The Name of Your Country

[mayor]

To be fair, it was surely true in most cases

And, who doesn't want to live in a country with an extremely cool Dutch name


Anyway. Since the Low Countries has already been done I'll do the province I live in;

Overijssel which translates to 'Across the Ijsel' which is the river you cross if you come from the west.

Pretty accurate

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

You could have done "Holland". I left that one especially for other Dutchies

 

[Yeekim]

Singapore, anglicised from Singapura in Malay which itself came from Sanskrit.
"Singa" - Lion, "pura" - City.

So Lion City. There's a nice story behind it. A Prince from Sumatra escaped in a ship and a rough storm hit his ship so he threw his crown in to appease the gods or something like that. Landed in Singapore and saw a lion. Thus, Lion City.

Nice story. But I was under the impression that the habitat of Asian Lion never reached further east than Bangladesh...?

Anyway...

The name "Eesti", or Estonia, is thought to be derived from the word Aestii, the name given by the ancient Germanic peoples to the Baltic peoples living northeast of the Vistula River. The Roman historian Tacitus in 98 A.D. was the first to mention the "Aestii" people, and early Scandinavians called the land south of the Gulf of Finland "Eistland" ("Eistland" is also the current word in Icelandic for Estonia), and the people "eistr".

Every variant of the anglicised east-, Osti and the continental Esti - equates to aestius, meaning eastern or east, that is to the right side of the sea as understood from the perspective of the Germanic sailors who roamed the sea beyond the Vistula estuary. The Germanic tribe referred to as the Aestii by others, who Endzelins states knew themselves as Prussians, transferred the name to the more eastern Estonians with which they had contact since the first century BC, as the Estonians did not have their own name other than "maarahvas" ("people of the earth"). [8] The Estonians themselves only took on the name in the late nineteenth century.

 

[mayor]

You could have done "Holland". I left that one especially for other Dutchies

I was thinking of doing that because that name is more interesting but I decided against it since I do live in Overijssel.

But now that you mentioned it;

Holland is the western part of The Netherlands and consists of two provinces,

It name is deprived from 'Holtland' or 'Holdland' meaning 'Houtland' which is translated to 'Woodland'
The name 'Holland' was first mentioned in 1101 when Floris I became Count of Holland. Most likely it was named this because a large portion of the land contained woodlands.

The name itself isn't very descriptive anymore since most of the woodland has been chopped. However the name carries a lot of history which makes it, imo, a nice name.

The history of the name is also the reason some foreigners use 'Holland' as a substitute for 'The Netherlands'. Which is just wrong and it makes the name a bit less attractive imo

 

[really]

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 simply a goddess of the land. The origin of Ériu has been traced to the Proto-Celtic reconstruction *Φīwerjon (nominative singular Φīwerj&#333.[1] This suggests a descent from the Proto-Indo-European reconstruction *piHwerjon, likely related to the adjectival stem *piHwer- (cf. Sanskrit pīvan, pīvarī and pīvara meaning "fat, full, abounding"). This would suggest a meaning of "abundant land".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89ire

 

[Tycho Brahe]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89ire

The fat ladys land.

 

[Winner]

This would suggest a meaning of "abundant land".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89ire

Abundant in what, exactly?

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Guinness.

 

[warpus]

Canada and Polska, but cool enough names in my mind

 

[say1988]

Abundant in what, exactly?

The Irish? Just because it is abundant doesn't mean it is good

 

[Veles]

...The tribe on the Ilmen, surrounded by Finnic speakers, was called "Slovienie".

Yes, and call me biased or whatever, but in my opinion, the German word, denoting Slavs - Vends, and Finnic word, denoting Slavs - Venelainen comes exactly from Slovene.

...The tribe on the Ilmen, surrounded by Finnic speakers, was called "Slovienie". It was conquered by Scandinavians called Rus...

What Primary Chronicle says? It says the following:

The four tribes who had been forced to pay tribute to the Varangians - Chud', Slavs, Merians and Krivichi drove the Varangians back beyond the sea, refused to pay them further tribute, and set out to govern themselves. But there was no law among them, and tribe rose against tribe. Discord thus ensued among them, and they began to war one against the other. They said to themselves, "Let us seek a prince overseas, who may rule over us, and judge us according to custom. Thus they went overseas to the Varangians, to the Rus. These particular Varangians were known as Rus, just as some are called Swedes, and others Normans and Angles, and still others Gotlanders, for they were thus named. The Chud', the Slavs, the Krivichi and the Ves' then said to the Rus', "Our land is great and rich, but there is no order in it. Come reign as princes, rule over us". Three brothers, with their kinfolk, were selected. They brought with them all the Rus and migrated.

So sayeth the wise (but, as some speculate, heavily pro-Kievan biased) Nestor.

So Slavs drove the Norse beyond the sea only to invite them back some time after. That's Russia fer ye Seriously, though this is actually one of the facts upon which the Norman origin of Rus' is disputed. I'll write about it when I have time.

...(Ruotsi today is the Finnish word for Sweden), who subsequently added trading posts to the south, converted to Christianity and thus established "Russia" forever. Unfortunately, or fortunately, Christianity tends to fossilize previously fluid political divisions because it comes with writing and permanent ecclesiastical structures.

Hehe, it seems that this theory of Rus' etymology is firmly established in the West as the sole true. While it has rather solid basis and indeed, with some corrections, looks the most probable one, there are actually other possible etymologies, namely Iranic, Slavic and Baltic. I'll write about them later.

The nucleus of what would become Kievan Rus', was formed around the rivers Ros' (and Rusna), which names predate the Varangians. Native Slavic root 'rus' is mainly related to water, for example rosa (meaning 'dew'), ruslo (meaning 'the bed of the river'), rusalka (river spirit). Most popular folk-etymology is based upon the fact that rusyi means 'auburn-haired' (which is actually indeed the dominant hair colour of East Slavs).

But it's fine with me if Rus comes from Scandinavian for 'rowmen' as it is suggested (a bit unpoetic though). The Germanics of that time were batsh*t crazy warmongering bastards, hardly leaving any piece of Europe untouched anyway while poor peace-loving Celts and Slavs were simply working their fields

 

[Pangur Bán]

What Primary Chronicle says? It says the following:



So sayeth the wise (but, as some speculate, heavily pro-Kievan biased) Nestor.

So Slavs drove the Norse beyond the sea only to invite them back some time after.

We don't of course believed everything late chronicles say. Others sources are clear, particularly Byzantine ones, that the Rus are Scandinavians who enjoyed supremacy over the different peoples of what became Russia, according to the Primary Chornicle the Chud' (i.e. a Russian Finnic people), the Slavs (Slavic people of Ilmen region), the Krivichi (another Slavic people) and the Ves' (another Finnic people). The old argument about Slavic origins for the Rus is completely unsustainable in relation to the early evidence. A Frankish source says the Rus are Swedes, while one Byzantine sources gives a series of words in "Rus" and "Slavic", the former of which are Old Norse. Among other things. I don't think the etymology of Rus is agreed in the West, but I'm convinced by the Finnic explanation as it is overwhelmingly strong and the other arguments very unconvincing.

 

[aronnax]

Nice story. But I was under the impression that the habitat of Asian Lion never reached further east than Bangladesh...?

The idea is that it was a tiger and a really misplaced adviser who told the Prince it was a lion when he asked.

Some crazy enough patriots in Singapore suggest that it was a lion that was actually brought by Zheng He from Africa to China and that it some how got out and run amok in Singapore.

 

[pesgores]

Portus Cale, the port of Cale, Portugal, I like it.

 

[Josu]

This question would suppose 300 years of discussion among basques...


There are several names for calling Basque country:
1) Euskadi: very controversial, some people consider Euskadi the actual autonomous comunity, which excludes Navarre and the french basque country. So it is not accepted by basque nationalists as whole country name. Will explain etymology in point 2.

2) Euzkadi: the master of controversy. Same geografical/political meaning as 1. But it is extremelly linked to PNV. People using Euzkadi are considered PNV's hard core. The founder of this party created this in order to name the country, the etymology is created by Euskara + di (place of many), as basque is an agglutinative language, it becames Euskadi or Euzkadi, place where there is many Basque (language). There is one mistake in this name creation, because di sufix is only accepted for trees. Hence this etymology is double wrong, contains a Z, and is speaking about trees

3) Euskal Herria: it is nowadays considered as very nationalist. literally means country of basque speaking people. It is the more tradicional name, however, Spanish nationalist consider this country name at same level as Mordor or Hobbiton.

Our language has a hugh charge and importance in the three names. However, we are commonly now worldwide as vasco, basque or similar. This name cames from a tribe living in the north of navarre when romans arrived to the area, the vascones, who spoke a language considered as proto-basque. It is not know why romans called this people vasconum or why we called our language related worlds using prefix "eusk". There are several studies, some of them want to see a similarity between vasco and eusk, but there is nothing conclusive.

 

[Veles]

I'm wondering where does the word 'Germania' come from.

 

[Angst]

Denmark, Danernes Mark, Field of the Danes.

I'm proud of it. The -mark suffix is unique.

EDIT:

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.

Sjæl means soul but it might be old nordic or something.

 

[T-mun]

I live in France, and it has already been said that the name comes from the Franks, a name derived from "free" or maybe a weapon, the famous axe called "francisca" (all of this is mentionned in the english version of Wikipedia but not in the french version...).
I like the fact that it reminds us that we are descendants of germanic tribes (although it has been disputed from time to time) who had settled in the Roman Empire, on the old territory of Gaul. But what I like the most in France is the origin of city names: I live in Lyon, derived from Lugdunum (a roman name derived from a gallic name), I used to live in Marseille, named after Massalia, the Greek colony fonded 2600 years ago... but smaller cities teach us the importance of local languages, and I like the fact that they don't get lost. In France, someone from Lille won't fully understand a true Marseillais, because of the two different accents, and because of some words that aren't french. We have a lot of them, proving that we are not so uniformly "french-ized"

 

[Mango Elephant]

The province Carolina was named after King Charles I (probably why South Carolina's major city was called Charles Town or whatever until it became Charleston), and even if I'm pretty sure Charles was a bad king, I think the name Carolina is pretty. Our largest city is Charlotte, which is another pretty name.

My city, though, is Raleigh. I think it's kind of a boring name. Our county's name is much better imo. Wake County is what we're called, and I think we were named after our own Royal Governor Tyron's wife's maiden name. I think that's nice sounding.

As for the name 'America,' I think that sounds nice, too. It has the syllable 'mer' in it, which is French for sea, which I think is cool.

 

[Yeekim]

The nucleus of what would become Kievan Rus', was formed around the rivers Ros' (and Rusna), which names predate the Varangians. Native Slavic root 'rus' is mainly related to water, for example rosa (meaning 'dew'), ruslo (meaning 'the bed of the river'), rusalka (river spirit).
/.../
But it's fine with me if Rus comes from Scandinavian for 'rowmen' as it is suggested (a bit unpoetic though).

I might add that Estonian name for Russia is "Venemaa", whereas "vene" is an old word for "boat" and "maa" simply means "country". Thus, country navigable by boats (might be influence of old Neva-Ladoga-Ilmeni-Msta-Volga-Caspian trading route)...