The Name of Your Country

[Nobody]

New Zealand, well i think there is a place called zealand... and they decided this is a newer better version of it. I think its in denmark but the guy who found new zealand was dutch so who knows.

Aotearoa (spelt wrong i think) is the maori name, and its getting popular. If we ever become a republic we will probably adopt it. It means land of the long white cloud.

 

[bathsheba666]

I just like to think we're nonconformists.

Are you all nonconformists? Or do some insist on conforming ?

 

[Lillefix]

Are you all nonconformists? Or do some insist on conforming ?

No, we're all nonconformists. All except me as it happens.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

Sverige, from Svea Rike, realm/land of the Swedes. Sweden is divided in three - Norrland, Svealand and Götaland - north to south and the Norwegians, the Danes, the Geats and the Swedes might have been divided and unified in other constellations if circumstances had been different.

 

[NedimNapoleon]

Bosnia and Herzegovina

The River of Bosna and the Land of the wealthy duke

The River Bosna got its name from an Illyrian word meaning running water, and my country was only called Bosnia until the mid 19th century when the Herzegovina part of the name was added.

 

[Winner]

Not that weird per se, but spelt weird, that's granted. Chezchs. Cezhs. Chzeschs.

Yeah, I've seen so many misspellings that I considered collecting them. It would of course be better if the English-speaking people could get over C being pronounced as K and just accept Čech, but that's a pure fantasy.

It's weird that they generally understand that "cz" is pronounced as /č/, but they still screw up when writing "Czech". Sometimes it seems as if they were all just barely literate.

Lech, Czech and Rus (...)

I like how the legend conveniently ignores the existence of south Slavs Or is there brother Serb somewhere?

 

[Veles]

It's weird that they generally understand that "cz" is pronounced as /č/, but they still screw up when writing "Czech". Sometimes it seems as if they were all just barely literate.

They just remeber it as a hieroglyph. There's just no way for common Westerner to write how 'Чех' sounds in Latin script.

I like how the legend conveniently ignores the existence of south Slavs Or is there brother Serb somewhere?

Nah, don't think so. Perhaps it's presumed that the place they travelled from was Southern Slavc lands? Russian chronicles state that Slavs initially lived along Daunbe. The whole story is entirely made up anyway.

On a side note, I come to like how Serbian sounds.

Link to video.

 

[Camikaze]

So 'australis' means 'southern'. Before it was discovered, it was 'Terra Australis Incognita', and then kinda evolved from there. I have no idea why it was changed from 'australis' to 'Australia', especially when that changes the second 'a'.

I've never had any objection to the name. Sounds good enough, I guess, though it is pretty weird when you actually think about it.

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

When we become a republic we should adopt it's more common name , Straya

 

[Tee Kay]

New South Wales, on the other hand, is an atrocity of a name.

 

[Lillefix]

New South Wales, on the other hand, is an atrocity of a name.

But you have to admit: It has an uncanny resemblance to South Wales. With all those big jumping animals and so on.

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

But you have to admit: It has an uncanny resemblance to South Wales. With all those big jumping animals and so on.

Like Tom Jones

 

[Leoreth]

As for New Brunswick, its name means...New Brunswick. As in not Old Brunswick, a region in Germany. Since the monarch at the time was from Hanover.

Brunswick ("Braunschweig") is actually a city in Germany, and the ancestral home of the House of Hanover. [/pedant]

 

[W|M]

Rio de Janeiro state was named after Rio de Janeiro city (who's name means ''January River''), which was named due to Europeans first arriving there at 1st January 1502, and assuming that Guanabara Bay was a river due to its misleading shape.

New Zealand, well i think there is a place called zealand... and they decided this is a newer better version of it. I think its in denmark but the guy who found new zealand was dutch so who knows.

New Zealand was named after Zeeland, which is a region in the Netherlands, although there is also a region called Sjælland in Denmark as well. Zeeland and Sjælland both mean ''Sea Land'' in their respective languages.

 

[Leoreth]

The Dutch appear to be really imaginative: "Hey, we've found new land in the sea, how to call it? Nah, let's not ask the natives, their name's gonna suck anyway".

Since several people are covering their country's subdivisions as well: I'm living in Nordrhein-Westfalen (North Rhine/Westphalia, don't ask me where the dash needs to be in the English translation, the discussion on wikipedia is still going on ). It's one of Germany's states that was created after WW2 without historical precedent so its name is clumsy and unimaginative (the area encompassing the historical region of Westphalia and, well, the Northern Rhine), everyone just refers to it as NRW, though.

Westphalia apparently means "western fields".

 

[Quackers]

When we become a republic we should adopt it's more common name , Straya

 

[holy king]

New Zealand, well i think there is a place called zealand... and they decided this is a newer better version of it. I think its in denmark but the guy who found new zealand was dutch so who knows.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeeland

So 'australis' means 'southern'. Before it was discovered, it was 'Terra Australis Incognita', and then kinda evolved from there. I have no idea why it was changed from 'australis' to 'Australia', especially when that changes the second 'a'.

because "australis" is an adjective, in this case describing "terra". "southern soil".
"australia" is a female noun.

 

[Winner]

The Dutch appear to be really imaginative: "Hey, we've found new land in the sea, how to call it? Nah, let's not ask the natives, their name's gonna suck anyway".

To be fair, it was surely true in most cases

 

[Camikaze]

because "australis" is an adjective, in this case describing "terra". "southern soil".
"australia" is a female noun.

That makes sense then. Thanks.

 

[W|M]

To be fair, it was surely true in most cases

The Portuguese really should have kept the original native name, Ibirapitanga, for Brazil - That name doesn't suck.