World Nations - The Origin of Names

[NewWaver]

I've recently started to wonder about how some countries got their English names. In many cases, the English names are nothing like the local name. For example:

Finland = Suomi
Sweden = Sverige
Egypt = Misr
Greece = Ellás
South Korea = Taehan-min'guk
Japan = Nihon (or Nippon)
Hungary = Magyarország
India = Bharat

Just to name a few.

Does anybody know how the English got the names from the originals?

 

[IceBlaZe]

Israel = Israel

I tried Merriam-Webster, since they supply some basic info about the formation of words, but turns out they do not supply info about the formation of national names.

 

[Amenhotep7]

Egypt was first called "Kemet" by it's natives...I wish it had kept that name...Sounds way cooler...The Romans first called it "Aegyptus", so of course, Egypt came from that.

 

[YNCS]

Hungary was given that name because that's where the Huns ended up.

In Swedish, which is an official language in Finland, the name of the country is "Republiken Finland."

 

[Cimbri]

In the Hungarian language (or Magyar language), Hungary is called Magyarorszag, named after the 'ancient' Magyars.

Edit: Do'h, it had already been mentioned.

Anyways the name Denmark (native: Danmark) comes from the ancient Danes. ‘Mark’ means field in Danish.

 

[gael]

Ireland:
Roman name 'Hibernia', could be taken from the Greek 'Iouernia'. It was also known as 'lerne' and 'Iberio' to the Greeks.
The Latin form, Hibernia, appears in the works of Caesar, who may have confused it with the Latin word hibernus (wintry).

The 'Euerni' and later called Erainn (also known as Menapii, Bolgi, Belgae and Firbolgs) by annalists and historians, arrived in Ireland at sometime BC. (Ancient irish history is rapped up in myth and oral tradition, so its hard to be acurate)
They called their new home 'Eueriio', which would later evolve through the old Irish Eriu to Eire. Ériu was seen in the earliest of Irish literature.

The English named the island Ireland from the Irish word Éire adding the Germanic word Land. The free state in Ireland calls its self Éire.

Scotland:
Roman name 'Caladonia'. I don't know why it was called Caladonia, maybe someone from Scotland can tell you.

A tribe of Irish Celts known as the Dal Riata. Dal Riata (Dalriada) came to western Scotland from Ireland. The Romans on Hadrians wall called them 'scotti', which most think means raiders as they were constantly attacking and raiding Roman Britian along with the 'pictti' or picts (painted men) the original inhabitants of scotland. The 'scots' finally took control of scotland from the picts through war and marrage.
The 'scotti' called Scotland 'Alba' or 'Albu', which was the Irish version of the Greek 'Albion', the ancient name for Britian.
(The name 'Albu' was in use among the Irish as a name for Britain as late as the tenth century A.D.)

The English took the latin 'scotti' and the Germanic land and named it Scotland.

Wales: Roman 'Britannia'.
I'm not sure what the british celts of lowland Britian would have called all of britian before the Romans. 'Albu' seems to have only been used in Ireland.
The invading Anglo/saxons later pushed them to the western egdes of Britian and they started calling themselves 'Cymru' which means 'united' or 'comrades'.
The name 'Wales' comes from the anglo/saxon word for foriegner, 'wealh'.
'Wales' basically means foreigners. Welsh nationalist movements call themselves Cymru. Maybe someone from Wales can fill in the gaps.

England:
Named after the 'Angles',one of three recodnised germanic peoples who invaded britian around the 400ad.
The others were the 'Saxons' and the 'Jutes'.

 

[privatehudson]

I heard a rumour that Greece or Greek is a name derived from either Turkish or Persian or similar meaning "land of infidels". I do recall getting a few dirty looks when in athens and referring to the people as Greek anyway

Not sure if that's entirely accurate, but I think it's something like that.

 

[Amenhotep7]

The Greeks call themselves Ellinas, at least, that's what kypros.org's dictionary said...

 

[privatehudson]

That's what I mean, they call themselves Ellinas, and their land (H)Ellas, others Greece and I think it means what I said, hence the offence

 

[Xen]

the name "Greek" was first used by the romans IIRC, not the persians

 

[Kafka2]

The word "Britain" is a corruption of "Prydain", which in turn is derived from "Pretanic"- the Greek name for our islands. The Grreks also called the land "Cassiterides", which I believe is a reference to tin- "The tin islands".

 

[gael]

Originally posted by Kafka2
The word "Britain" is a corruption of "Prydain", which in turn is derived from "Pretanic"- the Greek name for our islands. The Grreks also called the land "Cassiterides", which I believe is a reference to tin- "The tin islands".

Just had a look on the web Kafka2, "Prydain" is the Welsh version of Pretani. The greek name for the peoples of the island.

Quoted from site:
'The mediterranean countries had been buying tin from the British Isles since the bronze age. The ancient Greeks called these tin-islands the Kassiterides, and tin itself kassiteros.
In the 5th century BCE, the explorer Pythias from Massalia came to Cornwall, observed how the inhabitants mined tin and called the country the Pretanic Isles because the locals called themselves Pretani.
The Romans heard about them and called them Britanni, because their b then sounded much like the Greek p.
Maybe Pretani was the common name of the whole population then, but in historic time, it is used only of the people whom the Irish call Cruithni and the Romans Picti and who inhabited the north of Scotland.'

From another source explaining 'Albion'.

'600BC - Greeks found the colony of Massilia, opening up trade between the Celts of inland Europe and the Mediterranean. First evidence of Britain having a name - Albion - (albino, white - called after the chalk-cliffs of Dover).'

Countrys seemed to have many names back then, maybe the Greeks called it Albion and later Pretani or Pretanic Isles.

Intersting stuff all the same.

 

[Boli]

Albion - also found its way into mythology (after being translated from French and back again) to Avalon Legendary home of King Arthur.

Many of the countries named today sound nothing like what they are "supposed to" is because that's the way they were put on British Maps and at the time Britain (and later America) were a world power so many countries followed the "lead", mainly becasue English is such a widly spread language these names are becoming more and more "standerdised"

Poland - land of Poles
Finand - land of Fins
Sctoland - land of Scots
Germany - land of Germans.

Though note germany - not called germany to germans - but Deutchland so it is only our preception of the country names that we see and not the actual name used. mostly they describe the "peoples" that live in that region.

So taking the scotland root from the pervious research Roman Picti who we called the Pitts somewhere along the line became known as scots and thus "scotland" was born on the maps.

You can literally trace world history on the maps, even on simplified "english" maps.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

The term China came fr Ch'in, the old spelling for that Chinese dynasty that effectively founded the Chinese empire in 221 BCE.

The Chinese called their country Zhong Guo now - meaning the Central State (rather than the Middle Kingdom).

 

[Porphyrogenitos]

Originally posted by Amenhotep7
Egypt was first called "Kemet" by it's natives...I wish it had kept that name...Sounds way cooler...The Romans first called it "Aegyptus", so of course, Egypt came from that.

I believe it was the Greeks who first called Egypt Aegyptos, not the Romans. It is also the root from which Copt comes from.

 

[Ossric]

Belgium: in the Roman empire, this region was called Belgica
( a lot of European countries derive their name from Greek or Latin, like Spain/France/Germany...)

isn't English a romanic language? That would explain the latin origins of the english names. That's why Germany is Germany in english (Germania) & Deutshland for the natives (germanic language)

 

[privatehudson]

English langauge is a vast jumble of Roman, french, Viking, Saxon and much much more It's a mongrel language essentially

 

[Loaf Warden]

Originally posted by Ossric
isn't English a romanic language?

No. English is a Germanic language. It is a member of the Anglo-Frisian group of the West Germanic language family. Its nearest relatives are Frisian and Dutch. However, it has more Latin influence than other Germanic languages due to the Norman conquest. The fact that English was pushed into the gutter in England for a very long time while French was exalted by the ruling class made it inevitable that English would not survive the Conquest intact. So English today has a staggeringly large number of words based in French (and Latin itself) where other Germanic languages use native Germanic elements.

All the Romance languages I know of use a variation of the Germanic tribal name Alemanni for their names for modern Germany. (I'm guessing 'Alemanni' itself is a Latinized form of the word, though I've read that the Germanic original meant something like "all men". A lot of tribes in history have used names for themselves which mean something like "people" or some variation on the theme.)

On another note, it seems to me that our word 'Japan' came from an old Chinese name for the place. 'Korea', of course, comes from the old Koryo dynasty, a fact which is well documented at http://www.civ3.com/ptw_prof_koreans.cfm

I am curious about where the name 'Portugal' comes from. I wonder if there is a direct connection with 'Portus Cale', the Latin name for the city of Oporto. And I also wonder what the 'Cale' part means.

 

[Vrylakas]

Did a quiz on this once, at least for European countries.

 

[aaminion00]

I'm not 100% sure, but I think Bosnia is named for the river bearing the same name, which comes from the Roman name for it, which was Basane or something close to that, which I believe was either a Latin word or a modification of the Illyrian name for the river. But as I said, I'm not entirely sure, and of course like almost every other part of history in the region, it's debated.

Croatia is of course named after the Croats, the large slavic tribe which inhabited the Western Balkans around the 7th century. Nobody is quite sure what the Croats are named after though. It is notable that the word (croat/Hrvat) doesn't appear to be of Slavic origin, leading some to speculate that the Croats have a Persian connection, but others could tell you more about that then I could.

Likewise, Serbia is named after the Serbians, and the origin of that word is also debated, but they were closely related to the Croats.