived. The term also includes their descendants from the time of the Spanish conquest to the present...

recently annexed to the Incan Empire at the time of its conquest by the Spanish.

Egypt

"Home of the ka of Ptah

Ptah

In Ancient Egyptian Religion, Ptah was the deification of the primordial mound in the Ennead cosmogony, which was more literally referred to as Ta-tenen , meaning risen land, or as Tanen, meaning submerged land, though Tatenen was a god in his...

", from Latin

Latin

, from Greek Aígyptos , from Mycenean Akupitiyo or *Aiguptiyós (

). Possibly derived from Egyptian

Egyptian language

Egyptian is the oldest known indigenous language of Egypt and a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. Written records of the Egyptian language have been dated from about 3400 BC, making it one of the oldest recorded languages known. Egyptian was spoken until the late 17th century AD in the...

Gebtu (Coptos, modern Qift

Qift

Qift is a small town in the Qena Governorate of Egypt about 43 km north of Luxor, on the east bank of the Nile.-History:In ancient Egypt, Qift, known then as Gebtu, was an important center for administration, religion, and commerce, being the chief city of the fifth Upper Egyptian Nome of Harawî...

), although now more often derived from Egyptian

Egyptian language

, an alternate name for Memphis

Memphis, Egypt

Memphis was the ancient capital of Aneb-Hetch, the first nome of Lower Egypt. Its ruins are located near the town of Helwan, south of Cairo.According to legend related by Manetho, the city was founded by the pharaoh Menes around 3000 BC. Capital of Egypt during the Old Kingdom, it remained an...

, the capital of the Egyptian empire, by metonymy

Metonymy

Metonymy is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept...

from the cult and temple of Ptah there. Ptah's name itself meant "opener", both in relation to his creation of the world and his role in the opening of the mouth ceremony

Opening of the mouth ceremony

The opening of the mouth ceremony was an ancient Egyptian ritual described in funerary texts such as the Pyramid Texts.-Funerary magic:...

Strabo

Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...

recorded the Greek folk etymology that it derived from the Greek Aigaíou hyptíōs (Αἰγαίου ὑπτίως, "[land] below the Aegean

Aegean Sea

The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...

").

Miṣr or Maṣr, the local endonym: "City" in Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

(مصر), ultimately from Akkadian

Akkadian language

*Kemet, a former endonym: "Black Land", reconstructed from Egyptian , distinguishing the Nile flood plain from the "Red Land" of the desert, later becoming Coptic

Coptic language

Coptic or Coptic Egyptian is the current stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century. Egyptian began to be written using the Greek alphabet in the 1st century...

Kīmi . A previous folk etymology related the name to the Biblical Ham.

El Salvador

"The Savior" in Spanish

Spanish language

, a truncation of the original Provincia de Nuestro Señor Jesus Cristo, el Salvador del Mundo ("Province of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of the World

Salvator Mundi

Salvator Mundi, or Saviour of the World, is a subject in iconography depicting Christ with his right hand raised in blessing and his left hand holding an orb surmounted by a cross, known as a globus cruciger...

"), a territory within the Spanish

Spanish Empire

The Spanish Empire comprised territories and colonies administered directly by Spain in Europe, in America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. It originated during the Age of Exploration and was therefore one of the first global empires. At the time of Habsburgs, Spain reached the peak of its world power....

Kingdom of Guatemala named for its capital La Ciudad de Gran San Salvador
San Salvador
The city of San Salvador the capital and largest city of El Salvador, which has been designated a Gamma World City. Its complete name is La Ciudad de Gran San Salvador...

("City of the Great Holy Savior

Feast of the Transfiguration

The Feast of the Transfiguration of Jesus is celebrated by various Christian denominations. The origins of the feast are less than certain and may have derived from the dedication of three basilicas on Mount Tabor...

"), founded around April 1, 1525, by Gonzalo de Alvarado

Gonzalo de Alvarado

Gonzalo de Alvarado was the name of two Spanish conquistadors, both related to Pedro de Alvarado and participating in the conquest of Mexico and Central America...

, whose brother Pedro

Pedro de Alvarado

Pedro de Alvarado y Contreras was a Spanish conquistador and governor of Guatemala. He participated in the conquest of Cuba, in Juan de Grijalva's exploration of the coasts of Yucatan and the Gulf of Mexico, and in the conquest of Mexico led by Hernan Cortes...

had previously instructed him to name a settlement in the territory of Cuscatlan after the Feast of the Holy Savior

Feast of the Transfiguration

Cuzcatlán, a former endonym: "Place of Diamonds", from the Nahuatl Kozkatlan.

England
Kingdom of England
The Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe. At its height, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands; what today comprises the legal jurisdiction of England...

"Land of the Angles

Angles

The Angles is a modern English term for a Germanic people who took their name from the ancestral cultural region of Angeln, a district located in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany...

", from Old English Englaland, for the Germanic tribe first attested in 897. The Angles themselves were first attested as the Latin Anglii in Tacitus

Tacitus

Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

after the ascension of the Kentish Egbert

Egbert of Wessex

Egbert was King of Wessex from 802 until his death in 839. His father was Ealhmund of Kent...

to the Saxon thrones. Their etymology is uncertain: possible derivations include Angul (the Angeln

Angeln

Modern Angeln, also known as Anglia , is a small peninsula in Southern Schleswig in the northern Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, protruding into the Bay of Kiel...

peninsula of eastern Jutland

Jutland

Jutland , historically also called Cimbria, is the name of the peninsula that juts out in Northern Europe toward the rest of Scandinavia, forming the mainland part of Denmark. It has the North Sea to its west, Kattegat and Skagerrak to its north, the Baltic Sea to its east, and the Danish–German...

), the "people of the Narrow [Water]" (from the proposed proto-Indo-European

Pie

A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients....

root *ang-, "narrow", or *angh-, "tight") in reference to the Angeln's Schlei

Schlei

The Schlei is a narrow inlet of the Baltic Sea in Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany. It stretches for approximately 20 miles from the Baltic near Kappeln and Arnis to the city of Schleswig. Along the Schlei are many small bays and swamps...

inlet, "people of the meadows" (cf. Old High German

Old High German

angar), the god *Ingwaza proposed Proto-Germanic form of Freyr

Freyr

Freyr is one of the most important gods of Norse paganism. Freyr was highly associated with farming, weather and, as a phallic fertility god, Freyr "bestows peace and pleasure on mortals"...

's earlier name Yngvi

Yngvi

Yngvi, Yngvin, Ingwine, Inguin are names that relate to an older theonym Ing and which appears to have been the older name for the god Freyr ....

, or the Ingaevones

Ingaevones

The Ingaevones or, as Pliny has it, apparently more accurately, Ingvaeones , as described in Tacitus's Germania, written c. 98 AD, were a West Germanic cultural group living along the North Sea coast in the areas of Jutland, Holstein, Frisia and the Danish islands, where they had by the 1st...

who claimed their descent from him.

Anglia, a former name: As above, in its Latin form.

Angelcynn, a former name: "Folk of the Angles

Angles

The Angles is a modern English term for a Germanic people who took their name from the ancestral cultural region of Angeln, a district located in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany...

", from Old English, name used by Alfred the Great

Alfred the Great

Equatorial Guinea

Self-descriptive. Although the country's territory does not touch the equator

Equator

An equator is the intersection of a sphere's surface with the plane perpendicular to the sphere's axis of rotation and containing the sphere's center of mass....

, it straddles the line: the island Annobon

Annobón

Annobón may refer to:* Annobón Province* Annobonese language* Annobon people...

lies to the south while the mainland is to the north. For further etymology of "Guinea", see below.

Spanish Guinea
Spanish Guinea
Spanish Guinea was an African colony of Spain that became the independent nation of Equatorial Guinea.-History:The Portuguese explorer, Fernão do Pó, seeking a route to India, is credited with having discovered the island of Bioko in 1472. He called it Formosa , but it quickly took on the name of...

, a former name: See Spain and Guinea below.

Eritrea

"Land of the Red Sea

Red Sea

The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez...

", adopted in 1993 upon independence from Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

, from the Italian

Kingdom of Italy

There have been several distinct entities known as the Kingdom of Italy. Italy under the rule of Odoacer from 476 to 493 is often called the Kingdom of Italy, since it encompassed the Roman province of Italy and Odoacer is periodically styled rex...

colony

Italian Eritrea

Italian Eritrea was the first colony of the Kingdom of Italy. It was created in 1890 and lasted officially until 1947.-Acquisition of Assab and creation of the colony:...

established in 1890, named by Francesco Crispi

Francesco Crispi

Francesco Crispi was a 19th-century Italian politician of Arbëreshë ancestry. He was instrumental in the unification of Italy and was its 17th and 20th Prime Minister from 1887 until 1891 and again from 1893 until 1896.-Sicily:Crispi’s paternal family came originally from the small agricultural...

on the suggestion of Carlo Dossi

Carlo Dossi

Carlo Alberto Pisani Dossi was an Italian writer and diplomat. He belonged to the Scapigliati.In 1892 he became a diplomat in Colombia, where he married Carlotta Borsani, with whom he had three children...

, Italicized

Italian language

from the Latin transcription Mare Erythræum
Erythraean Sea
The Erythraean Sea is one of the names found in ancient cartography. This name may have derived from the seasonal blooms of the red-coloured Trichodesmium erythraeum near the water's surface, as the Greek "Ερυθρά" actually means "red".In the third century, Flavius Philostratus made this comment:...

of the Greek Erythrá Thálassa (Ἐρυθρά Θάλασσα, "Red Sea").

Estonia

"Land of the Aesti

Aesti

The Aesti were a people described by the Roman historian Tacitus in his treatise Germania . According to this account, the Aestii lived on the shore of the Suebian Sea , eastward of the Suiones and westward of the Sitones. They were a population of Suebia...

", a correction of earlier Esthonia, a Latinization of the Danish

Kingdom of Denmark

The Kingdom of Denmark or the Danish Realm , is a constitutional monarchy and sovereign state consisting of Denmark proper in northern Europe and two autonomous constituent countries, the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic and Greenland in North America. Denmark is the hegemonial part, where the...

Estland
Danish Estonia
Danish Estonia refers to the territories of present-day Estonia that were ruled by Denmark firstly during the 13th–14th centuries and again in the 16th–17th centuries....

, from an earlier Baltic

Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...

people recorded as the Ostiatoi as early as Pytheas

Pytheas

Pytheas of Massalia or Massilia , was a Greek geographer and explorer from the Greek colony, Massalia . He made a voyage of exploration to northwestern Europe at about 325 BC. He travelled around and visited a considerable part of Great Britain...

's On the Ocean in 320 BC, possibly ultimately from the proposed Proto-Germanic *austam and Proto-Indo-European

Pie

A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients....

*aus- ("east").

Ethiopia

"Land of the Blacks", from Latin

Latin

Æthiopia, from the Greek Aithiopía (Αἰθιοπία), "land of the Aithíopas" (Αἰθίοπας, lit "burnt-faced"), originally in reference to all Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa as a geographical term refers to the area of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara. A political definition of Sub-Saharan Africa, instead, covers all African countries which are fully or partially located south of the Sahara...

An Ethiopia

Ethiopia

n folk etymology recorded in the Book of Aksum

Book of Aksum

The Book of Aksum or Mats'hafa Aksum is the name accepted since the time of James Bruce for a collection of documents from the St. Mary Cathedral of Aksum providing information on Ethiopian history. The earliest parts of the collection date to the mid-15th century during the reign of Zar'a Ya`qob...

traces the name to an "'Ityopp'is", supposed to be a son of Cush

Biblical Cush

Cush was the eldest son of Ham, brother of Mizraim , Canaan and the father of Nimrod, and Raamah, mentioned in the "Table of Nations" in the Genesis 10:6 and I Chronicles 1:8...

Dʿmt or Damot, a former name: Unknown etymology, reconstructed from the Proto-Ge'ez

South Arabian alphabet

The ancient Yemeni alphabet branched from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet in about the 9th century BC. It was used for writing the Yemeni Old South Arabic languages of the Sabaean, Qatabanian, Hadramautic, Minaean, Himyarite, and proto-Ge'ez in Dʿmt...

and Ge'ez Dmt (ዳሞት).

Axum
Axum
Axum or Aksum is a city in northern Ethiopia which was the original capital of the eponymous kingdom of Axum. Population 56,500 . Axum was a naval and trading power that ruled the region from ca. 400 BC into the 10th century...

or Aksum, a former name: Uncertain meaning, from its capital Axum

Axum

Axum or Aksum is a city in northern Ethiopia which was the original capital of the eponymous kingdom of Axum. Population 56,500 . Axum was a naval and trading power that ruled the region from ca. 400 BC into the 10th century...

(Ge'ez: አክሱም) of unknown etymology.

Abyssinia
Abyssinia
Abyssinia may refer to:* Ethiopia, the modern nation* Ethiopian Empire, a historical nation* SS Abyssinia, 1870 Canadian Pacific steamship* HMS Abyssinia , British armoured ship* Abyssinia * Abyssinia...

, a former name: Uncertain meaning. Latinized in 1735 from a Portuguese

Portuguese language

corruption Abassia of the Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

al-Ḥabašah , from Ge'ez

Ge'ez language

Ge'ez is an ancient South Semitic language that developed in the northern region of Ethiopia and southern Eritrea in the Horn of Africa...

Ḥababaśā (ሐበሻ) or Ḥabaśā (ሐበሣ), first attested in 2nd- or 3rd-century engravings as Ḥbś or Ḥbštm (ሐበሠ), of unknown origin. Possibly related to the 15th-century-BC Egyptian Ḫbstjw, a foreign people of the incense-producing regions.

Fiji

"Viti Levu

Viti Levu

Viti Levu is the largest island in the Republic of Fiji, the site of the nation's capital, Suva, and home to a large majority of Fiji's population.- Geography and economy :...

", from its Tongan

Tongan language

Tongan is an Austronesian language spoken in Tonga. It has around 200,000 speakers and is a national language of Tonga. It is a VSO language.-Related languages:...

form Fisi, popularized by British explorer James Cook

James Cook

Captain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...

. Viti Levu's own name is the Fijian

Fijian language

Fijian is an Austronesian language of the Malayo-Polynesian family spoken in Fiji. It has 450,000 first-language speakers, which is less than half the population of Fiji, but another 200,000 speak it as a second language...

for "Great Viti", a word some derive as "look-out".

Finland

"Land of the Finns", from the Swedish

Swedish language

Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...

spelling, first attested in Old Norse runestones in present-day Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

. Early mentions of the Fenni
Fenni
The Fenni were an ancient people of northeastern Europe first described by Cornelius Tacitus in Germania in AD 98.- Ancient accounts :The Fenni are first mentioned by Cornelius Tacitus in Germania in 98 A.D...

in Tacitus

Tacitus

's 1st-century Germania
Germania (book)
The Germania , written by Gaius Cornelius Tacitus around 98, is an ethnographic work on the Germanic tribes outside the Roman Empire.-Contents:...

and the Phinnoi
Phinnoi
Phinnoi were one of the people living in Scandinavia , mentioned by a Greek scientist Ptolemy in his Geographia around 150 CE. Ptolemy mentions them twice, but provides no other information on them....

(Greek: Φιννοι) in Ptolemy's 2nd-century Geographia
Geographia (Ptolemy)
The Geography is Ptolemy's main work besides the Almagest...

are today thought to refer to the modern Sami

Sami people

The Sami people, also spelled Sámi, or Saami, are the arctic indigenous people inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of far northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Kola Peninsula of Russia, and the border area between south and middle Sweden and Norway. The Sámi are Europe’s northernmost...

. The etymology of "Finn" is uncertain: it may derive from Germanic

Germanic languages

The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...

translations of the Finnish

Finnish language

Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...

suoma ("fen

Fen

A fen is a type of wetland fed by mineral-rich surface water or groundwater. Fens are characterised by their water chemistry, which is neutral or alkaline, with relatively high dissolved mineral levels but few other plant nutrients...

") or from the proposed Proto-Germanic *finne ("wanderers", "hunting-folk").

Suomi
Suomi
Suomi is a Finnish word that most commonly refers to either:*Finland or *Finnish language or or suomen kieliSuomi may also refer to:*Suomi M-31 SMG, a Finnish submachine gun*Verner E...

, the local endonym: Uncertain etymology. Possibly derived from the proposed Proto-Baltic *zeme ("land") or from the Finnish

Finnish language

suoma ("fen

Fen

").

Early Modern France

"Land of the Franks

Franks

The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...

", Anglicized from Late Latin

Late Latin

Francia, from Old Frankish

Old Frankish

Old Frankish is an extinct West Germanic language, once spoken by the Franks. It is the parent language of the Franconian languages, of which Dutch and Afrikaans are the most known descendants...

Franko. The name "Frank" itself has been derived from the historic framea javelin, proposed Proto-Germanic *frankon ("spear", "javelin"),although the characteristic weapons of the Franks were the sword and the Frankish axe

Francisca

The francisca is a throwing axe used as a weapon during the Early Middle Ages by the Franks, among whom it was a characteristic national weapon at the time of the Merovingians from about 500 to 750 AD and is known to have been used during the reign of Charlemagne .Although generally associated...

and from the Proto-Germanic *frankisc ("free") from *frank ("free")although they were not masters until after their conquest of Gaul

Gaul

Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...

Gallia
Gallia
Gallia may refer to:*Gaul , the region of Western Europe occupied by present-day France, Belgium and other neighbouring countries...

, a former name: "Land of the Celts", from Latin Gallia, of uncertain etymology. Possible derivations include an eponymous river or a minor tribe reconstructed as *Gal(a)-to- whose name was cognate with the Proto-Celtic *galno- ("power", "strength").

Gaul
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...

, a former name: "Land of Foreigners", from French

French language

Gaule, from Proto-Germanic *Walhaz, originally meaning "Volcae

Volcae

The Volcae were a tribal confederation constituted before the raid of combined Gauls that invaded Macedon circa 270 BC and defeated the assembled Greeks at the Battle of Thermopylae in 279 BC...

" but eventually simply "foreigner".

Gabon

"Cloak", Anglicized from the Portuguese

Portuguese language

Gabão, bestowed on the Komo River

Komo River

The Komo is a river of Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. It flows for .It rises in Equatorial Guinea in the southwestern part of the Woleu-Ntem plateau. However much of its watershed is in the territory of Gabon. The largest tributary of the River Komo is the Mbeya River. Its course is disturbed by...

estuary for its supposed resemblance to a gabão, a kind of pointy-hooded overcoat whose name derives from the Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

qabā’ .

The Gambia

"Kaabu

Kaabu

The Kaabu Empire was a Mandinka Kingdom of Senegambia that rose to prominence in the region thanks to its origins as a former province of the Mali Empire...

", selected upon independence in 1965 from the name of the former British colony, named for the Gambia River

Gambia River

The Gambia River is a major river in West Africa, running from the Fouta Djallon plateau in north Guinea westward through Senegal and The Gambia to the Atlantic Ocean at the city of Banjul...

, from a corruption of the Portuguese

Portuguese language

Gambra and Cambra first recorded in 1455 by Alvise Cadamosto, a corruption of a local name Kambra or Kambaa (Mandinkan: "Kaabu river") or Gambura, an amalgam of Mandinkan Kaabu and Wolof

Wolof language

Wolof is a language spoken in Senegal, The Gambia, and Mauritania, and is the native language of the Wolof people. Like the neighbouring languages Serer and Fula, it belongs to the Atlantic branch of the Niger–Congo language family...

bur ("king").

A folk etymology traces the word from the Portuguese

Portuguese language

câmbio ("trade", "exchange"), from the region's extensive involvement in the slave trade.

Georgia (country)

Etymology uncertain. The terms "Georgia" and "Georgian" appeared in Western Europe in numerous early medieval annals. At the time, the name was folk etymologizedfor instance, by the French chronicler Jacques de Vitry

Jacques de Vitry

Jacques de Vitry was a theologian chronicler and cardinal from 1229 – 40.He was born in central France and studied at the University of Paris, becoming a regular canon in 1210 at the church of Saint-Nicolas d'Oignies in the Diocese of Liège, a post he maintained until 1216...

and the "English" fraudster John Mandeville

John Mandeville

from a supposed especial reverence of the Syrian

Syria Palaestina

Syria Palæstina was a Roman province between 135CE and 390CE. It had been established by the merge of Roman Syria and Roman Judaea, following the defeat of the Bar Kokhba Revolt in 135 CE. In 193 Syria-Coele was split to form a separate provincial locality...

Saint George

Saint George was, according to tradition, a Roman soldier from Syria Palaestina and a priest in the Guard of Diocletian, who is venerated as a Christian martyr. In hagiography Saint George is one of the most venerated saints in the Catholic , Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, and the Oriental Orthodox...

. According to several modern scholars, "Georgia" seems to have been borrowed in the 11th or 12th century from the Syriac

Syriac language

Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Having first appeared as a script in the 1st century AD after being spoken as an unwritten language for five centuries, Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from...

Gurz-ān or -iyān and Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

Ĵurĵan or Ĵurzan, derived from the New Persian Gurğ or Gurğān, itself stemming from the Ancient Iranian and Middle Persian

Middle Persian

Vrkān or Waručān of uncertain origin, but resembling the eastern trans-Caspian toponym Gorgan, from the Middle Persian Varkâna ("land of the wolves"). This might have been of the same etymology as the Armenian

Armenian language

Virk' (Վիրք) and a source of the classical Iberi (Greek: Ἴβηρες, Ibēres).

Another theory semantically links "Georgia" to Greek geōrgós (γεωργός, "tiller of the land") and Latin georgicus ("agricultural"). The Georgi mentioned by Pliny the Elder

Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...

and Pomponius Mela

Pomponius Mela

Pomponius Mela, who wrote around AD 43, was the earliest Roman geographer. He was born in Tingentera and died c. AD 45.His short work occupies less than one hundred pages of ordinary print. It is laconic in style and deficient in method, but of pure Latinity, and occasionally relieved by pleasing...

. were agricultural tribes distinguished as such from their pastoral neighbors across the Panticapaeum

Panticapaeum

Panticapaeum , present-day Kerch: an important city and port in Taurica , situated on a hill Panticapaeum (Greek: Παντικάπαιον, Pantikápaion), present-day Kerch: an important city and port in Taurica (Tauric Chersonese), situated on a hill Panticapaeum (Greek: Παντικάπαιον, Pantikápaion),...

in Taurica

Taurica

Taurica, Tauric Chersonese, and Taurida were names by which the territory of Crimea was known to the Greeks and Romans.- Etymology of the name :...

Sakartvelo, the local endonym: "Place for Kartvelians" in Georgian

Georgian language

Georgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.Georgian is the primary language of about 4 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad...

, from Kartli

Kartli

Kartli is a historical region in central-to-eastern Georgia traversed by the river Mtkvari , on which Georgia's capital, Tbilisi, is situated. Known to the Classical authors as Iberia, Kartli played a crucial role in ethnic and political consolidation of the Georgians in the Middle Ages...

(Georgian

Georgian language

: ქართლი), attested in the 5th-century Martyrdom of the Holy Queen Shushanik
Martyrdom of the Holy Queen Shushanik
The Martyrdom of the Holy Queen Shushanik is the first extant piece of Georgian literature. Purported to have been written between 476 and 483, the earliest surviving manuscript dates from the 10th century...

, possibly from a cognate with the Mingrelian karta (ქართა, "cattle pen", "enclosed place"). Traditionally taken by the Georgian Chronicles

The Georgian Chronicles

The Georgian Chronicles is a conventional English name for the principal compendium of medieval Georgian historical texts Kartlis Tskhovreba , literally "life of Kartli", Kartli being a core region of ancient and medieval Georgia, known to the Classical and Byzantine authors as Iberia...

as referring to Kartlos

Kartlos

Kartlos or K'art'los was the legendary establisher and eponymous father of Georgia, and the mythic ancestor of Georgians, namely its nucleus Kartli...

, an eponymous ancestor who supposedly built a city Kartli on the Mtkvari River near modern Armazi

Armazi

Armazi was, according to the medieval Georgian chronicles, the supreme deity in a pre-Christian pantheon of ancient Georgians of Kartli ....

Iberia
Caucasian Iberia
Iberia , also known as Iveria , was a name given by the ancient Greeks and Romans to the ancient Georgian kingdom of Kartli , corresponding roughly to the eastern and southern parts of the present day Georgia...

, a former name: Latinized from Greek Ibēría (Ἰβηρία), possibly from Virk' as above.

Germany

Meaning uncertain. German attested 1520, Anglicized from Latin

Latin

Germania
Germania
Germania was the Greek and Roman geographical term for the geographical regions inhabited by mainly by peoples considered to be Germani. It was most often used to refer especially to the east of the Rhine and north of the Danube...

, attested in the 3rd century BC, popularized by Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

as a reference to all tribes east of the Rhine, and repopularized in Europe following the rediscovery and publication of Tacitus

Tacitus

's Germania
Germania (book)
The Germania , written by Gaius Cornelius Tacitus around 98, is an ethnographic work on the Germanic tribes outside the Roman Empire.-Contents:...

in 1455. Proposed derivations include the Celtic

Celtic languages

The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...

gair- ("neighbor"), gairm ("battle-cry") or *gar ("to shout"), and gar ("spear").

Deutschland
Deutschland
Deutschland is the German language word for Germany.Deutschland may also refer to:, a blockade-breaking German cargo submarine used during World War I, first of the 1930s Panzerschiffe , later renamed Lützow; involved in the 1937 Deutschland incident, a steamship wrecked in 1875 and commemorated in...

, the local endonym: "The People's Land", from Old High German

Old High German

diutisciu land, from the Germanic

Germanic languages

(sometimes translated as "vernacular", as opposed to Latin

Latin

and Romance languages

Romance languages

The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...

like Old French

Old French

Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...

), a form of *þeudō, from the proposed Proto-Indo-European

Pie

A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients....

("people").

Holy Roman Empire
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...

, a former name: Self-descriptive, a translation of the Latin

Medieval Latin

Imperium Romanum Sacrum, used to describe the papally

Pope

The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...

-bestowed medieval Roman Empire

Translatio imperii

Translatio imperii, Latin for "transfer of rule", is a concept invented in the Middle Ages for describing history as a linear succession of transfers of imperium, that is of supreme power concentrated with a series of single rulers .-Origin:...

from the reign of Frederick Barbarossa

Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor

Frederick I Barbarossa was a German Holy Roman Emperor. He was elected King of Germany at Frankfurt on 4 March 1152 and crowned in Aachen on 9 March, crowned King of Italy in Pavia in 1155, and finally crowned Roman Emperor by Pope Adrian IV, on 18 June 1155, and two years later in 1157 the term...

and avowedly German (Latin: Imperium Romanum Sacrum Nationis Germanicæ, "Holy Roman Empire of the Germanic People") after the 1512 Diet of Cologne.

Ghana

"Warrior King", adopted at J. B. Danquah

J. B. Danquah

Nana Joseph Kwame Kyeretwie Boakye Danquah was a Ghanaian statesman, pan-Africanist, scholar and historian. He played a significant role in pre and post colonial Ghana. In fact, he is credited with giving Ghana its name...

's suggestion upon the union of Gold Coast with British Togoland in 1956 or upon independence on March 6, 1957, in homage to the earlier Mali

Mali

Mali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...

an Ghana Empire

Ghana Empire

The Ghana Empire or Wagadou Empire was located in what is now southeastern Mauritania, and Western Mali. Complex societies had existed in the region since about 1500 BCE, and around Ghana's core region since about 300 CE...

, named for the title of its ruler. Despite the empire never holding territory near the current nation, traditional stories connect the northern Mande of Ghanathe Soninke, Dyula, Ligby, and Bissato peoples displaced following the collapse of the old Ghana.

Togoland
Togoland
Togoland was a German protectorate in West Africa from 1884 to 1914, encompassing what is now the nation of Togo and most of what is now the Volta Region of Ghana. The colony was established during the period generally known as the "Scramble for Africa"...

and British Togoland
British Togoland
British Togoland was a League of Nations Class B mandate in West Africa, under the mandatory power of the United Kingdom. It was effectively formed in 1916 by the splitting of the occupied German protectorate of Togoland into two territories, French Togoland and British Togoland, during the First...

, former names: See Togo below.

Gold Coast
Gold Coast (British colony)
The Gold Coast was a British colony on the Gulf of Guinea in west Africa that became the independent nation of Ghana in 1957.-Overview:The first Europeans to arrive at the coast were the Portuguese in 1471. They encountered a variety of African kingdoms, some of which controlled substantial...

, a former name: Self-descriptive. Compare the names Europeans gave to nearby stretches of shore, as Côte d'Ivoire above.

Greece

Etymology uncertain. From Old English Grecas and Crecas, from Latin

Latin

Græcus, presumably from Greek Graikoí (Γραικοί). The Romans were said to have called all the Greeks after the name of the first group they met, although the location of that tribe varies between Epirus

Epirus

The name Epirus, from the Greek "Ήπειρος" meaning continent may refer to:-Geographical:* Epirus - a historical and geographical region of the southwestern Balkans, straddling modern Greece and Albania...

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

recorded that the Illyrians

Illyrians

The Illyrians were a group of tribes who inhabited part of the western Balkans in antiquity and the south-eastern coasts of the Italian peninsula...

used the name for Dorian Epiriots from their native name Graiiand Cumae

Cumae

Cumae is an ancient Greek settlement lying to the northwest of Naples in the Italian region of Campania. Cumae was the first Greek colony on the mainland of Italy , and the seat of the Cumaean Sibyl...

Eusebius of Caesarea

Eusebius of Caesarea also called Eusebius Pamphili, was a Roman historian, exegete and Christian polemicist. He became the Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine about the year 314. Together with Pamphilus, he was a scholar of the Biblical canon...

dated its settlement by Boeotians from Pithecusae led by Megasthenes and Hippocles to 1050 BC. The town of Graea

Graea

Graea or Graia is a region,or a city of ancient Greece that is placed under Boeotia in Homer's Catalogue of Ships; it seems to have included the city of Oropos, though by the fifth century BC it was probably a kome of that city...

(Γραῖα, Graĩa) in or near Oropos

Oropos

Oropos is a small town and a municipality in East Attica, Greece.-Geography:It is situated on the southern Euboean Gulf, opposite Eretria. Oropos is located N of Avlona and Athens, E of Thebes and SE of Chalcis. Oropos is linked with the road linking Nea Palatia and Sikamino...

, Boeotia

Boeotia

Boeotia, also spelled Beotia and Bœotia , is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Central Greece. It was also a region of ancient Greece. Its capital is Livadeia, the second largest city being Thebes.-Geography:...

, appeared in Homer's Catalogue of Ships

Catalogue of Ships

The Catalogue of Ships is a passage in Book 2 of Homer's Iliad , which lists the contingents of the Achaean army that sailed to Troy...

and was said to be the oldest in Greece, and the Parian Chronicle

Parian Chronicle

The Parian Marble or Parian Chronicle is a Greek chronological table, covering the years from 1581 BC to 264 BC, inscribed on a stele...

lists Graikoí as the original name of the Greeks. The town and its region

Graiki

Graiki was the name given by some ancient sources to the area out of ancient Attica including ancient Boeotia. The word seems to be derived from the Greek word "graia" meaning "old lady" , and the region is related with the Ogygian deluge, the first mentioned worldwide deluge in Greek...

(Γραϊκή, Graïkē) have been derived from the proposed Proto-Greek *grauj ("old age") and Proto-Indo-European

Pie

A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients....

root *gere ("to grow old").

Folk etymology linked the name with an eponymous patriarch Graecus

Graecus

Graecus or Græcus was, according to Hesiod's "Eoiae" or Catalogue of Women on the origin of the Greeks, the son of Pandora II and Zeus...

, related to Hellen

Hellen

Hellen , the son of Deucalion and Pyrrha, brother of Amphictyon and father of Aeolus, Xuthus, and Dorus. His name is also another name for Greek, meaning a person of Greek descent or pertaining to Greek culture, and the source of the adjective "Hellenic".Each of his sons founded a primary tribe of...

below.

Hellás, the local endonym: Etymology unknown. Modern Greek

Modern Greek

Modern Greek refers to the varieties of the Greek language spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic...

Elláda (Ελλάδα) and classical Hellás (Ἑλλάς) both derive from Greek

Ancient Greek

Hellēn (Ἕλλην). Aristotle traced the name to a region in Epirus between Dodona

Dodona

Dodona in Epirus in northwestern Greece, was an oracle devoted to a Mother Goddess identified at other sites with Rhea or Gaia, but here called Dione, who was joined and partly supplanted in historical times by the Greek god Zeus.The shrine of Dodona was regarded as the oldest Hellenic oracle,...

and the Achelous, where "Selloi
Selloi
Selloi were inhabitants of Epirus of ancient Greece, in a region between Dodona - where existed the oldest reported oracle - and Achelous river. Aristotle names this area ancient Hellas. There the Selloi dwelt and those who were formerly called Graeci and later Hellenes. According to Homer, they...

" (possibly "sacrificers") were said to be priests of Dodonian Zeus

Dodonian Zeus

Dodonian Zeus or Zeus of Dodonia may refer to either of two figures who were worshipped at Dodona, the oldest oracle of the ancient Greeks:*Zeus Naos*Zeus Bouleus...

and operators of the first oracle

Oracle

In Classical Antiquity, an oracle was a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophetic predictions or precognition of the future, inspired by the gods. As such it is a form of divination....

Folk etymology linked the name with an eponymous patriarch Hellen

Hellen

(completely distinct from the female Helen of Troy), said to be the son of Deucalion

Deucalion

In Greek mythology Deucalion was a son of Prometheus and Pronoia. The anger of Zeus was ignited by the hubris of the Pelasgians, and he decided to put an end to the Bronze Age. Lycaon, the king of Arcadia, had sacrificed a boy to Zeus, who was appalled by this savage offering...

and Pyrrha

Pyrrha

In Greek mythology, Pyrrha was the daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora and wife of Deucalion.When Zeus decided to end the Bronze Age with the great deluge, Deucalion and his wife, Pyrrha, were the only survivors...

and to have originated in Thessalic

Thessaly

Thessaly is a traditional geographical region and an administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thessaly was known as Aeolia, and appears thus in Homer's Odyssey....

Phthia

Phthia , Phthíē ) in ancient Greece was the southernmost region of ancient Thessaly, on both sides of Othrys Mountain. It was the homeland of the Myrmidones tribe, who took part in the Trojan War under Achilles....

. Achilleus commanded their forces at Troy. His brother Amphictyon

Amphictyon

Amphictyon , in Greek mythology, was the second son of Deucalion and Pyrrha, although there was also a tradition that he was autochthonous ; he is also said to be a son of Hellen son of Deucalion and Pyrrha. Amphictyon was king of Thermopylae and married a daughter of Cranaus of Athens...

was said to have founded the Great Amphictyonic League, which banded 12 city-states

Polis

Polis , plural poleis , literally means city in Greek. It could also mean citizenship and body of citizens. In modern historiography "polis" is normally used to indicate the ancient Greek city-states, like Classical Athens and its contemporaries, so polis is often translated as "city-state."The...

together to protect the temples of Apollo

Apollo

Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...

at Delphi and of Demeter

Demeter

In Greek mythology, Demeter is the goddess of the harvest, who presided over grains, the fertility of the earth, and the seasons . Her common surnames are Sito as the giver of food or corn/grain and Thesmophoros as a mark of the civilized existence of agricultural society...

at Anthele.

Grenada

"Granada", from its French

French language

name La Grenade, from earlier Spanish

Spanish language

Granada, whose own name derived from the Emirate

Emirate of Granada

The Emirate of Granada , also known as the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada , was an emirate established in 1238 following the defeat of Muhammad an-Nasir of the Almohad dynasty by an alliance of Christian kingdoms at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212...

and Taifa of Granada

Taifa of Granada

The Taifa of Granada was a Moorish kingdom in Al-Andalus, within the present day Granada Province in southern Spain...

, named for their capital Gharnāṭah , originally a Jewish

History of the Jews in Spain

Spanish Jews once constituted one of the largest and most prosperous Jewish communities under Muslim and Christian rule in Spain, before the majority, together with resident Muslims, were forced to convert to Catholicism, be expelled or be killed when Spain became united under the Catholic Monarchs...

suburb (Garnata al-Yahud) of Elvira which became the principal settlement after the latter was destroyed in 1010.

Concepción, a former name: "Conception

Immaculate Conception

The Immaculate Conception of Mary is a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church, according to which the Virgin Mary was conceived without any stain of original sin. It is one of the four dogmata in Roman Catholic Mariology...

", bestowed by Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus

upon his discovery of the island in 1498. Its hostile Carib natives, however, limited colonization until the name had fallen from use.

Guatemala

"Forest", from the Nahuatl Cuauhtēmallān (lit "Place of Many Trees"), a translation of the K'iche'

K'iche' language

The K’iche’ language is a part of the Mayan language family. It is spoken by many K'iche' people in the central highlands of Guatemala. With close to a million speakers , it is the second-most widely spoken language in the country after Spanish...

K'ii'chee' (lit "Many Trees").

Guinea

Etymology uncertain. Anglicized from Portuguese

Portuguese language

Guiné, traditionally derived from a corruption of Ghana above, originally in reference to the interior and applied to the coast only after 1481. Alternate theories include a corruption of Djenné

Djenné

Djenné is an Urban Commune and town in the Inland Niger Delta region of central Mali. In the 2009 census the commune had a population of 32,944. Administratively it is part of the Mopti Region....

and the Berber

Berber languages

The Berber languages are a family of languages indigenous to North Africa, spoken from Siwa Oasis in Egypt to Morocco , and south to the countries of the Sahara Desert...

ghinawen, aginaw, or aguinaou ("burnt one", i.e. "black").

French Guinea
French Guinea
French Guinea was a French colonial possession in West Africa. Its borders, while changed over time, were in 1958 those of the independent nation of Guinea....

, a former name: As above, from the French

French language

Guinée française, a renaming of Rivières du Sud
Rivières du Sud
Rivières du Sud was a French colonial division in West Africa, roughly corresponding to modern coastal sections of Guinea...

in 1894. For further etymology of "France", see above.

Rivières du Sud
Rivières du Sud
Rivières du Sud was a French colonial division in West Africa, roughly corresponding to modern coastal sections of Guinea...

, a former name: "Southern Rivers" in French

French language

Guinea-Conakry, an alternate name: As above. Conakry

Conakry

Conakry is the capital and largest city of Guinea. Conakry is a port city on the Atlantic Ocean and serves as the economic, financial and cultural centre of Guinea with a 2009 population of 1,548,500...

, the capital, is traditionally derived from an amalgam of Baga

Baga languages

The Baga languages are languages of the Mel family spoken in the coastal region of Guinea. The total number of speakers is about 30,000, of which Landoma speakers make up almost half....

Cona, a wine producer, and Sosso nakiri ("other side" or "shore").

Guinea-Bissau

Etymology uncertain as above. From the Portuguese

Portuguese language

República da Guiné-Bissau adopted upon independence in 1973.

Portuguese Guinea
Portuguese Guinea
Portuguese Guinea was the name for what is today Guinea-Bissau from 1446 to September 10, 1974.-History:...

, a former name: As above. For further etymology of "Portugal", see below.

Guyana

"Land of Many Waters" in an indigenous language.

British Guiana
British Guiana
British Guiana was the name of the British colony on the northern coast of South America, now the independent nation of Guyana.The area was originally settled by the Dutch at the start of the 17th century as the colonies of Essequibo, Demerara, and Berbice...

, a former name: As above. For further etymology of "Britain", see United Kingdom below.

Haiti

From Taíno

Taíno people

The Taínos were pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Bahamas, Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles. It is thought that the seafaring Taínos are relatives of the Arawak people of South America...

/Arawak, Hayiti or Hayti, meaning "mountainous land", originally Hayiti. The name derives from the mountainous and hilly landscape of the western half of the island of Hispaniola

Hispaniola

Hispaniola
Hispaniola
Hispaniola is a major island in the Caribbean, containing the two sovereign states of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The island is located between the islands of Cuba to the west and Puerto Rico to the east, within the hurricane belt...

(name of the island shared by Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...

and the Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...

) – a Latinization
Latinisation (literature)
Latinisation is the practice of rendering a non-Latin name in a Latin style. It is commonly met with for historical personal names, with toponyms, or for the standard binomial nomenclature of the life sciences. It goes further than Romanisation, which is the writing of a word in the Latin alphabet...

of the Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

name La Española, meaning "The Spanish (island)", a name given to the island
History of Haiti
The recorded history of Haiti began on December 5, 1492 when the European navigator Christopher Columbus happened upon a large island in the region of the western Atlantic Ocean that later came to be known as the Caribbean. It was inhabited by the Taíno, an Arawakan people, who variously called...

by Colombus in 1492.

Honduras

Christopher Columbus

named the country "Honduras", Spanish for "depths", referring to the deep waters off the northern coast.

Hungary

Turkic:

Turkic languages

The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken...

on-ogur
Onogurs
The Onogurs, also known as Utigurs, were a horde of equestrian nomads in the North Eurasian steppe east of the Don River during the 5th to 8th centuries. The Onogurs crossed the Volga and entered into Europe around the year 460 within the larger context of the Great Migrations and the Turkic...

, "(people of the) ten arrows" – in other words, "alliance of the ten tribes". Byzantine

Byzantine

Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...

chronicles gave this name to the Hungarians; the chroniclers mistakenly assumed that the Hungarians had Turkic origins, based on their Turkic-nomadic customs and appearance, despite the Uralic

Uralic languages

The Uralic languages constitute a language family of some three dozen languages spoken by approximately 25 million people. The healthiest Uralic languages in terms of the number of native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Mari and Udmurt...

language of the people. The Hungarian tribes later actually formed an alliance of the seven Hungarian and three Khazarian

Khazars

The Khazars were semi-nomadic Turkic people who established one of the largest polities of medieval Eurasia, with the capital of Atil and territory comprising much of modern-day European Russia, western Kazakhstan, eastern Ukraine, Azerbaijan, large portions of the northern Caucasus , parts of...

tribes, but the name is from before then, and first applied to the original seven Hungarian tribes. The ethnonym Hunni (referring to the Huns

Huns

The Huns were a group of nomadic people who, appearing from east of the Volga River, migrated into Europe c. AD 370 and established the vast Hunnic Empire there. Since de Guignes linked them with the Xiongnu, who had been northern neighbours of China 300 years prior to the emergence of the Huns,...

) has influenced the Latin (and English) spelling.

Ugre (Old Russian), Uhorshchyna (Угорщина, Ukrainian
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....

), Vengrija (Lithuanian
Lithuanian language
Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...

), Vuhorščyna (Вугоршчына, Belarusian
Belarusian language
The Belarusian language , sometimes referred to as White Russian or White Ruthenian, is the language of the Belarusian people...

), Wędżierskô (Kashubian
Kashubian language
Kashubian or Cassubian is one of the Lechitic languages, a subgroup of the Slavic languages....

), and Węgry (Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

): also from Turkic "on-ogur", see above. The same root emerges in the ethnonym Yugra
Yugra
Yugra was the name of the lands between the Pechora River and Northern Urals in the Russian annals of the 12th–17th centuries, as well as the name of the Khanty and partly Mansi tribes inhabiting these territories, later known as VogulsThe Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug of Russia is also...

in Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

, inhabited by Khanty
Khanty people
Khanty / Hanti are an indigenous people calling themselves Khanti, Khande, Kantek , living in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, a region historically known as "Yugra" in Russia, together with the Mansi. In the autonomous okrug, the Khanty and Mansi languages are given co-official status with Russian...

and Mansi people, the closest relatives to Hungarians in the Uralic language family.
Magyarország (native name – "land of the Magyars"), and derivatives, eg. Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...

Maďarsko, Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian language
Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...

Mađarska, Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...

Macaristan: According to a famous Hungarian chronicle (Simon of Kéza
Simon of Kéza
Simon of Kéza was the most famous Hungarian chronicler in the 13th century. He was a priest in the royal court of king Ladislaus IV of Hungary....

: Gesta Hunnorum et Hungarorum
Gesta Hunnorum et Hungarorum
The Gesta Hunnorum et Hungarorum , written mainly by Simon of Kéza around 1282-1285, is one of the sources of early Hungarian history...

, 1282), Magyar (Magor), the forefather of all Hungarians, had a brother named Hunor (the ancestor of the Huns); their father king Menrot, builder of the tower of Babel
Babylon
Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...

, equates to the Nimrod
Nimrod
Nimrod means "Hunter"; was a Biblical Mesopotamian king mentioned in the Table of Nations; an eponym for the city of Nimrud.Nimrod can also refer to any of the following:*Nimród Antal, a director...

of the Hebrew Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

.

Iceland

"Land of ice" (Ísland in Icelandic). Popularly (but falsely) attributed to an attempt to dissuade outsiders from attempting to settle on the land. In fact, the early explorer and settler Flóki Vilgerðarson

Flóki Vilgerðarson

Flóki Vilgerðarson was the first Norseman to deliberately sail to Iceland. His story is documented in the Landnámabók manuscript. He heard good news of a new land to the west, then known as Garðarshólmi....

named the island after spotting "a firth

Firth

Firth is the word in the Lowland Scots language and in English used to denote various coastal waters in Scotland and England. In mainland Scotland it is used to describe a large sea bay, or even a strait. In the Northern Isles it more usually refers to a smaller inlet...

full of drift ice" to the north.

India

Via Latin, Greek Ινδία (meaning "region of the Indus River), and Old Persian 𐎢𐎯𐎴𐎡𐏃 Hindu; the Old Persian name of the Sind Province

Sindh

Sindh historically referred to as Ba'ab-ul-Islam , is one of the four provinces of Pakistan and historically is home to the Sindhi people. It is also locally known as the "Mehran". Though Muslims form the largest religious group in Sindh, a good number of Christians, Zoroastrians and Hindus can...

; ultimately derived from Sanskrit सिन्धु Sindhu, the original name of the Indus River

Indus River

which gave its name to the land of Sindh

Sindh

. Derivations of the Persian

Persian language

form of the name, Hind, were later applied to the region encompassing modern-day Sindh province of Pakistan; later with British colonial rule the name is applied to all of South Asia including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma and parts of Afghanistan, prior to their independence in 1947.

भारतम् Bharat (Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

name): Popular accounts derive "Bharat" from the name of either of two ancient kings named Bharata
Bharata (emperor)
Bharata was a legendary emperor of India, and is referred to in Hindu and Jain mythology. He was son of King Dushyanta and Shakuntala and thus a descendant of the Lunar Dynasty of the Kshatriya caste. Bharata conquered all of greater Greater India, uniting it into a single entity which was named...

.
हिंदुस्तान Hindustan (Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...

name): The term is from the Persian Hindustān هندوستان (as is the term "Hindu"). The name Hind is from a Persian pronunciation of Sind, and the Persian -stān means "country" or "land" (cognate to Sanskrit sthāna: "place, land"). India is known as al-Hind (الهند) in Arabic (and sometimes Persian, as in the 11th century text; Tarik Al-Hind, "history of India") and Hind (هند) in Persian. It also occurs intermittently in India, as in the phrase "Jai Hind". The terms Hind and Hindustan were current in Persian and Arabic from the 11th century Islamic conquests: the rulers in the Sultanate and Mughal periods called their Indian dominion, centred around Delhi, Hindustan.

The word Hindu (हिन्दु) was lent from Persian into Sanskrit in early medieval times and is attested – in the sense of dwellers of the Indian subcontinent – in some texts, such as Bhavishya Purāna
Bhavishya Purana
The Bhavishya Purana is one of the eighteen major Hindu Puranas. It is written in Sanskrit and attributed to Rishi Vyasa, the compiler of the Vedas. The title Bhavishya Purana signifies a work that contains prophecies regarding the future...

, Kālikā Purāna
Kalika-Purana
The Kalika Purana is a Hindu religious text, considered as one of the 18 Upapuranas. The extant text contains 98 chapters with over 9000 stanzas and is the only work of the series dedicated to the worship of the goddess Kali her manifold forms such as Girija, Devi, Bhadrakali, and Mahamaya...

, Merutantra, Rāmakosha, Hemantakavikosha and Adbhutarūpakosha.

The name Hindustan was in use synonymously with India during the British Raj
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...

. It entered the English language in the 17th century. In the 19th century, the term as used in English referred to the northern region of India between the Indus and Brahmaputra and between the Himalayas
Himalayas
The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...

and the Vindhyas in particular, hence the term Hindustani for the Hindi-Urdu language.

རྒྱ་གར་ rGya.gar (Dzongkha), རྒྱ་གར། rGya.gar.yal (Tibetan
Tibetan language
The Tibetan languages are a cluster of mutually-unintelligible Tibeto-Burman languages spoken primarily by Tibetan peoples who live across a wide area of eastern Central Asia bordering the Indian subcontinent, including the Tibetan Plateau and the northern Indian subcontinent in Baltistan, Ladakh,...

variant)
הֹ֤דּוּ or הודו Hṓddû (Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

)

Indonesia

via Greek Ινδόνησιά meaning "Indian Islands"; apparently invented in the mid-19th century to mean "Indies Islands", from the Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

νῆσος (nēsos, "island"), added to the country name "India". (Europeans previously referred to Indonesia as the "East Indies".)

Dutch East Indies

The Dutch East Indies was a Dutch colony that became modern Indonesia following World War II. It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the Dutch East India Company, which came under the administration of the Netherlands government in 1800....

(Dutch: Nederlands Oost-Indie; Indonesian: Hindia-Belanda) (former name): after the former colonial ruler (Netherlands

Netherlands

Iran

"Land of the Aryan

Aryan

s" or "land of the free". The term "Arya" is from a Proto Indo-European

Pie

A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients....

root, generally meaning "noble" or "free", cognate with the Greek-derived word "aristocrat".

Persia (former name): from Latin, via Greek Περσίσ Persis, from Old Persian 𐎱𐎠𐎼𐎿 Paarsa, a place name of a central district within the region: modern Fars via Arabic from Middle Persian Pars . A common Hellenic folk-etymology derives "Persia" from "Land of Perseus".
Uajemi (Swahili
Swahili language
Swahili or Kiswahili is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Mozambique Channel coastline from northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, including the Comoro Islands. It is also spoken by ethnic minority groups in Somalia...

variant): from the Arabic word Ajam, which means any non-Arabs, This term used during Islamic Empire, it means "the ones whose language we don't understand", and referred to all strange languages besides the Arabic language.

Iraq

One theory is that it is derived from the city of Erech/Uruk

Uruk

Uruk was an ancient city of Sumer and later Babylonia, situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates river, on the ancient dry former channel of the Euphrates River, some 30 km east of modern As-Samawah, Al-Muthannā, Iraq.Uruk gave its name to the Uruk...

(also known as "Warka") near the river Euphrates

Euphrates

The Euphrates is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia...

. Some archaeologists regard Uruk as the first major Sumer

Sumer

Sumer was a civilization and historical region in southern Mesopotamia, modern Iraq during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age....

ian city. However, it is more plausible that name is derived from the Middle Persian word Erak, meaning "lowlands". The natives of the southwestern part of today's Iran called their land "the Persian Iraq" for many centuries (for Arabs: Iraq ajemi: non-Arabic-speaking Iraq). Before the constitution of the state of Iraq, the term "Iraq arabi" referred to the region around Baghdad and Basra.

Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...

(ancient name and Greek variant): a loan-translation (Greek meso- (between) and potamos (river), meaning "Between the Rivers") of the ancient Semitic Beth-Nahrin, "Land of two Rivers", referring to the Tigris
Tigris
The Tigris River is the eastern member of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of southeastern Turkey through Iraq.-Geography:...

and Euphrates
Euphrates
The Euphrates is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia...

rivers.

Republic of Ireland

After "Éire

Éire

is the Irish name for the island of Ireland and the sovereign state of the same name.- Etymology :The modern Irish Éire evolved from the Old Irish word Ériu, which was the name of a Gaelic goddess. Ériu is generally believed to have been the matron goddess of Ireland, a goddess of sovereignty, or...

" from Proto-Celtic

Proto-Celtic language

The Proto-Celtic language, also called Common Celtic, is the reconstructed ancestor language of all the known Celtic languages. Its lexis can be confidently reconstructed on the basis of the comparative method of historical linguistics...

*Īweriū, "the fertile place" or "Place of Éire (Eriu)", a Celtic fertility goddess. Often mistakenly derived as "Land of Iron"; may come from a reflex of Proto-Indo-European

Proto-Indo-European language

The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...

*arya, or from variations of the Irish word for "west" (modern Irish iar, iarthar).

Hibernia
Hibernia
Hibernia is the Classical Latin name for the island of Ireland. The name Hibernia was taken from Greek geographical accounts. During his exploration of northwest Europe , Pytheas of Massilia called the island Ierne . In his book Geographia Hibernia is the Classical Latin name for the island of...

(ancient name and Latin variant): apparently assimilated to Latin hibernus ("wintry").
Ireland is known as Eirinn in Scottish Gaelic, from a grammatical case of Éire. In the fellow Celtic languages: in Welsh
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...

it is Iwerddon; in Cornish
Cornish language
Cornish is a Brythonic Celtic language and a recognised minority language of the United Kingdom. Along with Welsh and Breton, it is directly descended from the ancient British language spoken throughout much of Britain before the English language came to dominate...

it is Ywerdhon or Worthen; and in Breton
Breton language
Breton is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany , France. Breton is a Brythonic language, descended from the Celtic British language brought from Great Britain to Armorica by migrating Britons during the Early Middle Ages. Like the other Brythonic languages, Welsh and Cornish, it is classified as...

it is Iwerzhon.
In Gaelic bardic tradition Ireland is also known by the poetical names of Banbha (meaning "piglet") and Fódhla. In Gaelic myth, Ériu, Banbha and Fódla were three goddesses who greeted the Milesians
Milesians (Irish)
Milesians are a people figuring in Irish mythology. The descendants of Míl Espáine, they were the final inhabitants of Ireland, and were believed to represent the Goidelic Celts.-Myth:...

upon their arrival in Ireland, and who granted them custody of the island.

Israel

"Israel" and related terms "The People of Israel" (`Am Isra'el עם יִשְׂרָאֵל) and "The Children of Israel" (Benei Isra'el בני יִשְׂרָאֵל) have referred to the Jewish People

Jews

The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

in its literature from antiquity. The name "Israel

Israel (name)

Israel is a Biblical given name.The patriarch Jacob was given the name Israel after he wrestled with the angel...

" (יִשְׂרָאֵל Isra'el – literally "Struggled with God") originates from the Hebrew Bible

Hebrew Bible

The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...

as an appellation given to the biblical patriarch Jacob

Jacob

Jacob "heel" or "leg-puller"), also later known as Israel , as described in the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, the New Testament and the Qur'an was the third patriarch of the Hebrew people with whom God made a covenant, and ancestor of the tribes of Israel, which were named after his descendants.In the...

. According to the account in the Book of Genesis, Jacob wrestled with a stranger at a river ford and won—through perseverance. God then changed his name to Israel, signifying that he had deliberated with God and won, as he had wrestled and won with men.

Italy

From Latin

Latin

Ītalia
Italia (Roman province)
Italia was the name of the Italian peninsula of the Roman Empire.-Under the Republic and Augustan organization:During the Republic and the first centuries of the empire, Italia was not a province, but rather the territory of the city of Rome, thus having a special status: for example, military...

, itself from Greek

Greek language

, from the ethnic name , plural , originally referring to an early population in the southern part of Calabria

Calabria

Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....

. That ethnic name probably directly relates to a word (italós, "bull"), quoted in an ancient Greek

Ancient Greek

gloss by Hesychius

Hesychius of Alexandria

Hesychius of Alexandria , a grammarian who flourished probably in the 5th century CE, compiled the richest lexicon of unusual and obscure Greek words that has survived...

(from his collection of 51,000 unusual, obscure and foreign words). This "Greek" word is assumed to be a cognate of Latin

Latin

vitulus ("calf"), although the different length of the i is a problem. Latin

Latin

vitulus ("calf") is presumably derived from the Proto-Indo-European

Proto-Indo-European language

The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...

root *wet- meaning "year" (hence, a "yearling": a "one-year-old calf"), although the change of e to i is unexplained. The "Greek" word, however, is glossed as "bull", not "calf". Speakers of ancient Oscan

Oscan language

Oscan is a term used to describe both an extinct language of southern Italy and the language group to which it belonged.The Oscan language was spoken by a number of tribes, including the Samnites, the Aurunci, the Sidicini, and the Ausones. The latter three tribes were often grouped under the name...

called Italy Víteliú, a cognate of Greek

Greek language

and Latin

Latin

Ītalia. Varro

Marcus Terentius Varro

Marcus Terentius Varro was an ancient Roman scholar and writer. He is sometimes called Varro Reatinus to distinguish him from his younger contemporary Varro Atacinus.-Biography:...

wrote that the region got its name from the excellence and abundance of its cattle. Some disagree with that etymology. Compare Italus

Italus

Italus or Italos was a legendary king of the Sicels or Oenotrians, who were among the earliest inhabitants of Italy...

Friagi or Friaz (Old Russian): from the Byzantine
Byzantine
Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...

appellation for the medieval Franks
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...

.

Valland (variant in Icelandic
Icelandic language
Icelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...

): "Land of Valer" (an Old Norse name for Celts, later also used for the Romanized tribes).

Włochy (Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

) and Olaszország (Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....

): from Gothic walh, the same root as in Valland
Valland
In Norse legend Valland is the name the part of Europe which is inhabited by Celtic and Romance speaking peoples. The element Val- is derived from Walha, a Germanic root meaning "foreigner", usually applied to the Celtic and Italic inhabitants of Europe....

. See details under "Wallachia", below.

Jamaica

Taíno
Taíno people
The Taínos were pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Bahamas, Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles. It is thought that the seafaring Taínos are relatives of the Arawak people of South America...

/Arawak Indian Xaymaca or Hamaica, "Land of wood and water" or perhaps "Land of springs".

Japan

From Geppun, Marco Polo
Marco Polo
Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant traveler from the Venetian Republic whose travels are recorded in Il Milione, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned about trading whilst his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, travelled through Asia and apparently...

's Italian rendition of the islands' Shanghai Chinese-dialect name 日本 (pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...

: rìběn, at the time approximately jitpun), or "sun-origin", i.e. "Land of the Rising Sun", indicating Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

as lying to the east of China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

(where the sun rises). Also formerly known as the "Empire of the Sun".

Nihon / Nippon: Japanese name, from the local pronunciation of the same characters as above.

Jordan

After the river Jordan, the name of which derives from the Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

and Canaanite root ירד yrd – "descend" (into the Dead Sea
Dead Sea
The Dead Sea , also called the Salt Sea, is a salt lake bordering Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Bank to the west. Its surface and shores are below sea level, the lowest elevation on the Earth's surface. The Dead Sea is deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world...

.) The river Jordan forms part of the border between Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...

and Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

/West Bank
West Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...

.

Transjordan
Transjordan
The Emirate of Transjordan was a former Ottoman territory in the Southern Levant that was part of the British Mandate of Palestine...

(former name): "Trans" means "across" or "beyond", i.e. east of the river Jordan.

Urdun (Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

), literal translation of name Jordan, sometimes spelled Urdan.

(the river Jordan is related to the bible)

Kazakhstan

Means "land of the Kazakhs". Kazakh means something like "independent-rebellious-wanderer-brave-free". The Turkish term kazak (казак) is a cognate—"cossack" in English. The Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

suffix -stan

-stan

The suffix -stan is Persian for "place of", a cognate to Pashto -tun and to Indo-Aryan -sthāna , a Sanskrit suffix with a similar meaning...

means "land".

Kenya

After Mount Kenya
Mount Kenya
Mount Kenya is the highest mountain in Kenya and the second-highest in Africa, after Kilimanjaro. The highest peaks of the mountain are Batian , Nelion and Point Lenana . Mount Kenya is located in central Kenya, just south of the equator, around north-northeast of the capital Nairobi...

, probably from the Kikuyu Kere Nyaga ("White Mountain").

British East Africa (former name): after its geographical position on the continent of Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

and the former colonial power, (Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

).

See also Britain, above, and Africa on the Place name etymology

Placename etymology

This is a list of the etymologies of continent names.- Africa :The ancient Romans used the name Africa terra – "land of the Afri" – for the northern part of the continent that corresponds to modern-day Tunisia...

page.

Kiribati

An adaptation of "Gilbert", from the former European name the "Gilbert Islands

Gilbert Islands

The Gilbert Islands are a chain of sixteen atolls and coral islands in the Pacific Ocean. They are the main part of Republic of Kiribati and include Tarawa, the site of the country's capital and residence of almost half of the population.-Geography:The atolls and islands of the Gilbert Islands...

". Pronounced ˈkiɾibas.

Gilbert Islands

(former name): named after the British

United Kingdom

Captain Thomas Gilbert

Thomas Gilbert (captain)

Thomas Gilbert was an 18th century British mariner.Thomas Gilbert and John Marshall were the captains of two East India Company vessels, the Charlotte and the Scarborough, returning from carrying convicts to Botany Bay in 1788, when they sailed through the Gilbert Islands and described Aranuka,...

, who sighted the islands in 1788.

Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

(North
North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...

and South
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

)

From "Gaoli," Marco Polo

Marco Polo

's Italian rendition of Gāo Lì , the Chinese name for Goryeo
Goryeo
The Goryeo Dynasty or Koryŏ was a Korean dynasty established in 918 by Emperor Taejo. Korea gets its name from this kingdom which came to be pronounced Korea. It united the Later Three Kingdoms in 936 and ruled most of the Korean peninsula until it was removed by the Joseon dynasty in 1392...

(918–1392), which had named itself after the earlier Goguryeo
Goguryeo
Goguryeo or Koguryŏ was an ancient Korean kingdom located in present day northern and central parts of the Korean Peninsula, southern Manchuria, and southern Russian Maritime province....

(37 BC - AD 668). The original name was a combination of the Chinese adjective gao (高, , go) meaning "lofty" and a local Yemaek
Yemaek
Yemaek were an ethnic group who dwelt in Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula. They had ancestral ties to various Korean kingdoms including Gojoseon, Gori , Buyeo, Goguryeo, Baekje, Okjeo, Dongye, Yangmaek and Sosumaek , and is believed to be one of the ancient tribes that were formed into the...

tribe, whose original name is thought to have been either Guru (구루, "walled city") or Gauri (가우리, "center").

South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

ns call Korea Hanguk from the Great Han Empire of 1897–1910

North Korea
North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...

ns call it Joseon

Joseon

Joseon, Chosŏn, Choseon or Chosun are English spellings of the Korean *word for "Korea". It may refer to:*Korea*Gojoseon, the first Korean kingdom, from 2333 BC to 108 BC.*Joseon Dynasty of Korea, from AD 1392 to 1910....

from the Joseon Dynasty
Joseon Dynasty
Joseon , was a Korean state founded by Taejo Yi Seong-gye that lasted for approximately five centuries. It was founded in the aftermath of the overthrow of the Goryeo at what is today the city of Kaesong. Early on, Korea was retitled and the capital was relocated to modern-day Seoul...

(1392–1897)).

Republic of Kosovo

The origin of the name is the Serbian word "Kosovo", derived from "Kosovo Polje", the central Kosovo plain, and literally means "Field of Blackbird", since "kos" is "a blackbird", and "-ovo" is regular Serbian suffix for possessive adjectives.

In Hungarian is "Rigómező", which means "field of the thrush"

Kuwait

From the Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

diminutive form of قوة Kut or Kout meaning "fortress built near water".

Kyrgyzstan

Derives from three words – kyrg (kırk) meaning "forty", yz (uz) meaning "tribes" in East-Turkic and -stan
-stan
The suffix -stan is Persian for "place of", a cognate to Pashto -tun and to Indo-Aryan -sthāna , a Sanskrit suffix with a similar meaning...

meaning "land" in Persian: "land of forty tribes".

Laos

Coined under French rule
French Indochina
French Indochina was part of the French colonial empire in southeast Asia. A federation of the three Vietnamese regions, Tonkin , Annam , and Cochinchina , as well as Cambodia, was formed in 1887....

, derived from Lao
Lao language
Lao or Laotian is a tonal language of the Tai–Kadai language family. It is the official language of Laos, and also spoken in the northeast of Thailand, where it is usually referred to as the Isan language. Being the primary language of the Lao people, Lao is also an important second language for...

lao (ລາວ), meaning "a Laotian" or "Laotian", possibly originally from an ancient Indian word lava (लव). (Lava
Lava (Ramayana)
Lava or Luv and his twin brother Kusha, were the children of the Lord Rama and his wife Sita, whose story is recounted in the Ramayana. Per that text, he is known as the founder of Lavapuri,that is, the modern day city of Lahore,...

is the name of one of the twin sons of the god Rama
Rama
Rama or full name Ramachandra is considered to be the seventh avatar of Vishnu in Hinduism, and a king of Ayodhya in ancient Indian...

; see History of Lahore
History of Lahore
The recorded history of Lahore , a city-district of modern-day Pakistan, covers thousands of years. Originally the capital and largest city of the Punjab region, it has since its creation changed hands from Hindu, Greek, Afghan, Muslim, Sikh and British rule to becoming the cultural capital and the...

.) The name might also be from Ai-Lao (Lao: ອ້າຽລາວ, Isan: อ้ายลาว, , Vietnamese: ai lao), the old Chinese name for the Tai
Tai peoples
The Tai ethnicity refers collectively to the ethnic groups of southern China and Southeast Asia, stretching from Hainan to eastern India and from southern Sichuan to Laos, Thailand, and parts of Vietnam, which speak languages in the Tai family and share similar traditions and festivals, including...

ethnic groups to which the Lao people
Lao people
The Lao are an ethnic subgroup of Tai/Dai in Southeast Asia.-Names:The etymology of the word Lao is uncertain, although it may be related to tribes known as the Ai Lao who appear in Han Dynasty records in China and Vietnam as a people of what is now Yunan Province...

belong. Formerly known as Lan Xang
Lan Xang
The Lao kingdom of Lan Xang Hom Kao was established in 1354 by Fa Ngum.Exiled as an infant to Cambodia, Prince Fa Ngum of Xieng Dong Xieng Thong married a daughter of the Khmer king. In 1349 he set out from Angkor at the head of a 10,000-man army to establish his own country...

(ລ້ານຊ້າງ) or "land of a million elephants".

Lao
Lao language
Lao or Laotian is a tonal language of the Tai–Kadai language family. It is the official language of Laos, and also spoken in the northeast of Thailand, where it is usually referred to as the Isan language. Being the primary language of the Lao people, Lao is also an important second language for...

: ເມືອງລາວ Muang Lao. Literally meaning "Lao Country." The official name of the country is: Lao Democratic People's Republic; Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao

Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

: 老挝 Lǎowō.

Latvia

Derived from the regional name Latgale, originally Lettigalli. the "Let-" part associated with several Baltic hydronym
Hydronym
A hydronym is a proper name of a body of water. Hydronymy is the study of hydronyms and of how bodies of water receive their names and how they are transmitted through history...

s; possibly common origin with the Liet- part of neighbouring Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

(Lietuva, see below); the -gale part meaning "land" or "boundary land", of Baltic origin.

Lebanon

The name Lebanon (لُبْنَان Lubnān in standard Arabic; Lebnan or Lebnèn in local dialect) is derived from the Semitic
Semitic
In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages...

root "LBN", which is linked to several closely related meanings in various languages, such as "white" and "milk". This is regarded as a reference to the snow-capped Mount Lebanon
Mount Lebanon
Mount Lebanon , as a geographic designation, is a Lebanese mountain range, averaging above 2,200 meters in height and receiving a substantial amount of precipitation, including snow, which averages around four meters deep. It extends across the whole country along about , parallel to the...

. Occurrences of the name have been found in three of the twelve tablets of the Epic of Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh was the fifth king of Uruk, modern day Iraq , placing his reign ca. 2500 BC. According to the Sumerian king list he reigned for 126 years. In the Tummal Inscription, Gilgamesh, and his son Urlugal, rebuilt the sanctuary of the goddess Ninlil, in Tummal, a sacred quarter in her city of...

(2900 BC), the texts of the library of Ebla
Ebla
Ebla Idlib Governorate, Syria) was an ancient city about southwest of Aleppo. It was an important city-state in two periods, first in the late third millennium BC, then again between 1800 and 1650 BC....

(2400 BC), and the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

(71 times in the Bible's Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...

).

Lesotho

After the indigenous Sotho people, whose own name means "black" or "dark-skinned".

Liberia

From the Latin liber: "free", so named because the country was established as a homeland for freed (liberated) African-American slaves.

Libya

After an ancient Berber
Berber people
Berbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are continuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke the Berber language or varieties of it, which together form a branch...

tribe called Libyans by the Greeks and Rbw by the Egyptians. Until the country's independence, the term "Libya" generally applied only to the vast desert between the Tripolitanian Lowland and the Fazzan plateau (to the west) and Egypt's Nile
Nile
The Nile is a major north-flowing river in North Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world. It is long. It runs through the ten countries of Sudan, South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Egypt.The Nile has two major...

river valley (to the east). With "Tripoli
Tripoli
Tripoli is the capital and largest city in Libya. It is also known as Western Tripoli , to distinguish it from Tripoli, Lebanon. It is affectionately called The Mermaid of the Mediterranean , describing its turquoise waters and its whitewashed buildings. Tripoli is a Greek name that means "Three...

" the name of new country's capital, and the old northeastern regional name "Cyrenaica
Cyrenaica
Cyrenaica is the eastern coastal region of Libya.Also known as Pentapolis in antiquity, it was part of the Creta et Cyrenaica province during the Roman period, later divided in Libia Pentapolis and Libia Sicca...

" having passed into obsolescence, "Libya" became a convenient name for the country, despite the fact that much of the desert called the Libyan desert
Libyan Desert
The Libyan Desert covers an area of approximately 1,100,000 km2, it extends approximately 1100 km from east to west, and 1,000 km from north to south, in about the shape of a rectangle...

is Egyptian territory.

Liechtenstein

From the German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

"Light stone" ("light" as in "bright"). The country took its name from the Liechtenstein dynasty, which purchased and united the counties of Schellenberg
Schellenberg
Schellenberg is a municipality in the lowland area of Liechtenstein, on the banks of the Rhine. , it has a population of 952 and covers an area of .-Early history:...

and Vaduz
Vaduz
Vaduz is the capital of the principality of Liechtenstein and the seat of the national parliament. The town, located along the Rhine, has about 5,100 inhabitants , most of whom are Roman Catholic. Its cathedral is the seat of a Roman Catholic archbishop....

. The Holy Roman Emperor
Holy Roman Emperor
The Holy Roman Emperor is a term used by historians to denote a medieval ruler who, as German King, had also received the title of "Emperor of the Romans" from the Pope...

allowed the dynasty to re-name the new property after itself. Liechtenstein and Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...

are the only German-speaking former Holy Roman Empire duchies not assimilated by the countries Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

, and Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

.

Lithuania

The Lithuanian language suggests that the name originates from the word lieti which has and the meaning to consolidate or to unite, so it is probably was the name for the first union of Lithuanian tribes which united more and more ethnic Lithuanian lands (not lands of Balts, but lands of ancient tribes of Lithuanians including Prussians, nowadays Latvians and Belarussians).

Alternative origin of the name could be a hydronym
Hydronym
A hydronym is a proper name of a body of water. Hydronymy is the study of hydronyms and of how bodies of water receive their names and how they are transmitted through history...

ic origin, possibly from a small river Lietava in Central Lithuania. That hydronym has been associated with Lithuanian
Lithuanian language
Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...

lieti (root lie-): "pour" or "spill". Compare to Old-Slavic liyati (лыиати): "pour", Greek a-lei-son (α-λει-σον): "cup", Latin litus: "seashore", Tocharian A lyjäm: "lake".

Historically, attempts have been made to suggest a direct descendance from the Latin litus (see littoral
Littoral
The littoral zone is that part of a sea, lake or river that is close to the shore. In coastal environments the littoral zone extends from the high water mark, which is rarely inundated, to shoreline areas that are permanently submerged. It always includes this intertidal zone and is often used to...

). Litva (Gen.
Genitive case
In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...

Litvae), an early Latin variant of the toponym, appears in a 1009 chronicle describing an archbishop "struck over the head by pagans on the border of Russia/Prussia and Litvae". A 16th-century scholar associated the word with the Latin word litus ("tubes")—a possible reference to wooden trumpets played by Lithuanian tribesmen. A popular belief is that the country's name in the Lithuanian language (Lietuva) is derived from a word lietus ("rain") and means "a rainy place".

Lithuanian
Lithuanian language
Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...

: Lietuva.

Luxembourg

From Celtic Lucilem "small" (cognate to English "little") and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

ic burg: "castle", thus lucilemburg: "little castle". Luxembourg and Liechtenstein
Liechtenstein
The Principality of Liechtenstein is a doubly landlocked alpine country in Central Europe, bordered by Switzerland to the west and south and by Austria to the east. Its area is just over , and it has an estimated population of 35,000. Its capital is Vaduz. The biggest town is Schaan...

are the only German-speaking former Holy Roman Empire duchies not assimilated by the countries Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

, and Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

.

Republic of Macedonia

The country name (Macedonian
Macedonian language
Macedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...

: Македонија/ Makedonija) is from the word Μακεδονία (Makedonía), a kingdom
Macedon
Macedonia or Macedon was an ancient kingdom, centered in the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, bordered by Epirus to the west, Paeonia to the north, the region of Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south....

(later, region
Macedonia (region)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but nowadays the region is considered to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, as...

) named after the ancient Macedonians
Ancient Macedonians
The Macedonians originated from inhabitants of the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, in the alluvial plain around the rivers Haliacmon and lower Axios...

. Their name, Μακεδόνες (Makedónes), derives ultimately from the ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

adjective μακεδνός
Makednos
Makedon, also Macedon or Makednos , was the eponymous mythological ancestor of the ancient Macedonians according to various ancient Greek fragmentary narratives...

(makednós), meaning "tall, taper", which shares the same root as the noun μάκρος (mákros), meaning "length" in both ancient and modern Greek
Modern Greek
Modern Greek refers to the varieties of the Greek language spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic...

. The name is originally believed to have meant either "highlanders" or "the tall ones". The provisional term the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is used in many international contexts in acknowledgment of a political dispute
Macedonia naming dispute
A diplomatic dispute over the use of the name Macedonia has been an ongoing issue in the bilateral relations between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia since the latter became independent from former Yugoslavia in 1991...

with Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

over the historical legitimacy of the country's use of the name.

Madagascar

From Madageiscar, a corruption of Mogadishu
Mogadishu
Mogadishu , popularly known as Xamar, is the largest city in Somalia and the nation's capital. Located in the coastal Benadir region on the Indian Ocean, the city has served as an important port for centuries....

popularized by Marco Polo
Marco Polo
Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant traveler from the Venetian Republic whose travels are recorded in Il Milione, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned about trading whilst his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, travelled through Asia and apparently...

.

Malawi

Possibly based on a native word meaning "flaming water" or "tongues of fire," believed to have derived from the sun's dazzling reflections on Lake Malawi
Lake Malawi
Lake Malawi , is an African Great Lake and the southernmost lake in the Great Rift Valley system of East Africa. This lake, the third largest in Africa and the eighth largest lake in the world, is located between Malawi, Mozambique, and Tanzania...

. But President Hastings Banda
Hastings Banda
Hastings Kamuzu Banda was the leader of Malawi and its predecessor state, Nyasaland, from 1961 to 1994. After receiving much of his education overseas, Banda returned to his home country to speak against colonialism and advocate for independence...

, the founding President of Malawi, reported in interviews that in the 1940s he saw a "Lac Maravi" shown in "Bororo" country on an antique French map titled "La Basse Guinee Con[t]enant Les Royaumes de Loango, de Congo, d'Angola et de Benguela" and he liked the name "Malawi" better than "Nyasa" (or "Maravi"). "Lac Marawi" does not necessarily correspond to today's Lake Malawi
Lake Malawi
Lake Malawi , is an African Great Lake and the southernmost lake in the Great Rift Valley system of East Africa. This lake, the third largest in Africa and the eighth largest lake in the world, is located between Malawi, Mozambique, and Tanzania...

. Banda had such influence at the time of independence in 1964 that he named the former Nyasaland
Nyasaland
Nyasaland or the Nyasaland Protectorate, was a British protectorate located in Africa, which was established in 1907 when the former British Central Africa Protectorate changed its name. Since 1964, it has been known as Malawi....

"Malawi", and the name stuck.

Nyasaland
Nyasaland
Nyasaland or the Nyasaland Protectorate, was a British protectorate located in Africa, which was established in 1907 when the former British Central Africa Protectorate changed its name. Since 1964, it has been known as Malawi....

(former name): "Nyasa" literally means "lake" in the local indigenous languages. The name applied to Lake Malawi
Lake Malawi
Lake Malawi , is an African Great Lake and the southernmost lake in the Great Rift Valley system of East Africa. This lake, the third largest in Africa and the eighth largest lake in the world, is located between Malawi, Mozambique, and Tanzania...

(formerly Lake Nyasa, or "Niassa").

Malaysia

The word Malaya is a combination of two Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...

/Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

words, மலை/मलै malay or malai (hill) and ஊர்/उर् ur (town), meaning hilltown. The name came into use when several Indian Kingdoms entered present-day Malaysia dating back to the 3rd Century (see Srivijaya
Srivijaya
Srivijaya was a powerful ancient thalassocratic Malay empire based on the island of Sumatra, modern day Indonesia, which influenced much of Southeast Asia. The earliest solid proof of its existence dates from the 7th century; a Chinese monk, I-Tsing, wrote that he visited Srivijaya in 671 for 6...

). Hence, the Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

/Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

suffix -sia/-σία, makes the name Malaysia. The continental part of the country bore the name Malaya until 1963, when Federation of Malaysia was formed together with the territories of Sabah
Sabah
Sabah is one of 13 member states of Malaysia. It is located on the northern portion of the island of Borneo. It is the second largest state in the country after Sarawak, which it borders on its southwest. It also shares a border with the province of East Kalimantan of Indonesia in the south...

, Sarawak
Sarawak
Sarawak is one of two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo. Known as Bumi Kenyalang , Sarawak is situated on the north-west of the island. It is the largest state in Malaysia followed by Sabah, the second largest state located to the North- East.The administrative capital is Kuching, which...

and Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

(the latter withdrew in 1965). The name change indicated the change of the country's boundaries beyond Malay Peninsula
Malay Peninsula
The Malay Peninsula or Thai-Malay Peninsula is a peninsula in Southeast Asia. The land mass runs approximately north-south and, at its terminus, is the southern-most point of the Asian mainland...

. Malaysian refers to its citizens of all races
Demographics of Malaysia
The demographics of Malaysia are represented by the multiple ethnic groups that exist in this country. Malaysia's population, , is estimated to be 28,250,500, which makes it the 44th most populated country in the world. Of these, 5.72 million Malaysians live in East Malaysia and...

includes the native aboriginal people, while Malay refers to the earlier immigrant Malay people, which makes up about half of the population.

Maldives

From the Arabic mahal (مهل; "palace") or Dhibat-al-Mahal / Dhibat Mahal, as Arabs formerly called the country. Therefore it could mean "Palace Islands", because the main island, Malé
Malé
Malé , is the capital and most populous city in the Republic of Maldives. It is located at the southern edge of North Malé Atoll . It is also one of the Administrative divisions of the Maldives. Traditionally it was the King's Island, from where the ancient Maldive Royal dynasties ruled and where...

, held the palace of the islands' Sultan. Some scholars believe that the name "Maldives" derives from the Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

maladvipa (मालदीव), meaning "garland of islands". Some sources say that the Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...

malai (மலை) or Malayalam mala (മല‌): "mountain(s)", and Sanskrit diva (दिव): "island", thus, "Mountain Islands".

Dhivehi Raajje (ދިވެހިރާއްޖެ) (Maldivian name): "Kingdom of Maldivians". Dhivehi is a noun describing the Dhives people (Maldivians) and their language "Dhivehi" simultaneously.

Maladwipa (मालदीव): Sanskrit for "garland (mala (माला), pronounced /maalaa/) of islands"; or, more likely, "small islands", from mala (मल) meaning "small".

Dhibat Mahal (الدولة المحلديبية) (Arabic).

Mali

After the ancient West African kingdom of the same name, where a large part of the modern country is. The word mali means "hippopotamus
Hippopotamus
The hippopotamus , or hippo, from the ancient Greek for "river horse" , is a large, mostly herbivorous mammal in sub-Saharan Africa, and one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae After the elephant and rhinoceros, the hippopotamus is the third largest land mammal and the heaviest...

" in Malinké
Mandinka language
The Mandinka language is a Mandé language spoken by millions of Mandinka people in Mali, Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea-Bissau and Chad; it is the main language of The Gambia. It belongs to the Manding branch of Mandé, and is thus fairly...

and Bamana
Bambara language
Bambara, more correctly known as Bamanankan , its designation in the language itself , is a language spoken in Mali by as many as six million people...

.

French Sudan
French Sudan
French Sudan was a colony in French West Africa that had two separate periods of existence, first from 1890 to 1899, then from 1920 to 1960, when the territory became the independent nation of Mali.-Colonial establishment:...

(former colonial name). In French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

Soudan français. The term Sudan (see below) stems from the Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

bilad as-sudan (البلاد السودان): "land of the Blacks".

Malta

From either Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

or Phoenician
Phoenician languages
Phoenician was a language originally spoken in the coastal region then called "Canaan" in Phoenician, Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic, "Phoenicia" in Greek and Latin, and "Pūt" in Ancient Egyptian. Phoenician is a Semitic language of the Canaanite subgroup; its closest living relative is Hebrew, to...

. Of the two cultures, available evidence suggests that the Greeks had an earlier presence on the island, from as far back as 700 BC. The Greeks are known to have called the island Melita (Μελίτη) meaning "honey
Honey
Honey is a sweet food made by bees using nectar from flowers. The variety produced by honey bees is the one most commonly referred to and is the type of honey collected by beekeepers and consumed by humans...

", as did the Romans; solid evidence for this is Malta's domination by the Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

from 395 through to 870. It is still nicknamed the "land of honey". The theory for a Phoenican origin of the word is via 𐤈𐤄𐤋𐤀𐤌 Maleth meaning "a haven". The modern-day name comes from the Maltese language
Maltese language
Maltese is the national language of Malta, and a co-official language of the country alongside English,while also serving as an official language of the European Union, the only Semitic language so distinguished. Maltese is descended from Siculo-Arabic...

, through an evolution of one of the earlier names.

Marshall Islands

Named after British Captain John Marshall
John Marshall (British captain)
Captain John Marshall was born in Ramsgate, Kent, England on 15 February 1748. Having been bound apprentice at the age of ten he spent his life at sea...

, who first documented the existence of the islands in 1788.

Marshallese
Marshallese language
The Marshallese language is a Malayo-Polynesian language of the Marshall Islands, and the principal language of the country...

: M̧ajeļ

Mauritania

Latin for "land of the Moors". Misnamed after the classical Mauretania
Mauretania
Mauretania is a part of the historical Ancient Libyan land in North Africa. It corresponds to present day Morocco and a part of western Algeria...

in northern Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...

, itself named after the Berber Mauri
Mauri (people)
The Mauri were an ancient Berber people inhabiting the territory of modern Algeria and Morocco. Much of that territory was annexed to the Roman empire in 44 AD, as the province of Mauretania...

or Moor
Moors
The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of the Maghreb region who are predominately of Berber and Arab descent. They came to conquer and rule the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years. At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed...

tribe.

Mauritius

Named Prins Maurits van Nassaueiland in 1598 after Maurice of Nassau
Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange
Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange was sovereign Prince of Orange from 1618, on the death of his eldest half brother, Philip William, Prince of Orange,...

(1567–1625), Stadtholder
Stadtholder
A Stadtholder A Stadtholder A Stadtholder (Dutch: stadhouder [], "steward" or "lieutenant", literally place holder, holding someones place, possibly a calque of German Statthalter, French lieutenant, or Middle Latin locum tenens...

of Holland and Prince of Orange
Prince of Orange
Prince of Orange is a title of nobility, originally associated with the Principality of Orange, in what is now southern France. In French it is la Principauté d'Orange....

(1585–1625).

Mexico

After the Mexica branch of the Aztecs. The origin of the term "Mexxica" is uncertain. Some take it as the old Nahuatl
Nahuatl
Nahuatl is thought to mean "a good, clear sound" This language name has several spellings, among them náhuatl , Naoatl, Nauatl, Nahuatl, Nawatl. In a back formation from the name of the language, the ethnic group of Nahuatl speakers are called Nahua...

word for the sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...

. Others say it derived from the name of the leader Mexitli
Mexitli
Mexitli was a legendary great leader and war god of the Aztecs during the wandering years. The name derives from the Nahuatl metztli and xictli and thus means "navel of the moon"....

. Others ascribe it to a type of weed that grows in Lake Texcoco
Lake Texcoco
Lake Texcoco was a natural lake formation within the Valley of Mexico. The Aztecs built the city of Tenochtitlan on an island in the lake. The Spaniards built Mexico City over Tenochtitlan...

. Leon Portilla suggests that it means "navel of the moon" from Nahuatl metztli ("moon") and xictli ("navel"). Alternatively, it could mean "navel of the maguey" (Nahuatl metl). Another theory is that Mexico is most likely derived (via Spanish) from Nahuatl Mexihco, the name of the ancient Aztec capital. See also Mexican state name etymologies
Mexican state name etymologies
This article provides a collection of the etymologies of the names of the states of Mexico....

.

Federated States of Micronesia

A name coined from the Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

words mikros (μικρός; "small") and nesos (νῆσος; "island") – "small islands".

Moldova

From the Moldova River
Moldova River
The Moldova River is a river in Romania, in the historical region of Moldavia. The river rises from the Obcina Feredeu Mountains of Bukovina in Suceava County and joins the Siret River near the city of Roman in Neamţ County....

in Romania, possibly from Gothic Mulda (𐌼ᚢ𐌻ᛞᚨ): "dust", "mud", via the Principality of Moldavia (Moldova in Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...

).

Monaco

From the ancient Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

monoikos (μόνοικος) 'single-dwelling', through Latin Monoecus. Originally the name of an ancient colony founded in the 6th century B.C. by Phocian Greeks, and a by-name of the demigod Hercules
Hercules
Hercules is the Roman name for Greek demigod Heracles, son of Zeus , and the mortal Alcmene...

worshiped there. (The association of Monaco with monks (Italian monaci) dates from the Grimaldi
House of Grimaldi
The House of Grimaldi is associated with the history of the Republic of Genoa and of the Principality of Monaco.-History:The Grimaldi family descends from Grimaldo, a Genoese statesman at the time of the early Crusades. He might have been a son of Otto Canella, a consul of the Republic of Genoa in...

conquest of 1297: see coat of arms of Monaco
Coat of arms of Monaco
The Royal Arms of His Serene Highness Prince Albert II are his arms of dominion in right of Monaco.-Interior:The central shield is "blazoned" , fusily argent and gules.-Exterior:...

.)

Mongolia

From the Mongolian language
Mongolian language
The Mongolian language is the official language of Mongolia and the best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner...

; Mongol probably derives from a combination of "Mon(ghe)+gal" "Mönghe" (eternal) and "gal" (fire).

Kingdom of Montenegro

"Black Mountain" in the Venetian
Venetian language
Venetian or Venetan is a Romance language spoken as a native language by over two million people, mostly in the Veneto region of Italy, where of five million inhabitants almost all can understand it. It is sometimes spoken and often well understood outside Veneto, in Trentino, Friuli, Venezia...

dialect of Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

, for Mount Lovćen
Mount Lovcen
Lovćen is a mountain and national park in southwestern Montenegro.The Mount Lovćen rises from the borders of the Adriatic basin closing the long ang twisting bays of Boka Kotorska and making the hinterland to the coastal town of Kotor...

and its dark coniferous forests.

Crna Gora, the local endonym: As above, in Montenegrin
Montenegrin language
Montenegrin is a name used for the Serbo-Croatian language as spoken by Montenegrins; it also refers to an incipient standardized form of the Shtokavian dialect of Serbo-Croatian used as the official language of Montenegro...

.

Doclea, a former name: "Land of the Docleatae", Latinized from the Greek name Dokleátai (Δοκλεάται) of an Illyrian
Illyrians
The Illyrians were a group of tribes who inhabited part of the western Balkans in antiquity and the south-eastern coasts of the Italian peninsula...

tribe formed around old Podgorica
Podgorica
Podgorica , is the capital and largest city of Montenegro.Podgorica's favourable position at the confluence of the Ribnica and Morača rivers and the meeting point of the fertile Zeta Plain and Bjelopavlići Valley has encouraged settlement...

following the Great Illyrian Revolt
Great Illyrian revolt
The Great Illyrian Revolt, was a major conflict between an alliance of indigenous communities from Illyricum and Roman forces that lasted for four years beginning in AD 6 and ending in AD 9.-The war:...

. The Romans subsequently hyper-corrected the name to Dioclea by "restoring" a supposed lost -I-.

Zeta, a former name: "[Land of the] Zeta River" , whose name probably relates to early Slavic
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...

roots related to "harvest" (Montenegrin
Montenegrin language
Montenegrin is a name used for the Serbo-Croatian language as spoken by Montenegrins; it also refers to an incipient standardized form of the Shtokavian dialect of Serbo-Croatian used as the official language of Montenegro...

: žetva) or "grain" (žito).

Morocco

From Marruecos, the Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

pronunciation of the name of the city of "Marrakesh" (more precisely Marrakush), believed to derive from the Berber
Berber languages
The Berber languages are a family of languages indigenous to North Africa, spoken from Siwa Oasis in Egypt to Morocco , and south to the countries of the Sahara Desert...

words (ta)murt (ⵜⴰⵎⵓⵔⵝ): "land" (or (a)mur (ⴰⵎⵓⵔ) "part") + akush (ⴰⵅⵓⵙⵂ): "God".

المغرب Al Maghrib (Arabic name): "the farthest west".

Mozambique

From the name of the Island of Mozambique
Island of Mozambique
The Island of Mozambique lies off northern Mozambique, between the Mozambique Channel and Mossuril Bay. It has a population of around 14,000 people and is part of Nampula Province.-History:...

, which in turn probably comes from the name of a previous Arab ruler, the sheik Mussa Ben Mbiki.

Namibia

From the coastal Namib Desert
Namib Desert
The Namib Desert is a desert in Namibia and southwest Angola that forms part of the Namib-Naukluft National Park, the largest game reserve in Africa. The name "Namib" is of Nama origin and means "vast place"...

. "Namib" means "area where there is nothing" in the Nama language
Nama language
The Khoekhoe language, or Khoekhoegowab, also known by the ethnic term Nàmá and previously the now-discouraged term Hottentot, is the most widespread of the Khoisan languages. It belongs to the Khoe language family, and is spoken in Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa by three ethnic groups, the...

.

South-West Africa, a former name: Self-explanatory. For Africa, see List of continent-name etymologies.

German Southwest Africa, a former name: As above. For Germany, see Germany above.

Nauru

The name "Nauru" may derive from the Nauruan
Nauruan language
The Nauruan language is an Austronesian language spoken in Nauru. It is estimated that it has 7,000 speakers. Almost all speakers are bilingual in English....

word Anáoero, which means "I go to the beach". The German settlers called the island Nawodo or Onawero.

Nepal

The name "Nepal" is derived from "Nepa" as mentioned in the historical maps of South Asia. "Nepa" literally means "those who domesticate cattle" in the Tibeto-Burman languages. The land was known by its people the Nepa or Nepar, Newar, Newa, Newal etc., who still inhabit the area i.e. the valley of Kathmandu and its surroundings. The Newa people use "Ra" and "La" or "Wa" and "Pa" interchangeably, hence the different names mentioned above.

Some say it derives from the Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

nipalaya, which means "at the foot of the mountains" or "abode at the foot," referring to its proximity to the Himalayas
Himalayas
The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...

. (Compare the analogous European toponym "Piedmont
Piedmont
Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...

".) Others suggest that it derives from the Tibetan
Tibetan language
The Tibetan languages are a cluster of mutually-unintelligible Tibeto-Burman languages spoken primarily by Tibetan peoples who live across a wide area of eastern Central Asia bordering the Indian subcontinent, including the Tibetan Plateau and the northern Indian subcontinent in Baltistan, Ladakh,...

niyampal, which means "holy land".

Netherlands

Germanic
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...

for "low lands".

Holland, an alternative name: From North and South Holland, two provinces within the Netherlands, often used by metonomy for the country as a whole. "Holland" from the Dutch holt-land ("wooded land"), although often folk etymologized as "hollow" or "marsh land").

Batavia, a former and poetic name: From the Latin name of the Germanic Batavii tribe.

Nederland, the local endonym: "Lowland" in Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

; Neder is a Dutch cognate to the English "nether": low or lower.

New Zealand

After the province of Zeeland
Zeeland
Zeeland , also called Zealand in English, is the westernmost province of the Netherlands. The province, located in the south-west of the country, consists of a number of islands and a strip bordering Belgium. Its capital is Middelburg. With a population of about 380,000, its area is about...

in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

, which means "sea land", referring to the large number of islands it contains. Abel Tasman
Abel Tasman
Abel Janszoon Tasman was a Dutch seafarer, explorer, and merchant, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the VOC . His was the first known European expedition to reach the islands of Van Diemen's Land and New Zealand and to sight the Fiji islands...

referred to New Zealand as Staten Landt, but later Dutch cartographers used Nova Zeelandia, in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

, followed by Nieuw Zeeland in Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

, which Captain James Cook later anglicised
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

to New Zealand.

Aotearoa
Aotearoa
Aotearoa is the most widely known and accepted Māori name for New Zealand. It is used by both Māori and non-Māori, and is becoming increasingly widespread in the bilingual names of national organisations, such as the National Library of New Zealand / Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa.-Translation:The...

has become the most common name for the country in the indigenous Maori language
Maori language
Māori or te reo Māori , commonly te reo , is the language of the indigenous population of New Zealand, the Māori. It has the status of an official language in New Zealand...

, supplanting the loan-phrase Niu Tireni. Aotearoa conventionally means "land of the long white cloud".

Nua Shealtainn in both Irish
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...

and Scottish Gaelic, meaning "New Shetland" (Sealtainn), itself from a metathesised
Metathesis (linguistics)
Metathesis is the re-arranging of sounds or syllables in a word, or of words in a sentence. Most commonly it refers to the switching of two or more contiguous sounds, known as adjacent metathesis or local metathesis:...

form of Scots
Scots language
Scots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster . It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.Since there are no universally accepted...

Shetland. Gaelic speakers seem to have folk-etymologised Zeeland when translating New Zealand's name from English.

Nicaragua

A merger coined by the Spanish explorer Gil González Dávila
Gil González Dávila
Gil González Dávila was a Spanish Conquistador and the first European to arrive in present-day Nicaragua.González Dávila first appears in historical records in 1508, when he received a royal commission to examine accounts and tax records of estates. He probably traveled soon afterward to Santo...

after Nicarao
Nicarao
Nicarao is the name of the capital city of the most populous indigenous tribe when the Spanish arrived in Nicaragua. Gil González Dávila, who first explored the area, came up with this Central American country's name by combining Nicarao and the Spanish word Agua, meaning water, after the two large...

, a leader of an indigenous community inhabiting the shores of Lake Nicaragua
Lake Nicaragua
Lake Nicaragua or Cocibolca or Granada or is a vast freshwater lake in Nicaragua of tectonic origin. With an area of , it is the largest lake in Central America, the 19th largest lake in the world and the 9th largest in the Americas. It is slightly smaller than Lake Titicaca. With an elevation...

and agua, the Spanish word for "water"; subsequently, the ethnonym of that native community.

Niger

In English, Niger may be pronounced ˈ or n.

Named after the Niger River
Niger River
The Niger River is the principal river of western Africa, extending about . Its drainage basin is in area. Its source is in the Guinea Highlands in southeastern Guinea...

, from a native term Ni Gir or "River Gir" or from Tuareg
Tuareg languages
Tuareg is a Berber language or family of very closely related languages and dialects spoken by the Tuareg Berbers, in large parts of Mali, Niger, Algeria, Libya and Burkina Faso, with a few speakers, the Kinnin, in Chad.- Description :Other Berber languages and Tamashaq are quite mutually...

n'eghirren ("flowing water"). The name has often been misinterpreted, especially by Latinists, to be derived from the Latin niger ("black"), a reference to the dark complexions of the inhabitants of the region.

Nigeria

After the Niger river
Niger River
The Niger River is the principal river of western Africa, extending about . Its drainage basin is in area. Its source is in the Guinea Highlands in southeastern Guinea...

that flows through the western areas of the country and into the ocean. See Niger above.

Norway

From the old Norse norðr and vegr, "northern way". Norðrvegr refers to long coastal passages from the western tip of Norway to its northernmost lands in the Arctic.

Natively called Norge (Noreg in Nynorsk
Nynorsk
Nynorsk or New Norwegian is one of two official written standards for the Norwegian language, the other being Bokmål. The standard language was created by Ivar Aasen during the mid-19th century, to provide a Norwegian alternative to the Danish language which was commonly written in Norway at the...

).

Urmane, or Murmane (урмане; Му́рмане) in Old Russian: from the Norse pronunciation of the word Normans
Normans
The Normans were the people who gave their name to Normandy, a region in northern France. They were descended from Norse Viking conquerors of the territory and the native population of Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock...

: "Northmen". (This word survives in the name of the Russian city Murmansk
Murmansk
Murmansk is a city and the administrative center of Murmansk Oblast, Russia. It serves as a seaport and is located in the extreme northwest part of Russia, on the Kola Bay, from the Barents Sea on the northern shore of the Kola Peninsula, not far from Russia's borders with Norway and Finland...

.)

An Iorua (Irish
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...

) seems to derive from a misinterpretation of Old Norse Norðrvegr as beginning the Irish definite article an, common to most country names in Irish. The rest of the word was then taken as the country name. (A similar process took place in the development of the English word "adder": originally "a nadder".)

Oman

The name Oman (also Uman) is ancient. In his translation of a History of the Imams and Seyyids of Oman, George Badger says that the name was already in use by early Greek and Arab geographers. The book Oman in History (Arabic: Tarikh fi Uman) notes that the Roman historian Yalainous (23–79 AD) mentions a city on the Arab peninsula he calls "Omana." The city (probably ancient Sohar
Sohar
Sohar is the most developed city in Sultanate of Oman outside the capital Muscat. It is about 200 kilometers north of Muscat. Sohar was an ancient capital of Oman and many believe it to be the birthplace of Sinbad the Sailor...

, on the Omani coast) gave its name to the region.

According to Tarikh fi Uman, "various Arab scholars proposed a variety of different linguistic origins for the name 'Oman'." Ibn al-Qabi suggested it comes from the adjective aamen, or amoun, meaning "settled (as opposed to nomadic) man." Other scholars have suggested the city was named after any of a number of historic, legendary or biblical founding figures, including Oman bin Ibrahim al-Khalil, Oman bin Siba' bin Yaghthan bin Ibrahim, Oman bin Qahtan, and Oman bin Loot (the Arabic name for the biblical figure Lot). Still others have suggested the name is based on a valley in Yemen from which the city's founders came.

Pakistan

The Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...

student and Muslim nationalist Choudhary Rahmat Ali
Choudhary Rahmat Ali
Choudhry Rahmat Ali was a Pakistani Muslim nationalist who was one of the earliest proponents of the creation of the state of Pakistan. He is credited with creating the name "Pakistan" for a separate Muslim homeland in South Asia and is generally known as the founder of the movement for its...

coined this name. He devised the word and first published it on 28 January 1933 in the pamphlet "Now or Never". He constructed the name as an acronym of the different states/homelands/regions, which broke down into: P=Punjab
Punjab (Pakistan)
Punjab is the most populous province of Pakistan, with approximately 45% of the country's total population. Forming most of the Punjab region, the province is bordered by Kashmir to the north-east, the Indian states of Punjab and Rajasthan to the east, the Pakistani province of Sindh to the...

, A=Afghania (Ali's preferred name for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), K=Kashmir
Kashmir
Kashmir is the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term Kashmir geographically denoted only the valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range...

, S=Sindh
Sindh
Sindh historically referred to as Ba'ab-ul-Islam , is one of the four provinces of Pakistan and historically is home to the Sindhi people. It is also locally known as the "Mehran". Though Muslims form the largest religious group in Sindh, a good number of Christians, Zoroastrians and Hindus can...

and the suffix -stan from Balochistan
Balochistan (Pakistan)
Balochistan is one of the four provinces or federating units of Pakistan. With an area of 134,051 mi2 or , it is the largest province of Pakistan, constituting approximately 44% of the total land mass of Pakistan. According to the 1998 population census, Balochistan had a population of...

, thus forming "Pakstan". An "i" intruded later to ease pronunciation. The suffix -stan in Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

means "home of" and in Sanskrit means "place". Rahmat Ali later expanded upon this in his 1947 book Pakistan: the Fatherland of the Pak Nation. In that book he explains the acronym as follows: P=Punjab
Punjab (Pakistan)
Punjab is the most populous province of Pakistan, with approximately 45% of the country's total population. Forming most of the Punjab region, the province is bordered by Kashmir to the north-east, the Indian states of Punjab and Rajasthan to the east, the Pakistani province of Sindh to the...

, A=Afghania, K=Kashmir
Kashmir
Kashmir is the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term Kashmir geographically denoted only the valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range...

, I=Indus Valley, S=Sindh
Sindh
Sindh historically referred to as Ba'ab-ul-Islam , is one of the four provinces of Pakistan and historically is home to the Sindhi people. It is also locally known as the "Mehran". Though Muslims form the largest religious group in Sindh, a good number of Christians, Zoroastrians and Hindus can...

, T=Turkharistan (roughly the modern central-Asian states), A=Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

and N=BalochistaN. The Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

word پاک pāk, which means "pure", adds another shade of meaning, with the full name thus meaning "land of the pure". For -stan, see Afghanistan above.

Palau

From the native name Belau ("Palau"), traditionally derived from Palauan
Palauan language
Palauan is one of the two nationally recognized official languages spoken in the Republic of Palau...

aidebelau ("indirect replies"), in reference to the island's creation story involving the destruction of the giant Chuab.

Belau, the local endonym: As above.

Los Palos, a former name: A Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

adaption of the above.

Pelew, a former name: From the transcription of Belau above by the British captain Henry Wilson
Henry Wilson (Antelope)
Henry Wilson was an English naval captain of the British East India Company, from Rotherhithe. He commanded the packet ship Antelope, when it shipwrecked off Ulong Island, near Koror Island in Palau in 1783.-Voyage of 1783:...

, whose ship was wrecked off Ulong Island
Ulong Island
Ulong is a major island and channel of western Palau. It is sometimes called Aulong and originally written Oroolong in English. Ulong is regarded by many as one of the best drift dives in the world.-Geography:...

in 1783.

Panama

After a former village near the modern capital, Panama City
Panama City
Panama is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Panama. It has a population of 880,691, with a total metro population of 1,272,672, and it is located at the Pacific entrance of the Panama Canal, in the province of the same name. The city is the political and administrative center of the...

. From the Cueva
Cueva people
The Cueva were an indigenous people that lived in the Darién region of eastern Panamá. They were completely exterminated between 1510 and 1535 due to the effects of Spanish colonization....

Indian language meaning "place of abundance of fish" or "place of many fish", possibly from the Caribe "abundance of butterflies", or possibly from another native term referring to the Panama tree.

Papua New Guinea

The country acquired its name in the 19th century. The word "Papua" derives from Malay
Malay language
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...

papuah describing the frizzy hair of Melanesia
Melanesia
Melanesia is a subregion of Oceania extending from the western end of the Pacific Ocean to the Arafura Sea, and eastward to Fiji. The region comprises most of the islands immediately north and northeast of Australia...

ns. "New Guinea" comes from the Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

explorer Yñigo Ortiz de Retez
Yñigo Ortiz de Retez
Yñigo Ortiz de Retez was a 16th-century Spanish maritime explorer, who navigated the northern coastline of the Pacific - Melanesian island of New Guinea, and is credited with bestowing the island's name .-Spanish discovery:...

, who noted the resemblance of the local people to those he had earlier seen along the Guinea
Guinea
Guinea , officially the Republic of Guinea , is a country in West Africa. Formerly known as French Guinea , it is today sometimes called Guinea-Conakry to distinguish it from its neighbour Guinea-Bissau. Guinea is divided into eight administrative regions and subdivided into thirty-three prefectures...

coast of Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

.

Paraguay

The exact meaning of the word "Paraguay" is unknown, though it seems to derive from the river of the same name. One of the most common explanations is that it means "water of the Payagua (a native tribe)". Another meaning links the Guarani
Guaraní language
Guaraní, specifically the primary variety known as Paraguayan Guaraní , is an indigenous language of South America that belongs to the Tupí–Guaraní subfamily of the Tupian languages. It is one of the official languages of Paraguay , where it is spoken by the majority of the population, and half of...

words para ("river") and guai ("crown"), meaning "crowned river". A third meaning may be para ("river"), gua ("from"), i ("water") meaning "river that comes from the water", referring to the bog in the north of the country, which is actually in Brazil.

Peru

The exact meaning behind the word "Peru" is obscure. The most popular theory derives it from the native word biru, meaning "river" (compare with the River Biru in modern Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...

). Another explanation claims that it comes from the name of the Indian chieftain Beru. Spanish explorers asked him the name of the land, but not understanding their language, he assumed they wanted his own name, which he gave them. Another possible origin is pelu, presumptively an old native name of the region.

Philippines

"Lands of King Philip" (Philip II of Spain
Philip II of Spain
Philip II was King of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily, and, while married to Mary I, King of England and Ireland. He was lord of the Seventeen Provinces from 1556 until 1581, holding various titles for the individual territories such as duke or count....

, reigned 1556–1598). The suffix "-ines" functions adjectivally. Other names include Katagalugan (used by the Katipunan
Katipunan
The Katipunan was a Philippine revolutionary society founded by anti-Spanish Filipinos in Manila in 1892, whose primary aim was to gain independence from Spain through revolution. The society was initiated by Filipino patriots Andrés Bonifacio, Teodoro Plata, Ladislao Diwa, and others on the night...

when referring to the Philippines and meaning "land/region of the river-dwellers", though that name originally refers to the Tagalog
Tagalog language
Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila...

areas) and Maharlika (from the name of the upper class in pre-Hispanic Philippines, meaning "noble").

"Pearl of the Orient Seas"

Poland

"Land of Polans
Polans (western)
The Polans were a West Slavic tribe, part of the Lechitic group, inhabiting the Warta river basin of the historic Greater Poland region in the 8th century.During the reign of King Svatopluk I of Great Moravia , who subdued the tribes of the Vistulans and Ślężanie...

", the territory of the tribe of Polans (Polanie). When the Polans formed a united Poland in the 10th century, this name also came into use for the whole Polish country. The name "Poland" (Polska) expressed both meanings until, in the 13th/14th century, the original territory of the Polans became known as Greater Poland
Greater Poland
Greater Poland or Great Poland, often known by its Polish name Wielkopolska is a historical region of west-central Poland. Its chief city is Poznań.The boundaries of Greater Poland have varied somewhat throughout history...

(Wielkopolska) instead. The name of the tribe comes probably from Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

pole: "field" or "open field".

Lengyelország (Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....

), Lenkija (Lithuanian
Lithuanian language
Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...

), لهستان Lahestân (Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

) all derive from the Old Ruthenian or Old Polish ethnonym lęděnin (possibly "man ploughing virgin soil") and its augmentative
Augmentative
An augmentative is a morphological form of a word which expresses greater intensity, often in size, but also in other attributes...

lęch.

Portugal

From medieval Romance
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...

Portucale, from Latin Portus Cale
Portus Cale
Portus Cale was the old name of an ancient town and port in current day Portugal. It was located in the north of Portugal, in the area of today's Grande Porto.-Early History:...

(modern Porto
Porto
Porto , also known as Oporto in English, is the second largest city in Portugal and one of the major urban areas in the Iberian Peninsula. Its administrative limits include a population of 237,559 inhabitants distributed within 15 civil parishes...

and Gaia
Vila Nova de Gaia
Vila Nova de Gaia, or simply Gaia is a city in Vila Nova de Gaia Municipality, Portugal. It is located in the Porto District, south of the city of Porto on the other side of the Douro River. The city proper has a population of 178,255 and the municipality contains 24 parishes with a total...

. Portus is the Latin for "port," but the meaning of Cale is debated. Some derive it from the Greek kallis (καλλἰς, "beautiful") or the Latin calēre ("to heat"). It likely was related to the Gallaeci, a Celtic people who lived nearby north of the Douro River in pre-Roman times. The etymology of their name is also unknown, but may have been related to the divine hag Cailleach
Cailleach
In Irish and Scottish mythology, the , also known as the Cailleach Bheur, is a divine hag, a creatrix, and possibly an ancestral deity or deified ancestor...

.

Lusitania
Lusitania
Lusitania or Hispania Lusitania was an ancient Roman province including approximately all of modern Portugal south of the Douro river and part of modern Spain . It was named after the Lusitani or Lusitanian people...

(ancient predecessor and literary variant): after the Lusitanians
Lusitanians
The Lusitanians were an Indo-European people living in the Western Iberian Peninsula long before it became the Roman province of Lusitania . They spoke the Lusitanian language which might have been Celtic. The modern Portuguese people see the Lusitanians as their ancestors...

, probably of Celt
Celt
The Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Roman-era Europe who spoke Celtic languages.The earliest archaeological culture commonly accepted as Celtic, or rather Proto-Celtic, was the central European Hallstatt culture , named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria....

ic origin, as Lus and Tanus, "tribe of Lusus".

Qatar

Derives from "Qatara", believed to refer to the Qatari town of Zubara, an important trading port and town in the region in ancient times. The word "Qatara" first appeared on Ptolemy
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...

's map of the Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

world. In the early 20th century, English speakers often pronounced Qatar as "Cutter", close to the local pronunciation in Qatar. However, the traditional English pronunciation ("Kuh-tahr") has prevailed.

Kingdom of Romania

"Roman Realm". The Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

conquered a large part of the country, and the inhabitants became Romanized (Romanians
Romanians
The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....

). Older variants of the name include "Rumania" and (in a French-influenced spelling) "Roumania".

Dacia
Dacia
In ancient geography, especially in Roman sources, Dacia was the land inhabited by the Dacians or Getae as they were known by the Greeks—the branch of the Thracians north of the Haemus range...

, older name and Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

variant: named after the ancient people the Dacians
Dacians
The Dacians were an Indo-European people, very close or part of the Thracians. Dacians were the ancient inhabitants of Dacia...

.

Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...

, Slavic name for the country, from the Gothic
Gothic language
Gothic is an extinct Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from the Codex Argenteus, a 6th-century copy of a 4th-century Bible translation, and is the only East Germanic language with a sizable Text corpus...

word for Celts: walh. Later also used for the Romanized tribes. This Germanic form derives from the name of the Celtic tribe of Volcae
Volcae
The Volcae were a tribal confederation constituted before the raid of combined Gauls that invaded Macedon circa 270 BC and defeated the assembled Greeks at the Battle of Thermopylae in 279 BC...

. Compare with the etymologies of the names "Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

" and "Wallonia".

Russia

English and Russian: from Rosia or Rossiya, from the Byzantine Greek Rōsía (Ρωσία), meaning "Land of the Rōs" (Ρως). Generally agreed to be from a Varangian group known as the Rus'
Rus' (people)
The Rus' were a group of Varangians . According to the Primary Chronicle of Rus, compiled in about 1113 AD, the Rus had relocated from the Baltic region , first to Northeastern Europe, creating an early polity which finally came under the leadership of Rurik...

, ultimately from Old Norse
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....

rods-, "row" or "rower". Within Russia, Soviet scholarship
Soviet historiography
Soviet historiography is the methodology of history studies by historians in the Soviet Union . In the USSR, the study of history was marked by alternating periods of freedom allowed and restrictions imposed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , and also by the struggle of historians to...

depreciated Kievan Rus'
Kievan Rus'
Kievan Rus was a medieval polity in Eastern Europe, from the late 9th to the mid 13th century, when it disintegrated under the pressure of the Mongol invasion of 1237–1240....

s Scandinavian origin in favor of Slavic ones, offering a variety of other pseudoetymologies.

Latvian
Latvian language
Latvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language...

: Krievija, named after the ancient Krivichs tribe, related to the modern Belarusians
Belarusians
Belarusians ; are an East Slavic ethnic group who populate the majority of the Republic of Belarus. Introduced to the world as a new state in the early 1990s, the Republic of Belarus brought with it the notion of a re-emerging Belarusian ethnicity, drawn upon the lines of the Old Belarusian...

.

Vene or Venemaa (Estonian
Estonian language
Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...

) and Venäjä (Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...

): after the ancient Venedes
Venedes
The Vistula Veneti were an ancient Indo-European people along the river Vistula and the Bay of Gdańsk.- Etymology of the ethnonym Veneti :...

.

Rwanda

"Land", from the Kinyarwanda
Kinyarwanda language
Kinyarwanda , is a dialect of the Rwanda-Rundi language spoken by some 12 million people in Rwanda, where it is the official language, and adjacent parts of southern Uganda...

rwanda ("domain", lit. "area occupied by a swarm or scattering"), as eventually applied to the Tutsi
Tutsi
The Tutsi , or Abatutsi, are an ethnic group in Central Africa. Historically they were often referred to as the Watussi or Watusi. They are the second largest caste in Rwanda and Burundi, the other two being the Hutu and the Twa ....

Nyiginya mwami
Mwami
Mwami is the chiefly title in Kirundi and Kinyarwanda, the Congolese Nande and Bashi languages, Luhya in Kenya and various other Bantu languages, such as the Tonga language . The word is usually translated as king...

s descended from Ruganzu Ndori or the speakers of Kinyarwanda.

Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic

After the Sahrawi people. Their territory is disputed with Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...

, who claim the region as their Western Sahara
Western Sahara
Western Sahara is a disputed territory in North Africa, bordered by Morocco to the north, Algeria to the northeast, Mauritania to the east and south, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Its surface area amounts to . It is one of the most sparsely populated territories in the world, mainly...

territory.

Western Sahara, an alternate name: After its geographic position. "Sahara" derives from the Arabic aṣ-Ṣaḥrā´ (الصحراء), meaning "desert".

Spanish Sahara
Spanish Sahara
Spanish Sahara was the name used for the modern territory of Western Sahara when it was ruled as a territory by Spain between 1884 and 1975...

, a former name: from its previous occupation by Spain.

Saint Kitts and Nevis

St. Kitts took its name in honour of Saint Christopher
Saint Christopher
.Saint Christopher is a saint venerated by Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians, listed as a martyr killed in the reign of the 3rd century Roman Emperor Decius or alternatively under the Roman Emperor Maximinus II Dacian...

, the patron saint of travelling. Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...

probably named the island for Saint Christopher, though this remains uncertain. British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

sailors later shortened the name to St. Kitts.

Nevis
Nevis
Nevis is an island in the Caribbean Sea, located near the northern end of the Lesser Antilles archipelago, about 350 km east-southeast of Puerto Rico and 80 km west of Antigua. The 93 km² island is part of the inner arc of the Leeward Islands chain of the West Indies...

derives from the Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

phrase Nuestra Senora de las Nieves, which means "Our Lady of the Snows", after the permanent halo of white clouds that surrounded mountains on the island.

Saint Lucia

"Saint Lucy
Saint Lucy
Saint Lucy , also known as Saint Lucia, was a wealthy young Christian martyr who is venerated as a saint by Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, and Orthodox Christians. Her feast day in the West is 13 December; with a name derived from lux, lucis "light", she is the patron saint of those who are...

" in Latin, for the shipwreck upon the island of French
Kingdom of France
The Kingdom of France was one of the most powerful states to exist in Europe during the second millennium.It originated from the Western portion of the Frankish empire, and consolidated significant power and influence over the next thousand years. Louis XIV, also known as the Sun King, developed a...

sailors on St. Lucy's Day, 13 December 1502.

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Saint Vincent
Vincent of Saragossa
Saint Vincent of Saragossa, also known as Vincent Martyr, Vincent of Huesca or Vincent the Deacon, is the patron saint of Lisbon. His feast day is 22 January in the Roman Catholic Church and Anglican Communion and 11 November in the Eastern Orthodox Churches...

: bestowed by Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...

for their discovery on St. Vincent's Day, 22 January 1498.

The Grenadines
Grenadines
The Grenadines is a Caribbean island chain of over 600 islands in the Windward Islands.-Geographic boundaries:They are divided between the island nations of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada. They lie between the islands of Saint Vincent in the north and Grenada in the south. Neither...

: From the Spanish city of Granada
Granada
Granada is a city and the capital of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence of three rivers, the Beiro, the Darro and the Genil. It sits at an elevation of 738 metres above sea...

. (See Grenada
Grenada
Grenada is an island country and Commonwealth Realm consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea...

)

Samoa

"Holy Center", from a compound
Compound (linguistics)
In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word formation that creates compound lexemes...

of the Samoan
Samoan language
Samoan Samoan Samoan (Gagana Sāmoa, is the language of the Samoan Islands, comprising the independent country of Samoa and the United States territory of American Samoa. It is an official language—alongside English—in both jurisdictions. Samoan, a Polynesian language, is the first language for most...

sa ("sacred") and moa ("center"). The name is alternatively derived from a local chieftain named Samoa or an indigenous word meaning "place of the moa
Moa
The moa were eleven species of flightless birds endemic to New Zealand. The two largest species, Dinornis robustus and Dinornis novaezelandiae, reached about in height with neck outstretched, and weighed about ....

", a now-extinct bird.

San Marino

"Saint Marinus
Saint Marinus
Saint Marinus was the founder of the world's oldest surviving republic, San Marino, in 301. Tradition holds that he was a stonemason by trade who came from the island of Rab on the other side of the Adriatic Sea , fleeing persecution for his Christian beliefs in the Diocletianic Persecution...

" in Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

, for the (possibly legendary) stonemason who fled to the area's Mount Titano around AD 301 or 305 from his home on the island of Arbe in modern-day Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...

to order to escape Roman persecution.

São Tomé and Príncipe

São Tomé: "Saint Thomas" in Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

, for its discovery on St. Thomas Day, 21 December 1470 or 1471.

Príncipe: "Prince" in Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

, from shortening its original name Ilha do Principe ("Isle of the Prince") in reference to the Prince of Portugal to whom duties on the island's sugar crop were paid.

Saudi Arabia

"Arabia of the Sauds
House of Saud
The House of Saud , also called the Al Saud, is the ruling royal family of Saudi Arabia and one of the wealthiest and most powerful dynasties in the world. The family holds thousands of members...

", in reference to the ruling dynasty. The dynasty itself takes its name from its patriach Saud , whose name means "constellation". Arabia itself from the Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

name, of uncertain though probably Semetic etymology, although as early as Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

the region was known as Ar Rabi.

Scotland
Kingdom of Scotland
The Kingdom of Scotland was a Sovereign state in North-West Europe that existed from 843 until 1707. It occupied the northern third of the island of Great Britain and shared a land border to the south with the Kingdom of England...

"Land of the Scots
Scottish people
The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...

". "Scot" from Old English Scottas, from Late Latin
Late Latin
Late Latin is the scholarly name for the written Latin of Late Antiquity. The English dictionary definition of Late Latin dates this period from the 3rd to the 6th centuries AD extending in Spain to the 7th. This somewhat ambiguously defined period fits between Classical Latin and Medieval Latin...

Scotti, of uncertain origin.

Alba
Alba
Alba is the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland. It is cognate to Alba in Irish and Nalbin in Manx, the two other Goidelic Insular Celtic languages, as well as similar words in the Brythonic Insular Celtic languages of Cornish and Welsh also meaning Scotland.- Etymology :The term first appears in...

, a former endonym: Uncertain etymology, presumed to derive from Albion

Albion

Albion is the oldest known name of the island of Great Britain. Today, it is still sometimes used poetically to refer to the island or England in particular. It is also the basis of the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland, Alba...

(See United Kingdom below) or its antecedents.

Caledonia
Caledonia
Caledonia is the Latinised form and name given by the Romans to the land in today's Scotland north of their province of Britannia, beyond the frontier of their empire...

, a former name: "Land of the Caledonii" in Latin, from a Latin name for a local tribe, of uncertain etymology. Possibly related to the Welsh

Welsh language

Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...

caled ("hard", "tough").

Senegal

From the Senegal river. After a Portuguese variant of the name of the Berber Zenaga

Zenaga people

The Sanhaja or Senhaja were once one of the largest Berber tribal confederations of the Maghreb, along with the Zanata and Masmuda...

(Arabic Senhaja) tribe, which dominated much of the area to the north of modern Senegal, i.e. present-day Mauritania

Mauritania

Mauritania is a country in the Maghreb and West Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, by Western Sahara in the north, by Algeria in the northeast, by Mali in the east and southeast, and by Senegal in the southwest...

Serbia

The exact origin of the name is uncertain (see name of Serbs). The name of the Sorbs

Sorbs

Sorbs are a Western Slavic people of Central Europe living predominantly in Lusatia, a region on the territory of Germany and Poland. In Germany they live in the states of Brandenburg and Saxony. They speak the Sorbian languages - closely related to Polish and Czech - officially recognized and...

in present-day Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

has the same origin.

Seychelles

Named after Jean Moreau de Séchelles

Jean Moreau de Séchelles

Jean Moreau de Séchelles was a French official and politician.Made a maître des requêtes 13 October 1719, he was the intendant of Hainaut in Valenciennes from 1727 to 1743...

, Finance Minister to King Louis XV of France

Louis XV of France

Louis XV was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather at the age of five, his first cousin Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, served as Regent of the kingdom until Louis's majority in 1723...

from 1754 to 1756.

Sierra Leone

Adapted from Sierra Leona, the Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

version of the Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

Serra Leoa ("Lion Mountains"). The Portuguese

Portugal

explorer Pedro de Sintra

Pedro de Sintra

Pedro de Sintra also known as Pêro de Sintra was a Portuguese explorer. He was among the first Europeans to explore the West African coast. Around 1462 his expedition reached contemporary Sierra Leone and named it. Continuing their journey, they visited the Benin Empire.-References and notes:...

named the country after the striking mountains that he saw in 1462 while sailing the West African coast. It remains unclear what exactly made the mountains look like lions. Three main explanations exist: that the mountains resembled the teeth of a lion

Lion

The lion is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger...

, that they looked like sleeping lions, or that thunder which broke out around the mountains sounded like a lion's roar.

Deorum Currus (Latin variant): -?-

Singapore

Singapura (in Malay
Malay language
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...

) derives from Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

सिंगापोर Simhapura (or Singhapura) which means "Lion City". Earlier the island was known as Temasek

Temasek

Temasek was the name of an early city on the site of modern Singapore. From the 14th century, the island has also been known as Singapura, which is derived from Sanskrit and means "Lion City"...

from Malay or Javanese
Javanese language
Javanese language is the language of the Javanese people from the central and eastern parts of the island of Java, in Indonesia. In addition, there are also some pockets of Javanese speakers in the northern coast of western Java...

root tasik meaning lake. Singapore is the anglicized

English language

form of the Malay name which is still in use today along with variants in Chinese and Tamil

Tamil language

Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...

, the four official languages of Singapore.

Slovakia

From the Slavic

Slavic languages

The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...

"Slavs". The origin of the word Slav itself remains controversial.

Slovenia

"Land of the Slavs" in Slovene and other South Slavic languages
South Slavic languages
The South Slavic languages comprise one of three branches of the Slavic languages. There are approximately 30 million speakers, mainly in the Balkans. These are separated geographically from speakers of the other two Slavic branches by a belt of German, Hungarian and Romanian speakers...

. The etymology of itself remains uncertain.

Solomon Islands

Named for the Biblical

Bible

King Solomon by the Spanish explorer Alvaro de Mendaña y Neyra in 1567 or 1568. The name was bestowed after the legendary wealth of King Solomon's mines

King Solomon's Mines

King Solomon's Mines is a popular novel by the Victorian adventure writer and fabulist Sir H. Rider Haggard. It tells of a search of an unexplored region of Africa by a group of adventurers led by Allan Quatermain for the missing brother of one of the party...

, which Mendaña y Neyra hoped to find.

Somalia

"Land of the Somali

Somali people

Somalis are an ethnic group located in the Horn of Africa, also known as the Somali Peninsula. The overwhelming majority of Somalis speak the Somali language, which is part of the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family...

", an ethnic group. Somali itself is of uncertain etymology, although some have proposed a derivation from sac maal ("cattle herders") or a legendary patriarch

Patriarch

Originally a patriarch was a man who exercised autocratic authority as a pater familias over an extended family. The system of such rule of families by senior males is called patriarchy. This is a Greek word, a compound of πατριά , "lineage, descent", esp...

named Samaale.

South Africa

Self-descriptive, from its location in Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

. For the etymology of Africa, see list of continent-name etymologies.

Suid-Afrika, a local endonym: "South Africa" in Afrikaans
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...

Azania

Azania is the name that has been applied to various parts of sub-Saharan Africa. In Roman times—and perhaps earlier—the name referred to a portion of the Southeast African coast south of the Horn of Africa, extending south perhaps as far as modern Tanzania....

(alternative name): some opponents of the white-minority rule of the country used the name Azania in place of "South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

" . The origin of this name remains uncertain, but the name has referred to various parts of sub-Saharan East-Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

. Recently, two suggestions for the origin of the word have emerged. The first cites the Arabic `ajam ("foreigner, non-Arab"). The second references the Greek verb azainein ("to dry, parch"), which fits the identification of Azania with arid sub-Saharan Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

.

Mzansi, an alternative endonym: a popular, widespread nickname among locals, used often in parlance but never officially adopted. (uMzantsi in isiXhosa means "south".)

See also Africa on the List of continent name etymologies page.

Spain

"Island of Hyrax
Hyrax
A hyrax is any of four species of fairly small, thickset, herbivorous mammals in the order Hyracoidea. The rock hyrax Procavia capensis, the yellow-spotted rock hyrax Heterohyrax brucei, the western tree hyrax Dendrohyrax dorsalis, and the southern tree hyrax, Dendrohyrax arboreus live in Africa...

es", from Norman French Spagne, from the Latin Hispania

Hispania

Another theory holds that the name derives from Ezpanna, the Basque word for "border" or "edge", thus meaning the farthest area or place. Isidore of Sevilla considered Hispania derived from Hispalis....

, from the Punic
Phoenician languages
Phoenician was a language originally spoken in the coastal region then called "Canaan" in Phoenician, Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic, "Phoenicia" in Greek and Latin, and "Pūt" in Ancient Egyptian. Phoenician is a Semitic language of the Canaanite subgroup; its closest living relative is Hebrew, to...

''ʾÎ-šəpānîm (אי שפנים), probably from mistaking rabbits

European Rabbit

The European Rabbit or Common Rabbit is a species of rabbit native to south west Europe and north west Africa . It has been widely introduced elsewhere often with devastating effects on local biodiversity...

for the African hyrax.

Sri Lanka

"Holy Island", from Sanskrit Sri
Sri
Sri , also transliterated as Shri or Shree or shre is a word of Sanskrit origin, used in the Indian subcontinent as polite form of address equivalent to the English "Mr." in written and spoken language, or as a title of veneration for deities .-Etymology:Sri has the root meaning of radiance, or...

(श्री, "holy", "resplendent") and Lanka
Lanka
Sri Lanka is the name given in Hindu mythology to the island fortress capital of the legendary king Ravana in the great Hindu epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata...

(लंका, "island"). "Lanka" was also the name of the capital of the King Rawana.

Ceylon, a former name: From Ceilão (Portuguese), Seilan (former names), from the Pali

Páli

- External links :* *...

शिन्हल Sinhalana meaning "land of the lions".

Helanka, its name in Sinhala: "Lanka of Hela's", "Heladiva" (sinhala) meaning the "Island of Hela's", since original natives of the island was called "Hela".

Serendip, a former name: derived from the sihalan-dip, meaning "the island of sihala's or originally "Hela's" Or from "swaran-dip", meaning "golden island".

Taproben, a former name: changed from dip-Raawan, meaning "the island of King Rawana"

Sudan

"Land of the Blacks", from the Arabic Bilad as-Sudan (البلاد السودان), which originally referred to most of the Sahel

Sahel

The Sahel is the ecoclimatic and biogeographic zone of transition between the Sahara desert in the North and the Sudanian Savannas in the south.It stretches across the North African continent between the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea....

region.

Suriname

After the Surinen people, the earliest known native American inhabitants of the region.

Swaziland

"Land of the Swazi", an ethnic group. The name Swazi itself derives from Mswati I, a former king of Swaziland

Swaziland

Swaziland, officially the Kingdom of Swaziland , and sometimes called Ngwane or Swatini, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa, bordered to the north, south and west by South Africa, and to the east by Mozambique...

Sweden

"Swedes", an old English plural form of Swede. From the Old English

Old English language

Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...

Sweoðeod, the Old Norse

Old Norse

Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....

Sviþjoð. The etymology of the first element, Svi, links to the PIE

Proto-Indo-European language

The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...

*suos ("one's own", "of one's own kin"). The last element, þjoð, means "people", cognate with deut in Deutsch

German language

and teut in Teutons

Teutons

The Teutons or Teutones were mentioned as a Germanic tribe by Greek and Roman authors, notably Strabo and Marcus Velleius Paterculus and normally in close connection with the Cimbri, whose ethnicity is contested between Gauls and Germani...

Sverige, a local endonym: "Swedish Realm" .

Switzerland

From the toponym Schwyz

Schwyz

The town of is the capital of the canton of Schwyz in Switzerland.The Federal Charter of 1291 or Bundesbrief, the charter that eventually led to the foundation of Switzerland, can be seen at the Bundesbriefmuseum.-History of the toponym:...

first attested AD 972 as Suittes, derived from an Alemannic

Alemannic German

Alemannic is a group of dialects of the Upper German branch of the Germanic language family. It is spoken by approximately ten million people in six countries: Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, France and Italy...

proper name Suito.

Helvetia
Helvetia
Helvetia is the female national personification of Switzerland, officially Confœderatio Helvetica, the "Helvetic Confederation".The allegory is typically pictured in a flowing gown, with a spear and a shield emblazoned with the Swiss flag, and commonly with braided hair, commonly with a wreath as...

, a former and poetic name: From the Latin, after a Celtic people known to the Romans as the Helvetii

Helvetii

The Helvetii were a Celtic tribe or tribal confederation occupying most of the Swiss plateau at the time of their contact with the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC...

Syria

Meaning unknown. From the Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek

Syria (Συρία). Probably related to Assyria

Assyria

Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...

, although Assyria originally lay further east in modern Iraq

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

Aram
Aram (Biblical region)
Aram is the name of a region mentioned in the Bible located in central Syria, including where the city of Aleppo now stands.-Etymology:The etymology is uncertain. One standard explanation is an original meaning of "highlands"...

, a former name

Tajikistan

"Home of the Tajiks", a Persian

Persian language

-speaking ethnic group. Sogdian

Sogdian language

The Sogdian language is a Middle Iranian language that was spoken in Sogdiana , located in modern day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan ....

Tājīk (with the j pronounced as in French bonjour) was the local pronunciation of New Persian Tāzī, from Sassanian Persian Tāzīg, derived from the Tayy tribe and meaning "Arab". The Tajiks were New Persian–speaking Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

s, although not necessarily Arabs. (An alternate etymology is via Tibetan

Tibetan language

Tag Dzig, meaning "Persian" and "tiger" or "leopard".)

Tanzania

"Land of Tanganyika

Tanganyika

Tanganyika , later formally the Republic of Tanganyika, was a sovereign state in East Africa from 1961 to 1964. It was situated between the Indian Ocean and the African Great Lakes of Lake Victoria, Lake Malawi and Lake Tanganyika...

and Zanzibar

Zanzibar

Zanzibar ,Persian: زنگبار, from suffix bār: "coast" and Zangi: "bruin" ; is a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, in East Africa. It comprises the Zanzibar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of numerous small islands and two large ones: Unguja , and Pemba...

", a simplification of the original name ("United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar") which the country had assumed upon independence in 1964

Tanganiyika was named for its lake
Lake Tanganyika
Lake Tanganyika is an African Great Lake. It is estimated to be the second largest freshwater lake in the world by volume, and the second deepest, after Lake Baikal in Siberia; it is also the world's longest freshwater lake...

, of uncertain etymology. Sir Richard Burton
Richard Burton
Richard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role , and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Although never trained as an actor, Burton was, at one time, the highest-paid...

derived it from the local tou tanganyka, "to join" in the sense "where waters meet." Henry Stanley
Henry Morton Stanley
Sir Henry Morton Stanley, GCB, born John Rowlands , was a Welsh journalist and explorer famous for his exploration of Africa and his search for David Livingstone. Upon finding Livingstone, Stanley allegedly uttered the now-famous greeting, "Dr...

derived it from tonga ("island") and hika ("flat").

Zanzibar was an Arabic name meaning "Black Coast

Zanj

Zanj was a name used by medieval Arab geographers to refer to both a certain portion of the coast of East Africa and its inhabitants, Bantu-speaking peoples called the Zanj...

Thailand

"Land of the Thai" , an ethnic group from the central plains (see Tai peoples

Tai peoples

The Tai ethnicity refers collectively to the ethnic groups of southern China and Southeast Asia, stretching from Hainan to eastern India and from southern Sichuan to Laos, Thailand, and parts of Vietnam, which speak languages in the Tai family and share similar traditions and festivals, including...

). The name Tai itself is of uncertain etymology, although it has been argued to have originally meant "people" or "human being" since some rural areas use the word in this way as opposed to the normal Thai word khon . A more common pseudoetymology derives the demonym from the word thai meaning "freedom".

Ratcha Anachak Thai , endonym, meaning "Royal Domain of Thailand"

Siam , a former name, of uncertain etymology. One theory holds it derives from the Pāli

Páli

- External links :* *...

toponym Suvarnabhumi . Another traces it — along with the Shan and A-hom — from Sanskrit

Sanskrit

Śyâma .

Togo

From Togo, modern Togoville

Togoville

Togoville is a town in southern Togo, lying on the northern shore of Lake Togo. It was originally known as Togo. The country took its name from the town of Togoville when Gustav Nachtigal signed a treaty with the town's chief, Mlapa III, in 1884, from which Germany claimed overlordship over what...

, derived from Ewe

Ewe language

Ewe is a Niger–Congo language spoken in Ghana, Togo and Benin by approximately six million people. Ewe is part of a cluster of related languages commonly called Gbe, spoken in southeastern Ghana, Togo, and parts of Benin. Other Gbe languages include Fon, Gen, Phla Phera, and Aja...

to ("water") and go ("shore").

Tonga

From the Samoan

Samoan language

Samoan Samoan Samoan (Gagana Sāmoa, is the language of the Samoan Islands, comprising the independent country of Samoa and the United States territory of American Samoa. It is an official language—alongside English—in both jurisdictions. Samoan, a Polynesian language, is the first language for most...

"South" or "Southern", in reference to their position relative to Samoa

Samoa

Samoa , officially the Independent State of Samoa, formerly known as Western Samoa is a country encompassing the western part of the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. It became independent from New Zealand in 1962. The two main islands of Samoa are Upolu and one of the biggest islands in...

Friendly Islands, a former name, bestowed by British Captain James Cook
James Cook
Captain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...

in 1773 after the friendliness and hospitality of the people he met on the islands.

Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad, from Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

La Isla de la Trinidad ("Island of the Holy Trinity"). The name was bestowed by Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...

to fulfill a vow he had made before setting out on his third voyage.

Tobago, of uncertain etymology, but probably from the tobacco grown and smoked by the natives.

Iere, the former Arawak name for Trinidad according to historian E.L. Joseph, who derived it from ierèttê or yerettê, meaning "hummingbird". Others have claimed the Arawak word for hummingbird was tukusi or tucuchi and that iere or kairi simply means "island".

Tunisia

"Land of Tunis

Tunis

Tunis is the capital of both the Tunisian Republic and the Tunis Governorate. It is Tunisia's largest city, with a population of 728,453 as of 2004; the greater metropolitan area holds some 2,412,500 inhabitants....

", its capital. Tunis's name possibly derives from the Phoenician goddess Tanit

Tanit

Tanit was a Phoenician lunar goddess, worshipped as the patron goddess at Carthage. Tanit was worshiped in Punic contexts in the Western Mediterranean, from Malta to Gades into Hellenistic times. From the fifth century BCE onwards Tanit is associated with that of Baal Hammon...

h, the ancient city of Tynes, or the Berber ens, meaning "to lie down" or "to rest".

Turkey

"Land of the Turks", Latin Turcia and Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

Turkiyye, an ethnic group whose name derives from their endonym ("strong").

Turkmenistan

"Home of the Turkmens", an ethnic group whose name derives from the Sogdian

Sogdian language

The Sogdian language is a Middle Iranian language that was spoken in Sogdiana , located in modern day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan ....

("Turk-like"), in reference to their status outside the Turkic dynastic mythological system. However, modern scholars sometimes prefer to see the suffix as an intensifier

Intensifier

Intensifier is a linguistic term for a modifier that amplifies the meaning of the word it modifies. Examples are "very," "quite," "extremely," "highly," and "greatly." An intensifier is the opposite of a qualifier, a modifier that weakens the word modified: "fairly," "somewhat," "rather," "a...

, changing the meaning to "pure Turk" or "most Turk-like of the Turks". Muslim chroniclers such as Ibn-Kathir advocated a pseudoetymology from Türk and iman in reference to a mass conversion of two hundred thousand households in 971 (AH 349).

Tuvalu

"Eight Islands" or "eight standing with each other" in Tuvaluan

Tuvaluan language

Tuvaluan is a Polynesian language of or closely related to the Ellicean group spoken in Tuvalu. It is more or less distantly related to all other Polynesian languages, such as Hawaiian, Maori, Tahitian, Samoan, and Tongan, and most closely related to the languages spoken on the Polynesian Outliers...

. (Although Tuvalu actually consists of nine islands, only eight of them were traditionally inhabited prior to the settlment of Niulakita in 1949.)

Ellice Islands, a former name, in honor of Edward Ellice, Sr., a British politician and merchant, who owned the cargo of the ship Rebecca which sighted the islands in 1819. The name was abandonned for the endonym Tuvalu upon separation from the Gilbert Islands

Gilbert and Ellice Islands

The Gilbert and Ellice Islands were a British protectorate from 1892 and colony from 1916 until 1 January 1976, when the islands were divided into two different colonies which became independent nations shortly after...

(modern Kiribati

Kiribati

Kiribati , officially the Republic of Kiribati, is an island nation located in the central tropical Pacific Ocean. The permanent population exceeds just over 100,000 , and is composed of 32 atolls and one raised coral island, dispersed over 3.5 million square kilometres, straddling the...

) in 1975.

Uganda

"Buganda

Buganda

Buganda is a subnational kingdom within Uganda. The kingdom of the Ganda people, Buganda is the largest of the traditional kingdoms in present-day Uganda, comprising all of Uganda's Central Region, including the Ugandan capital Kampala, with the exception of the disputed eastern Kayunga District...

" in Swahili

Swahili language

Swahili or Kiswahili is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Mozambique Channel coastline from northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, including the Comoro Islands. It is also spoken by ethnic minority groups in Somalia...

, adopted by the British as the name for their colony in 1894. Buganda

Buganda

was the kingdom of the 52 clans of the Baganda. Baganda ("Brothers and Sisters" or "Bundle People") is itself short for Baganda Ba Katonda ("Brothers and Sisters of God"), a reference to an indigenous creation story.

Ukraine

"Borderlands" from the perspective of Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, from krajina
Krajina
-Etymology:In old-Croatian, this earliest geographical term appeared at least from 10th century within the Glagolitic inscriptions in Chakavian dialect, e.g. in Baška tablet about 1105, and also in some subsequent Glagolitic texts as krayna in the original medieval meaning of inlands or mainlands...

("marches", "borderland"), from the Slavic

Slavic languages

krai
Krai
Krai or kray was a type of an administrative division in the Russian Empire and the Russian SFSR, and is one of the types of the federal subjects of modern Russia ....

or kraj
Kraj
A kraj is the highest-level administrative unit in the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic. For lack of other English expressions, the Slavic term is often translated as "province", "region", or "territory", although it actually approximately means " country", or " countryside"...

'

Translated from the Russian

Russian language

Soyuz Sovietskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik (Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик) adopted in December 1922 during the merger of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic

Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic

The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , commonly referred to as Soviet Russia, Bolshevik Russia, or simply Russia, was the largest, most populous and economically developed republic in the former Soviet Union....

, Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.

The word soviet referred to the Communist planning committees.

Soviet Union, an alternate name: A shortened form of the above .

United Arab Emirates

Self-descriptive, from the Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

. For Arabia, see Saudi Arabia above. "Emirate

Emirate

An emirate is a political territory that is ruled by a dynastic Muslim monarch styled emir.-Etymology:Etymologically emirate or amirate is the quality, dignity, office or territorial competence of any emir ....

" from "emir

Emir

Emir , meaning "commander", "general", or "prince"; also transliterated as Amir, Aamir or Ameer) is a title of high office, used throughout the Muslim world...

", Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

Trucial Oman, a former name: From Oman above and a 19th-century truce between the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

and the local sheikh

Sheikh

Not to be confused with sikhSheikh — also spelled Sheik or Shaikh, or transliterated as Shaykh — is an honorific in the Arabic language that literally means "elder" and carries the meaning "leader and/or governor"...

Trucial States
Trucial States
The Trucial States were a group of sheikhdoms in the Persian Gulf.-General aspects:The sheikdoms included:*Abu Dhabi *Ajman...

, a former name: As above.

Self-descriptive, in reference to the island of Great Britain

Great Britain

and the British province or "country

Countries of the United Kingdom

Countries of the United Kingdom is a term used to describe England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. These four countries together form the sovereign state of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which is also described as a country. The alternative terms, constituent...

" of Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

. Adopted in 1927 from the realm's previous name, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....

, following the 1922 creation of the Irish Free State

Irish Free State

The Irish Free State was the state established as a Dominion on 6 December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish representatives exactly twelve months beforehand...

(present-day Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

Albion, a previous and poetic name: From Albion , a Greek

Ancient Greek

adaption of a pre-Roman Celtic name for the island (See also "Alba" under Scotland above). The name may refer to the white cliffs of Dover

White cliffs of Dover

The White Cliffs of Dover are cliffs which form part of the British coastline facing the Strait of Dover and France. The cliffs are part of the North Downs formation. The cliff face, which reaches up to , owes its striking façade to its composition of chalk accentuated by streaks of black flint...

Britain, an alternate name: From Latin Britannia, probably via French or Welsh (Prydain), from Pretani ("painted ones"), probably in reference to the use of woad

Woad

Isatis tinctoria, with Woad as the common name, is a flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae. It is commonly called dyer's woad, and sometimes incorrectly listed as Isatis indigotica . It is occasionally known as Asp of Jerusalem...

body-paint and tattoos by early inhabitants of the islands, although it may derive from the Celtic goddess Brigid

Brigid

In Irish mythology, Brigit or Brighid was the daughter of the Dagda and one of the Tuatha Dé Danann. She was the wife of Bres of the Fomorians, with whom she had a son, Ruadán....

. A traditional pseudoetymology mentioned by Geoffrey of Monmouth

Geoffrey of Monmouth

Geoffrey of Monmouth was a cleric and one of the major figures in the development of British historiography and the popularity of tales of King Arthur...

traced the name to the Trojan

Troy

Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...

exile Brutus

Brutus of Troy

Brutus or Brute of Troy is a legendary descendant of the Trojan hero Æneas, known in mediæval British legend as the eponymous founder and first king of Britain...

Great Britain, the name of the island comprising most of England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

and Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

: "Larger Britain", from Mediaeval Latin Britannia Maior, first recorded by Geoffrey of Monmouth

Geoffrey of Monmouth

Geoffrey of Monmouth was a cleric and one of the major figures in the development of British historiography and the popularity of tales of King Arthur...

, who employed it to distinguish Great Britain

Great Britain

from Britannia Minor ("Little Britain") or Britanny.

Kingdom of Great Britain
Kingdom of Great Britain
The former Kingdom of Great Britain, sometimes described as the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain', That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall upon the 1st May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, be United into One Kingdom by the Name of GREAT BRITAIN. was a sovereign...

, the name of the previous state, in existence from 1707 to 1801: Officially renamed following the 1801 acts uniting the monarch's British and Irish kingdoms.

United Kingdom, an alternate name: a shortened form of the realm's official names above and below, although "united kingdom" was used in 1707 as a description (but not the name) of Great Britain, a newly united kingdom formed by joining the Kingdoms of England

Kingdom of England

The Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe. At its height, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands; what today comprises the legal jurisdiction of England...

and Scotland

Kingdom of Scotland

The Kingdom of Scotland was a Sovereign state in North-West Europe that existed from 843 until 1707. It occupied the northern third of the island of Great Britain and shared a land border to the south with the Kingdom of England...

previously held in personal union

Personal union

A personal union is the combination by which two or more different states have the same monarch while their boundaries, their laws and their interests remain distinct. It should not be confused with a federation which is internationally considered a single state...

by the House of Stuart

House of Stuart

The House of Stuart is a European royal house. Founded by Robert II of Scotland, the Stewarts first became monarchs of the Kingdom of Scotland during the late 14th century, and subsequently held the position of the Kings of Great Britain and Ireland...

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....

, a previous name: Adopted in 1801 from the realm's previous name, the United Kingdom of Great Britain, following British legislation merging the personal union

Personal union

of the British and Irish crowns. The name was emended to its present form in 1927 after the formation of the Irish Free State

Irish Free State

(present-day Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

United States

Self-descriptive, although note thatsimilar to the original "united Kingdom of Great Britain" abovethe U.S. Declaration of Independence described the new nation as the (lower-case) "united States of America". The adjective had become a part of the name by the time of the adoption of the United States Constitution

United States Constitution

The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...

, however, whose preamble describes the "United States". Similarly, the grammatical number of the name has changed over time: common usage before the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

was to reference "these United States" whereas modern usage has "the United States". For the etymology of America, see list of continent name etymologies.

Uruguay

"Land beside the Uruguay River

Uruguay River

The Uruguay River is a river in South America. It flows from north to south and makes boundary with Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, separating some of the Argentine provinces of the Mesopotamia from the other two countries...

", a shortened form of the Spanish

Spanish language

Republica Oriental del Uruguay ("Eastern Republic of the Uruguay"). The Uruguay itself derives from Guaraní

Guaraní language

, although the precise meaning is unknown. Some derive it from urugua ("shellfish") and i ("water"), others from uru (a kind of bird in the region), gua ("proceed from"), and i.

Uzbekistan

"Home of the Free", from an amalgamation of uz (Turkic: "self"), bek (Sogdian

Sogdian language

The Sogdian language is a Middle Iranian language that was spoken in Sogdiana , located in modern day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan ....

: "master"), and -stan (Persian

Persian language

: "land of").

Vanuatu

"Our Land", in some of the Vanuatuan languages

New Hebrides
New Hebrides
New Hebrides was the colonial name for an island group in the South Pacific that now forms the nation of Vanuatu. The New Hebrides were colonized by both the British and French in the 18th century shortly after Captain James Cook visited the islands...

, a former name: bestowed by the British captain James Cook
James Cook
Captain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...

in 1774 in honor of the Hebrides
Hebrides
The Hebrides comprise a widespread and diverse archipelago off the west coast of Scotland. There are two main groups: the Inner and Outer Hebrides. These islands have a long history of occupation dating back to the Mesolithic and the culture of the residents has been affected by the successive...

in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

Vatican City

"City on Vatican Hill

Vatican Hill

Vatican Hill is the name given, long before the founding of Christianity, to one of the hills on the side of the Tiber opposite the traditional seven hills of Rome...

", translated from the Italian

Italian language

Città del Vaticano and Latin Civitas Vaticana, from the site of the territory remaining to the state after the mid-19th-century Unification of Italy and upon its 1929 reëstablishment. The name of the hill itself came from the Latin Mons Vaticanus, from the name of the surrounding lands ager vaticanus, from the verb vaticinari ("to prophesy"), in reference to the fortune-tellers and soothsayers who used the streets in the area during Roman times.

Papal States
Papal States
The Papal State, State of the Church, or Pontifical States were among the major historical states of Italy from roughly the 6th century until the Italian peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia .The Papal States comprised territories under...

, a former name: loosely translated from the Italian Stati Pontifici and Latin Status Pontificius ("Pontifical States"). The name is usually plural both to denote its various holdingsthe former Duchies of Rome

Duchy of Rome

The Duchy of Rome was a Byzantine district in the Exarchate of Ravenna. Like other Byzantine states in Italy, it was ruled by an imperial functionary with the title dux...

and Pontecorvo, the former Principality of Benevento, the March of Ancona

March of Ancona

The March of Ancona or marca Anconitana was a frontier march centred on the city of Ancona and, then, Macerata in the Middle Ages...

, Bologna

Bologna

Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...

, Romagna

Romagna

Romagna is an Italian historical region that approximately corresponds to the south-eastern portion of present-day Emilia-Romagna. Traditionally, it is limited by the Apennines to the south-west, the Adriatic to the east, and the rivers Reno and Sillaro to the north and west...

, and the Campagne and Maritime Province

Campagne and Maritime Province

The Campagne and Maritime Province was one of the seven provinces of the Papal States from the 12th century to the end of the 18th....

continued to be administered separately despite forming a unified stateand to distinguish this realm from the current country. "Papal" from Latin papa ("father"), borrowed by the Bishop of Rome from the Pope of Alexandria to denote his leadership over the church. "State" distinguished this realm and its administration from the church and papacy's lands in other realms and from the administration of the church itself.

Pontifical States, a former name: a less common but more precise variation of the above. The title "pontiff", from Latin pontifex, was carried over from the Romans' pontifex maximus
Pontifex Maximus
The Pontifex Maximus was the high priest of the College of Pontiffs in ancient Rome. This was the most important position in the ancient Roman religion, open only to patricians until 254 BC, when a plebeian first occupied this post...

, a high priest whose name is generally understood to mean "bridge-maker" (pons + -fex, "builder", "maker", from fero, "build", "make").

States of the Church, a former name: translated from the Italian Stati della Chiesa. The name was plural to denote the various holdings united under the Papacy and distinguish it from the modern state. Chiesa derives from the Latin ecclesia, from the Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek

ékklēsía , from ekklētos ("called out") from ékkal in ' onMouseout='HidePop("581")' href="/topics/Compound_(linguistics)">compound

Compound (linguistics)

In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word formation that creates compound lexemes...

of ek-, "out", and klē-, "call").

Venezuela

"Little Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

", from Italian

Italian language

Venezuola, the diminutive

Diminutive

In language structure, a diminutive, or diminutive form , is a formation of a word used to convey a slight degree of the root meaning, smallness of the object or quality named, encapsulation, intimacy, or endearment...

of Venezia (Italian: "Venice"), for the native stilt-houses built on Lake Maracaibo

Lake Maracaibo

Lake Maracaibo is a large brackish bay in Venezuela at . It is connected to the Gulf of Venezuela by Tablazo Strait at the northern end, and fed by numerous rivers, the largest being the Catatumbo. It is commonly considered a lake rather than a bay or lagoon, and at 13,210 km² it would be the...

which reminded the explorers Alonso de Ojeda

Alonso de Ojeda

Alonso de Ojeda was a Spanish navigator, governor and conquistador. His name is sometimes spelled Alonzo and Oxeda.-Early life:...

and Amerigo Vespucci

Amerigo Vespucci

Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian explorer, financier, navigator and cartographer. The Americas are generally believed to have derived their name from the feminized Latin version of his first name.-Expeditions:...

of buildings in Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

Vietnam

"Southern Yue", from the modern Vietnamese

Vietnamese language

Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...

Việt Nam, first attested in a 16th-century poem by Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm, an inversion of the original 2nd-century BC kingdom of Nanyue

Nanyue

Nanyue was an ancient kingdom that consisted of parts of the modern Chinese provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi, and Yunnan and northern Vietnam. Nanyue was established in 204 BC at the final collapse of the Qin Dynasty by Zhao Tuo, who was the military commander of Nanhai Commandery at the time, and...

' onMouseout='HidePop("12070")' href="/topics/Pinyin">pinyin

Pinyin

: Nányuè; ) forced upon the Vietnamese emperor Gia Long

Gia Long

Emperor Gia Long , born Nguyễn Phúc Ánh , was an emperor of Vietnam...

when the Qing

Qing Dynasty

The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....

emperor Jiaqing refused to allow him to employ the original name.

Nanyue itself had chosen its name to distinguish itself from Minyue and the other Baiyue. The name Yue for these many varied tribes had come from the earlier state of Yue

Yue (state)

Yue was a state in China which existed during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period , in the modern province of Zhejiang. During the Spring and Autumn Period, its capital was in Guiji , near the modern city of Shaoxing...

along the Yangtze to the south of the Zhou

Zhou Dynasty

The Zhou Dynasty was a Chinese dynasty that followed the Shang Dynasty and preceded the Qin Dynasty. Although the Zhou Dynasty lasted longer than any other dynasty in Chinese history, the actual political and military control of China by the Ji family lasted only until 771 BC, a period known as...

. That Yue's name in turn seems to have derived from a c. 1200 BC tribe originally northwest of the Shang

Shang Dynasty

The Shang Dynasty or Yin Dynasty was, according to traditional sources, the second Chinese dynasty, after the Xia. They ruled in the northeastern regions of the area known as "China proper" in the Yellow River valley...

, whose original character was an axe pictograph . In Old Chinese

Old Chinese

The earliest known written records of the Chinese language were found at a site near modern Anyang identified as Yin, the last capital of the Shang dynasty, and date from about 1200 BC....

, modern yuè was pronounced wjatthis became the Vietnamese

Vietnamese language

Việt.

Annam, a former name: "Peaceful" or "Pacified South", from the Vietnamese

Vietnamese language

An Nam, from the Chinese

Chinese language

Ānnán . Originally used as the name of a Chinese province

Annam (Chinese Province)

Annam or Jiaozhi was the southernmost province of the Chinese Empire. It is now part of present-day Vietnam...

, it was later adopted by the French for a protectorate within their Indochinese colony

French Indochina

French Indochina was part of the French colonial empire in southeast Asia. A federation of the three Vietnamese regions, Tonkin , Annam , and Cochinchina , as well as Cambodia, was formed in 1887....

. Avoided by nationalists after the 1920s, the name was finally discontinued by the Vietnamese emperor Bao Dai

Bao Dai

Bảo Đại , born Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh Thụy , was the 13th and last ruler of the Nguyễn dynasty. From 1926 to 1945, he was king of Annam under French ‘protection’. During this period, Annam was a protectorate within French Indochina, covering the central two-thirds of the present-day Vietnam...

upon the declaration of independence in 1945.

Wales

"Land of the Welsh

Welsh people

The Welsh people are an ethnic group and nation associated with Wales and the Welsh language.John Davies argues that the origin of the "Welsh nation" can be traced to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, following the Roman departure from Britain, although Brythonic Celtic languages seem to have...

", from Old English Wēalas ("Land of Foreigners"), from wælisc ("foreigner"), ultimately from Proto-Germanic *Walhaz, originally meaning "Volcae

Volcae

The Volcae were a tribal confederation constituted before the raid of combined Gauls that invaded Macedon circa 270 BC and defeated the assembled Greeks at the Battle of Thermopylae in 279 BC...

" but eventually simply "foreigner". Held in personal union

Personal union

with England

Kingdom of England

after 1526 and united to the Kingdom of England by the English Acts in Wales.

Brythoniaiad, a former name: "Britons" in Old Welsh. See "Britain" under United Kingdom above. More inclusive than "Cymru", its use predominated until around the 12th century.

Cambria: Latinized

Romanization

version of Cymru below. Geoffrey of Monmouth

Geoffrey of Monmouth

Geoffrey of Monmouth was a cleric and one of the major figures in the development of British historiography and the popularity of tales of King Arthur...

related the traditional pseudoetymology of this name from an eponymous King Camber.

Cymru, the local endonym: "Land of Compatriots" from Old Welsh kymry ("compatriots"), first attested in a encomium

Encomium

Encomium is a Latin word deriving from the Classical Greek ἐγκώμιον meaning the praise of a person or thing. "Encomium" also refers to several distinct aspects of rhetoric:* A general category of oratory* A method within rhetorical pedagogy...

to Cadwallon ap Cadfan

Cadwallon ap Cadfan

Cadwallon ap Cadfan was the King of Gwynedd from around 625 until his death in battle. The son and successor of Cadfan ap Iago, he is best remembered as the King of the Britons who invaded and conquered Northumbria, defeating and killing its king, Edwin, prior to his own death in battle against...

c. 633, from Brythonic combrogi. Its use during the post-Roman era

Sub-Roman Britain

Sub-Roman Britain is a term derived from an archaeological label for the material culture of Britain in Late Antiquity: the term "Sub-Roman" was invented to describe the potsherds in sites of the 5th century and the 6th century, initially with an implication of decay of locally-made wares from a...

amounted to a self-perception that the Welsh and the "Men of the North

Hen Ogledd

Yr Hen Ogledd is a Welsh term used by scholars to refer to those parts of what is now northern England and southern Scotland in the years between 500 and the Viking invasions of c. 800, with particular interest in the Brythonic-speaking peoples who lived there.The term is derived from heroic...

" were one people, distinguished from other invaders and even the Cornishmen

Cornish people

The Cornish are a people associated with Cornwall, a county and Duchy in the south-west of the United Kingdom that is seen in some respects as distinct from England, having more in common with the other Celtic parts of the United Kingdom such as Wales, as well as with other Celtic nations in Europe...

and Bretons

Breton people

The Bretons are an ethnic group located in the region of Brittany in France. They trace much of their heritage to groups of Brythonic speakers who emigrated from southwestern Great Britain in waves from the 3rd to 6th century into the Armorican peninsula, subsequently named Brittany after them.The...

Wallachia

"Land of the Vlachs

Vlachs

Vlach is a blanket term covering several modern Latin peoples descending from the Latinised population in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. English variations on the name include: Walla, Wlachs, Wallachs, Vlahs, Olahs or Ulahs...

", Anglicized via Latin from Byzantine Greek Vlachía (Βλαχία; ), presumably from earlier Slavonic vlakhŭ, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *Walhaz, originally meaning "Volcae

Volcae

The Volcae were a tribal confederation constituted before the raid of combined Gauls that invaded Macedon circa 270 BC and defeated the assembled Greeks at the Battle of Thermopylae in 279 BC...

" but eventually simply "foreigner"

Yemen

Uncertain etymology. Most probably from Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

ymn (يمن), some claim it comes from the form yamîn (يأمن, "right-hand side" in the sense of "south"), others that it comes from the form yumn (يأمن, "happiness") and is related to the region's classical name Arabia Felix.

Kingdom of Yugoslavia

"Land of the Southern Slavs", from Southern Slavic

South Slavic languages

The South Slavic languages comprise one of three branches of the Slavic languages. There are approximately 30 million speakers, mainly in the Balkans. These are separated geographically from speakers of the other two Slavic branches by a belt of German, Hungarian and Romanian speakers...

Jugoslavija, in reference to the Slavic peoples south of Hungary

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

and Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

Zambia

"Land of the Zambezi

Zambezi

The Zambezi is the fourth-longest river in Africa, and the largest flowing into the Indian Ocean from Africa. The area of its basin is , slightly less than half that of the Nile...

", which flows through the east of the country and also forms its border with Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...

Northern Rhodesia
Northern Rhodesia
Northern Rhodesia was a territory in south central Africa, formed in 1911. It became independent in 1964 as Zambia.It was initially administered under charter by the British South Africa Company and formed by it in 1911 by amalgamating North-Western Rhodesia and North-Eastern Rhodesia...

, a former name: From the division of Rhodesia

Rhodesia

Rhodesia , officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state located in southern Africa that existed between 1965 and 1979 following its Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965...

, Neo-Latin for "Land of Rhodes", the British

United Kingdom

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

n minister and business

Business

A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...

man who helped found the colony through his involvement with the British South Africa Company

British South Africa Company

The British South Africa Company was established by Cecil Rhodes through the amalgamation of the Central Search Association and the Exploring Company Ltd., receiving a royal charter in 1889...

Zimbabwe

"House of Stones", Dzimba-dze-mabwe in Shona

Shona language

Shona is a Bantu language, native to the Shona people of Zimbabwe and southern Zambia; the term is also used to identify peoples who speak one of the Shona language dialects: Zezuru, Karanga, Manyika, Ndau and Korekore...

, in reference to Great Zimbabwe

Great Zimbabwe

Great Zimbabwe is a ruined city that was once the capital of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe, which existed from 1100 to 1450 C.E. during the country’s Late Iron Age. The monument, which first began to be constructed in the 11th century and which continued to be built until the 14th century, spanned an...

Rhodesia
Rhodesia
Rhodesia , officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state located in southern Africa that existed between 1965 and 1979 following its Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965...

and Southern Rhodesia
Southern Rhodesia
Southern Rhodesia was the name of the British colony situated north of the Limpopo River and the Union of South Africa. From its independence in 1965 until its extinction in 1980, it was known as Rhodesia...

, former names: see Zambia above. The country was also briefly known as Zimbabwe Rhodesia

Zimbabwe Rhodesia

Zimbabwe Rhodesia , officially the Republic of Zimbabwe Rhodesia, was an unrecognized state that existed from 1 June 1979 to 12 December 1979...

between 1979 and 1980.

ChinaChinaChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...