What does your country's name mean? (Map Content)

[R_of_G]

Thought this was interesting. A world map with the English translation of each country names from the language of the naming culture. I'm curious to see of our non-American fretters can verify that these are correct. Some of them are quite interesting. Also, I love maps.

http://i.imgur.com/ex6Zu.jpg

[deeaa]

Well, AFAIK noboy knows for sure why Finland is Finland - but certainly it's not just 'land'.

There's a couple of possible origins which both are deemed unlikely - it's either from 'Fen land' which means 'Marshlands' which in Finnish is 'Suomaa' and coincidentally Finland in Finnish is 'Suomi', which is deceivingly close, but no cigar at least for sure, say the linguists...plus Finland isn't particularly marshy albeit there's enough of those too. Although the Finnish version may have originated therefrom OR be a combo of Sami (lapp people) and something else.

Another example is an archaic form of 'Finn' or 'Feon' etc. which used to mean, fair, light (blonde) and perhaps first the people from 'round here would have been called 'blonde people', which seems to occur somewhere in the 11th century at least, and from there, 'land of fair people' i.e. Feonland > Finland. That could be a more plausible explanation.

But, it is a mystery. Most names round here are that way; known in some form ~a thousand back old and nobody has a clue as to what they may mean any more. Like my town is 'Kuopio' which isn't reminiscent of anything in any language. It can be thought to be a variation/compound shortening of 'a place where one dug something' but that hardly seems like a sensible explanation to anyone.

[R_of_G]

Well, AFAIK noboy knows for sure why Finland is Finland - but certainly it's not just 'land'.

I figured you Finns as more creative than that. :)

[Ch0jin]

Well mine is on the map so no revelations there. Terra Australis Incognita was what this place was called before it was actually discovered, at which point they dropped the "incognita" part. From that Latin came Australia.

[Robert]

Italy is just bull... :D

[SuperSwede]

Well Sweden aint right either.. The name Sweden (Sverige in swedish) comes from "Svea Rike". Rike means Kingdom and Svea(r) was the name of the the people of a part in Sweden that managed to become the dominant power.... or something like that, been a while since I attended a history class ;)

[Jimi75]

Italy is just bull... :D

It's not quite correct and this explanation would be rather to simple. In the time when the Greeks were in Italy they called the land vitelo...something must remind you now of "vitello tonnato" that you might have already eaten in an Italian restaurant. Vitelo in Greek meant nothing but veal....see the similarity in the word stem. Italy was full of...yes....bulls and young bulls....so vitelo in Greek was the name for bull. The word Italy derives in some way from the word vitelo...also some word stem connection here.

[Brian Krashpad]

Well, the USA is 2/3 self-explanatory, the United States part being historical fact. I didn't look at the map but iirc "America" is derived from the early explorer Amerigo Vespucci.

Kind of funny that we could've just as well turned out the United States of Vespuccia. And the continents could've been North Vespuccia and South Vespuccia.