Very well, I can and will elaborate on the history. Based on my initial timeline, one of the earliest PODs for the history is that the French territories were integrated into the Holy Roman Empire sometime during the 10th century. The French states remained nominally within the Holy Roman Empire until England (yes, I'm assuming Will the Bastard still did an invasion or someone like him anyways; a fairly unreasonable assumption when I consider it now; that's why next time, I'll just properly build the history as a prequel NES-lite) started picking away at them in the 12th and 13th centuries. During the time the French states were under the HRE, they were referred to collectively as "West Francia" as the administrative region involved, thus prolonging the use of the phrase as a geographical entity. That is the historical reasoning for the name, but there's definitely been some other good suggestions here. When it comes down to it, the choice is J.K. Stockholme's.