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This list covers English language 'country names with their etymologies'. Some of these include notes on indigenous names and their etymologies. Countries in ''italics'' no longer exist as sovereign political entities.

Contents

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

Y

Z

See also

References

Notes

External links

A

'Afghanistan':
Main articles: Origins of the name Afghanistan

:The origin of the word ''Afghan'' - which is synonymous with ''Pashtun'' - remains uncertain. One explanation derives it from Apakan, an 8th or 9th century Iranian ruler. Others point out a 3rd century Sassanid reference to "Abgan", the oldest known mention of a word variant of "Afghan". It also appears in the inscriptions of Shapur I of Iran at Naqš-e Rostam which mentions a certain Goundifer Abgan Rismaund. The sixth-century Indian Astronomer Varahamihira, in his ''Brhat Samhita'' (11.61; 16.38), refers to Afghans as ''Avagan.'' The seventh-century Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsiang refers to a people located to the north of Sulaiman Mountains whom he calls ''Apokien'' which obviously alludes to Avagans or Afghans. A modern view supported by numerous noted scholars is that the name Afghan evidently derives from Sanskrit Ashvaka or Ashvakan (q.v.), (Panini's Ashvakayana), the Assakenoi of Arrian. The Ashvakayan/Asvakan are stated to be a sub-section of the Kambojas who specialised in horse-culture.
'Åland' (autonomous province of Finland):
:"Land [in the] water," from the Germanic root ''
★ ahw-'', cognate with Latin ''aqua''. The Finnish name ''Ahvenanmaa'' is partly borrowed, partly translated from Germanic.
'Albania':
:"Alb" from the PIE root meaning "white" or "mountain".
:
★ Albanian: - "land of the Great", the land probably functioned as a beautiful place to be.
:
★ Turkish: ''Arnavutluk''
'Algeria':
:The name Algeria is derived from the name of the city of Algiers (French ''Alger''), from the Arabic word "الجزائر" (''al-jazā’ir''), which translates as ''the islands'', referring to the four islands which lay off that city's coast until becoming part of the mainland in 1525; ''al-jazā’ir'' is itself short for the older name ''jazā’ir banī mazghannā'', "the islands of (the tribe) Bani Mazghanna", used by early medieval geographers such as al-Idrisi and Yaqut al-Hamawi.
'America':
:Believed to derive from the Latinized version of the explorer Amerigo Vespucci's name, ''Americus Vespucius'', in its feminine form, ''America''. Another less-popular theory derives it from the name of Richard Amerike.
:''See also United States of America below and Naming of America
'American Samoa' ''(territory of the United States of America)'':
:''See America above and Samoa, United States of America below.''
'Andorra':
:Etymology unknown and contested; of pre-Roman, possibly Iberian or Basque origin. The name ''Andorra'' may be derived from ''al-Darra'', the Arabic word for forest. When the Moors invaded Spain, the valleys of the Pyrenees were especially wooded, and the title Andorra can be found linked to villages in other parts of Spain which had been under Moorish domination. Still others claim that it comes from the Spanish ''andar'', meaning "to walk", which gave name to the nomadic tribe of Andorrisoe which ostensibly migrated to the valleys in and around present-day Andorra, or could possibly originate from a Navarrese word ''andurrial'', which translates as "shrub-covered land." An oft-told legend is that the name came from the archaic "Endor", which Louis le Debonnaire christened what he referred to as the "wild valleys of Hell" after defeating the Moors – wild and desolate mountain ranges have been associated with the Devil throughout much European literature.
'Angola':
:From ''Ngola'', a title used by the monarch of the Kingdom of Ndongo. The Portuguese named the area in honour of a ''Ngola'' allied with them.
'Anguilla' ''(overseas territory of the United Kingdom)'':
:From the word for "eel" in any of several Romance languages (Spanish: ''anguila''; French: ''anguille''; Italian: ''anguilla''), due to its elongated shape. The circumstances of the island's European discovery and naming are uncertain: Christopher Columbus (1493) or French explorers (1564) are both possibilities.^[1]
'Antigua and Barbuda':
:Christopher Columbus named Antigua in honour of the Santa María La Antigua ("Saint Mary the Old") cathedral in Seville, Spain when he landed there in 1493. "Barbuda" means "bearded" in Portuguese. The islands gained this name after the appearance of the their fig trees, whose long roots resemble beards. Alternatively, it may refer to the beards of the indigenous people.
'Argentina':
:From the Latin ''argentum'', meaning "silver". Early Spanish and Portuguese traders used the region's Rio de la Plata or "Silver River" to transport silver and other treasures from Peru to the Atlantic. The land around the terminal downstream stations became known as ''Argentina'' – "Land of Silver".
:''See also: Origin and history of the name of Argentina''
'Armenia':
Main articles: Armenia (name)

:From Old Persian ''Armina'' (6th century BC), Greek ''Armenia'' (5th century BC). The further etymology of the Persian name is uncertain, but may be connected to the Assyrian ''Armânum, Armanî'' and/or the Biblical Minni. The Old Persian name is an exonym, see Hayk for the native name and Urartu for the Biblical ''Ararat''.
'Aruba' ''(territory of Netherlands)'':
:Two possible meanings exist. One story relates how the Spanish explorer Alonso de Ojeda named the island in 1499 as "Oro Hubo", implying the presence of gold (''oro hubo'' in Spanish means "there was gold"). Another possible derivation cites the Arawak Indian word ''oibubai'', which means "guide".
'Australia':
:Originally from Latin ''terra australis incognita'' - "unknown southern land". Early European explorers, sensing that the Australian landmass far exceeded in size what they had already mapped, gave the area a generic descriptive name. The explorer Matthew Flinders (1774 – 1814), the first to sail around and chart the Australian coast, used the term "Australia" in his 1814 publication ''A Voyage to Terra Australis''. Previous Dutch explorers had referred to the continent as ''Australisch'' and as "Hollandia Nova" (New Holland). From the introduction in Flinders' book:
::"There is no probability, that any other detached body of land, of nearly equal extent, will ever be found in a more southern latitude; the name Terra Australis will, therefore, remain descriptive of the geographical importance of this country, and of its situation on the globe: it has antiquity to recommend it; and, having no reference to either of the two claiming nations, appears to be less objectionable than any other which could have been selected.
★ "^[2]
:...with the accompanying note at the bottom of the page:
::"
★ Had I permitted myself any innovation upon the original term, it would have been to convert it into AUSTRALIA; as being more agreeable to the ear, and an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth."^[2]
'Austria':
:Compare the modern German ''Österreich'', from Old High German ''ôstarrîhhi'', which literally means "empire in the East." In the 9th century, the territory formed part of the Frankish Empire's eastern limit, and also formed the eastern limit of German settlement bordering on Slavic areas. Under Charlemagne and during the early Middle Ages, the territory had the Latin name ''marchia orientalis'' (Eastern March). This translated to ''Ostarrîchi'' in the vernacular of the time; that Old High German form first appears in a 996 document.
:
★ Arabic ''Nimsa'': Presumably from the Slavic word nowaday used for Germany, via Turkish.
:
★ Czech ''Rakousko''
:
★ Finnish ''Itävalta''
'Azerbaijan':
:Native spelling ''Azərbaycan'' (from surface fires on ancient oil pools; its ancient name, ''(Media) Atropatene'' (in Greek and Latin) or ''Atrpatakan'' (in Armenian), actually referring to the present-day Azerbaijan region of Iran. The name became ''Azerbaijan'' in Arabic. The Persians knew the territory of the modern republic of Azerbaijan as "Aran"; and in classical times it became "(Caucasian) Albania" and, in part, "(Caucasian) Iberia", although this last term corresponds mostly to the present-day republic of Georgia. (''See Georgia below.'') The region of ''Media Atropatene'' lay further to the south, located south of the River Araxes. "Aran" may derive from the same root as modern "Iran", while "Albania" and "Iberia" appear as toponyms of Caucasus mountain derivation. The name "(Media) Atropatene" comes from Atropates ("fire protector" in Middle Persian) who ruled as the independent Iranian satrap at the time of the Seleucids. The modern ethnonym 'Azerbaijani' has often become the subject of sharp differences of opinion between the ethnically Turkic inhabitants of the modern republic of Azerbaijan and the inhabitants of the Persian-dominated neighboring republic of Iran. Iranians regard the names "Azerbaijan" and "Atropatene" as expressions of historically Persian culture, and therefore often refer to the modern republic of Azerbaijan as "Turkish Azerbaijan", and to its inhabitants as "Azerbaijani Turks". In contrast, Turkophone Azerbaijanis insist on their own place as an historically continuous presence in Azerbaijani history. The suffix ''-an'' in Persian means "land".

B

'Bahamas':
:From Spanish ''Baja Mar'' – "Low (Shallow) Sea". Spanish conquistadors thus named the islands after the waters around them.
'Bahrain':
:From Arabic. The exact referents of the "two seas" remain a matter of debate. Bahrain lies in a bay formed by the Arabian mainland and the peninsula of Qatar, and some identify the "two seas" as the waters of the bay on either side of the island. Others believe that the name refers to Bahrain's position as an island in the Persian Gulf, separated by "two seas" from the Arabian coast to the south and Iran to the north. Yet another claim suggests that the first sea surrounds Bahrain and the second "sea" metaphorically represents the abundant natural spring waters under the island itself.
'Baker Island' ''(territory of the United States of America)'':
:Named after Michael Baker, of New Bedford, Massachusetts, who claimed to have discovered it in 1832 (subsequent to its actual discovery).
'Bangladesh':
:From Bengali/Sanskrit, ''Bangla'' referring to the Bengali-speaking people, and ''Desh'' meaning "country", hence "Country of the Bengalis". The country previously formed part of colonial British India. Bengali culture spans a wider area than that of the state of Bangladesh: the culture extends into present-day India (in Assam (Boro Peoples), Sikkim, Tripura, West Bengal, and Jharkand.
:
★ East Pakistan (former name): the name used when Pakistan comprised both modern-day Pakistan, or "West Pakistan", and modern-day Bangladesh — "East Pakistan". ''See Pakistan below (note that the name "Pakistan" comes from an acronym of the country's various regions/homelands; Bangladesh or its regions do not feature as part of the acronym.)''
:
★ '''Note;''' the river 'Ganga' leaves the plains from ''Hindustan'' of the Indo-Gangetic Plain of South Asia into ''Bangladesh'' forming the Ganges Delta (Bengal Delta) the biggest in the world, also known as the 'Mouths of the Ganges' opening up into the Bay of Bengal near the 'Sunderbans' ''(National Parks of India)'', a natural habitat shared by Indo-Banga inhabitants for ''Indian Wildlife''; Home of the 'Royal Bengal Tiger' both the National animal of Bharat and Bangladesh (Independent Bengal).
'Barbados':
:Named by the Portuguese explorer Pedro A. Campos "Os Barbados" ("The Bearded Ones") in 1536 after the appearance of the island's fig trees, whose long roots resemble beards.
'Belarus':
:From Belarusian, meaning "White Rus'", "White Ruthenia". Formerly known as ''Byelorussia'', a transliteration from the Russian name meaning "White Russia". (''See Russia below.'') The name changed after the collapse of the Soviet Union to emphasize the historic and ongoing separate distinctness of the nations of Belarus and Russia. (See Belarus: Name for more.) The exact original meaning conveyed by the term "Bela" or 'White' remains uncertain. Early cultures commonly employed the concept of "whiteness" as representing the qualities of freedom, purity, or nobility. On the other hand, it may simply have originated as a totem color of convenience. Note that part of the western territory of modern Belarus historically bore the name of "Chernarossija" or 'Black Rus'. The term "Black" most commonly applied to landscapes featuring especially rich and productive soils. How this may reflect on the origin of the term 'White Rus' remains as yet unexplored. Yet another region in present-day western Ukraine historically had the name "Red Russia" or "Red Ruthenia". Note also that colors represented cardinal directions in Mongol and Tatar culture.
'Belgium':
:From the name of a Celtic tribe, the ''Belgae''.
:The name ''Belgae'' may derive from the PIE ''
★ bolg'' meaning "bag" or "womb" and indicating common descent; if so, it likely followed some unknown original adjective.
:Another theory suggests that the name ''Belgae'' may come from the Proto-Celtic ''
★ belo'', which means "bright", and which relates to the English word ''bale'' (as in "bale-fire"), to the Anglo-Saxon ''bael'', to the Lithuanian ''baltas'', meaning "white" or "shining" (from which the Baltic takes its name) and to Slavic "belo/bilo/bjelo/..." meaning "white" (like town names Beograd, Biograd, Bjelovar, etc all meaning "white city") (see Beltane). Thus the Gaulish god-names ''Belenos'' ("Bright one") and ''Belisama'' (probably the same divinity, originally from ''
★ belo-nos'' = "our shining one") may also come from the same source.
'Belize':
:Traditionally said to derive from the Spanish pronunciation of "Wallace", the name of the pirate who set up the first settlement in Belize in 1638. Another possibility relates the name to the Maya word ''belix'', meaning "muddy water", applied to the Belize River.
:
★ British Honduras (former name): after the colonial ruler (Britain). For "Honduras" see Honduras below. ''See also Britain below.''
'Benin':
:Named after an old African Empire of Benin, on whose territory modern Benin does not actually lie.
:
★ Dahomey (former name): Named after the principal ethnic group of the country.
'Bermuda' ''(overseas territory of the United Kingdom)'':
:From the name of the Spanish sea captain Juan de Bermúdez who sighted the islands in 1503.
'Bhutan':
:The ethnic Tibetans or ''Bhotia'' migrated from Tibet to Bhutan in the 10th century. The root ''Bod'' expresses an ancient name for Tibet. Bhutanese language: ''Druk Yul'' - "land of the thunder dragon", "land of thunder", or "land of the dragon". From the violent thunder storms that come from the Himalayas.
'Bolivia':
:Named after Simón Bolívar (1783-1830), an anti-Spanish militant and first president of Bolivia the country after gained its independence in 1825. His surname comes from La Puebla de Bolibar, a village in Biscay, Spain. The etymology of Bolibar may be bolu- (mill) + -ibar (river). Thus, it ultimately may mean a mill on a river.
'Bosnia and Herzegovina':
:The country consists of two distinct regions: the larger northern section, Bosnia, represents the name of the Bosna river. The smaller southern territory, Herzegovina takes its name from the German noble title ''Herzog'', meaning "Duke". Frederick IV, King of the Romans, made the territory's ruler, the Grand Vojvoda Stjepan Vukcic, a duke in 1448.
'Botswana':
:Named after the country's largest ethnic group, the Tswana.
:
★ Bechuanaland (former name): derived from Bechuana, an alternative spelling of "Botswana".
'Bouvet Island' ''(territory of Norway)'':
:Named after the French explorer Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier who discovered the remote island in 1739.
'Brazil':
:Named after the brazilwood tree, so-named because its reddish wood resembled the color of red-hot embers (''brasil'' in Portuguese). In Tupi it is called "ibirapitanga", which means literally 'red wood'. The wood of the tree was used to color clothes and fabrics.
:Another theory stands that the name of the country is related to the Irish myth of Hy-Brazil, a phantom island similar to St. Brendan's Island, situated southwest of Ireland. The legend was so strong that during the 15th century many expeditions tried to find it, the most important being John Cabot. As the Brazilian lands were reached by Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500 A.D., the Irish myth would have influenced the late name given to the country (after "Island of Real Cross" and "Land of Holy Cross"). The proof that the legend was popular among Iberic people may be verified by the name of the Azorean Terceira Island, registered in the 14th century in the Atlas Catalan and around 1436 on the Venetian map of Andrea Bianco.
:See also list of Brazil state name etymologies
'Britain':
:From ''Pretani'', "painted ones"; perhaps a reference to the use of body-paint and tattoos by early inhabitants of the islands; may also derive from the Celtic goddess Brigid . The form 'Britain' (see also Welsh ''Prydain'') comes from Latin 'Britannia', probably via French. The former name of the island of Britain was ''Albion'', an ancient Greek adaptation of a Celtic name which may survive as the Gaelic name of Scotland, ''Alba''. Traditionally, a folk etymology derived the name from "Brutus", but this is almost certainly not the case. Brittany derives from the same root.
:''See also United Kingdom below.''
'British Indian Ocean Territory' ''(overseas territory of the United Kingdom)'':
:Presumably named for being the sole British possession located within the Indian Ocean.
'British Virgin Islands' ''(overseas territory of the United Kingdom)'':
:Christopher Columbus, on discovering a seemingly endless number of islands in the nort-east Caribbean in 1493, named them after Saint Ursula and the 11,000 virgins.
'Brunei':
:In its full name "Negara Brunei Darussalam", "Darussalam" means "Abode of Peace" in Arabic, while "Negara" means "State" in Malay. "Negara" derives from the Sanskrit ''"Nagara"'', meaning "city."
'Bulgaria':
:Named after the Bulgars. Their tribal name, ''Bulgar'' may come from ''burg'', which means "castle" in Germanic languages. A. D. Keramopoulos derives the name "Bulgars" from ''burgarii'' or ''bourgarioi'' meaning "those who maintain the forts" (''burgi, bourgoi, purgoi'') along the northern boundaries of the Balkan provinces, and elsewhere in the Roman Empire, first mentioned in Greek in an inscription dated A.D. 202, found between Philippopolis and Tatar Pazardzhik (and last published in Wilhelm Dittenberger's ''Sylloge inscriptionum graecarum'', 3 ed., vol. II [1917], no. 880,1. 51, p. 593). The Bulgarians, previously known as Moesians, inhabited Thrace.
:
★ An alternative Turkic etymology for the name of the pre-Slavicised Central-Asian Bulgars derives from ''Bulgha'' meaning ''sable'' and has a totemistic origin.
:
★ Some associate the name ''Bulgar'' with the River Volga in present-day Russia: Bulgars lived in that region before and/or after the migration to the Balkans: see Volga Bulgaria.
'Burkina Faso':
:From local languages, meaning "land of upright people", "land of honest men" or "land of the incorruptible". President Thomas Sankara, who took power in a coup in 1983, changed the name from "Upper Volta" in 1984. The two parts of the name come from two of the country's main languages: Moré (''Burkina'') and Dioula (''Faso'').
:
★ Upper Volta (former name): after the Volta's two main tributary rivers, both originating in Burkina Faso.
'Burma':
:''see Myanmar below.''
'Burundi':
:From a local name meaning "land of the Kirundi-speakers."

C

'Cambodia':
:The name "Cambodia" derives from that of the ancient Khmer kingdom of Kambuja (Kambujadesa). The ancient Sanskrit name ''Kambuja'' or ''Kamboja'' referred to an early Indo-Iranian tribe, the Kambojas, named after the founder of that tribe, Kambu Svayambhuva, apparently a variant of Cambyses, Kambujiya or Kamboja. See Etymology of Kamboja.
:
★ Kampuchea (local name): derived in the same fashion. It also served as the official English-language name from 1975 to 1989.
'Cameroon':
:From Portuguese ''Rio de Camarões'' ("River of Shrimps"), the name given to the Wouri River by Portuguese explorers in the 15th century.
'Canada':
:From the word ''Kanata'' meaning "village" or "settlement" in the Saint-Lawrence Iroquoian language spoken by the inhabitants of Stadacona and the neighbouring region in the 16th century, near present-day Quebec City; ''see Canada's name''. Also see Canadian provincial name etymologies
'Cape Verde':
:Named after Cap-Vert a cape in Western Africa. From Portuguese ''Cabo Verde'', "Green cape".
'Caroline Islands
:Named after Charles II, who reigned as king of Spain from 1665 to 1700.
:''See "Micronesia" and "Palau" below''
'Catalonia':
:''Catalunya'' in Catalan. The origin is unclear and there are a lot of hypotheses. Perhaps from the word meaning "land of castles" (see Castile for a similar origin). According to another but somewhat similar theory (Lafont 1986), ''Catalunya'' could come from Arabic ''Qalat-uniyya'' (''Qalat'' means "castle" and ''-uniyya'' is a collective suffix) because medieval Catalonha used to be a frontier country whith a lot of castles in front of the Muslim and Arabized zone of the Iberic peninsula. Some texts suggest that the name Catalunya derives from "Goth-Alania" meaning "land of the Goths and Alans" through Arabian ''
★ Cotelanuyya'', as the Visigoths and Alans invaded and divided Iberia between themselves, agreeing to rule some parts together. Coromines suggests an Iberian origin: ''Laietani'' (latinization of Iberian ''laiezken'') > ''
★ laketani'' > ''laketans'' > metathesized as ''catelans'' > ''catalans'', reforced by ''castellani'' (with an epenthetic ''s'' according to Coromines). Another theory suggests ''
★ kaste-lan'' as the Iberian name later latinized as ''castellani'' (an Iberian tribe in northern Catalonia according to Ptolemy); then the name would have evolved into ''
★ catellani'' > ''
★ catelans'' > ''
★ catalans''.
'Cayman Islands' ''(overseas territory of the United Kingdom)'':
:Christopher Columbus discovered the islands in 1503 after winds blew him off his course from Panama to Hispaniola. He called the islands ''Las Tortugas'' ("The Turtles" in Spanish) due to the large numbers of turtles on the islands. Around 1540 the islands gained the name ''Caymanas'', from a Carib word for marine alligators or "caiman", an animal found on the islands.
'Central African Republic':
:Named after its geographical position in the center of the continent of Africa.
:''See also Africa on the Placename etymology page.''
'Chad':
:Locally known in French as ''République du Tchad''. Named for Lake Chad (or Tchad) in the country's southwest. The lake in turn got its name from the Bornu word ''tsade'', "lake".
'Chechnya':
:The Russian ethnonym ''Chechen'' probably derives from the name of the ancient village of Chechana or Chechen-aul. The village is situated on the bank of the Argun River, near Grozny. Another theory derives the name from ''chechenit' sya'' "to talk mincingly''.^[4]
:The native term, ''Noxçi'', is derived from ''nexça'' (sheep cheese), ''nox'' (plow) or from the prophet Noah (''Nox'' in Chechen)
'Chile':
:Exact etymology unknown. Possibilities include that it comes from a native Mapudungun term meaning "the depths", a reference to the fact that the Andes mountain chain looms over the narrow coastal flatland. The Quechua or Mapuche Indian word "chili/chilli" or "where the land ends/where the land runs out/limit of the world" also provides a possible derivation. Another possible meaning originates with a native word ''tchili'', meaning "snow".
'China':
:The English name of China comes from the Qin Dynasty, possibly in a Sanskrit form; the pronunciation "China" came to the western languages through the Persian word چین "''Chin''". (see also: China in world languages)
:
★ Chinese: ''Zhong Guo'' - "central country"
:
★ Archaic English ''Cathay'', Turkish ''Xytai'' and Russian ''Китай'' (''Kitai''), from the Khitan people who conquered north China in the 10th century.
'Christmas Island' ''(territory of Australia)'':
: So named because Captain William Mynors discovered the island on Christmas Day in 1643.
'Clipperton Island' ''(territory of France):
:Named after the English mutineer and pirate John Clipperton, who made it his hideout in 1705.
'Cocos Islands' ''(territory of Australia)'':
:Named after coconuts, the main local product.
:
★ Keeling Islands (alternative name), after Captain William Keeling who discovered the islands in 1609.
'Colombia':
:Named after the explorer Christopher Columbus, despite the fact that he never actually set foot in the country.
'Comoros':
:From the Arabic "Djazair al Qamar" — "Island of the moon."
'Congo, Republic':
:Named after the former Kongo kingdom, in turn named after the Bakongo people.
'Congo, Democratic Republic of':
:Named after the former Kongo kingdom, in turn named after the Bakongo people.
:
★ Zaire (former name), from ''Nzere'', "river", after Congo River.
'Cook Islands' ''(territory of New Zealand)'':
:Named after Captain James Cook, who sighted the islands in 1770.
'Costa Rica':
:The name, meaning "rich coast" in Spanish, given by the Spanish explorer Gil González Dávila.
'Côte d'Ivoire':
:From French. The French named the region "Ivory Coast" in reference to the ivory traded from the area - in similar fashion, nearby stretches of the African shoreline became known as the "Grain Coast", the "Gold Coast" and the "Slave Coast."
'Croatia':
:Latinization of the Croatian name ''Hrvatska'', derived from ''Hrvat'' (Croat): a word of unknown origin, possibly from a Sarmatian word for "herdsman" or "cowboy". May be related to an aboriginal tribe of Alans.
'Cuba':
:From Taíno Indian ''Cubanacan'' — "centre place". In Portugal, some believe that the name echoes that of the Portuguese town of Cuba, speculating that Christopher Columbus provided a link. In portuguese and spanish, the word "cuba" refers to the barrels used to hold beverages.
'Cymru'
:Cymru is the Welsh name for Wales, thought to mean "Land of the Compatriots" in Old Welsh.
'Cyprus':
:Derived from the Greek ''Kypros'' for "copper", in reference to the copper mined on the island.
'''Czechoslovakia''':
:Roughly "land of the Czechs and Slovaks" from the two main Slavic ethnic groups in the country, with "Slovak" deriving from the Slavic for "Slavs"; and "Czech" ultimately of unknown origin.
'Czech Republic':
:From ''Čechové'' (''Češi'', i.e. Czechs), the name of one of the Slavic tribes on the country's territory, which subdued the neighboring Slavic tribes around 900. The origin of the name of the tribe itself remains unknown. According to a legend, it comes from their leader ''Čech'', who brought them to Bohemia. Most scholarly theories regard ''Čech'' as a sort of obscure derivative, i.e. from ''Četa'' (military unit).
:
★ Bohemia (Latin and traditional English variant): after a Celtic tribe Boii.

D

'Dagestan':
:The word ''Daghestan'' or ''Daghistan'' (; Arabic and ) means "country of mountains", it is derived from the Turkic word dağ meaning mountain and Persian suffix -stan meaning "land of". The spelling ''Dagestan'' is a transliteration from Russian language, which lacks the voiced velar fricative.
'Democratic Republic of Congo':
:''See Congo, Democratic Republic of, above''
'Denmark':
:From the native name, ''Danmark'', meaning "march (i.e., borderland) of the Danes", the dominant people of the region since ancient times. Origin of the tribal name is unknown, but one theory derives it from PIE ''dhen'' "low" or "flat", presumably in reference to the lowland nature of most of the country.
'Djibouti':
:Named after the bottom point of the Gulf of Tadjoura. Possibly derived from the Afar word "gabouti", a type of doormat made of palm fibres. Another plausible, but unproven etymology suggests that "Djibouti" means "Land of Tehuti" or Land of Thoth, after the Egyptian Moon God.
:
★ French Territory of the Afars and the Issas (former name): after the colonial ruler (France) and the two main ethnic groups in the country.
:
★ French Somaliland (former name): after the colonial ruler (France). For Somaliland see Somalia below.
:''See also France below.''
'Dominica':
:From the Latin "Dies Dominica" meaning "Sunday": the day of the week on which Christopher Columbus first landed on the island.
'Dominican Republic':
:Derived from Santo Domingo, the capital city, which bears the name of the Spanish Saint Domingo de Guzmán, the founder of the Dominican Order.

E

'East Timor':
:From the Malay word ''timur'' meaning "east". The local official Tetum language refers to East Timor as ''Timor Lorosae'' or "East Timor", or ''Timor-Leste'' in Portuguese. In neighbouring Indonesia it has the formal name ''Timor Timur'' - etymologically "eastern east". But Indonesians usually shorten the name to ''Tim-Tim''.
:
★ Portuguese Timor (former name): after the former colonial ruler (Portugal). "Timor" as above.
'Ecuador':
:"Equator" in Spanish, as the country lies on the Equator.
'Egypt':
:From ancient Greek (attested in Mycenean) Αίγυπτος, or ''Aígyptos'', which according to Strabo, derived from "Αιγαίου υπτίως" (''Aigaiou hyptios'' - "the land below the Aegean sea"). This becomes more apparent in the Latin form ''Aegyptus'' [1]. Alternatively, from the Egyptian name of Memphis, ''
★ ħāwit kuʔ pitáħ'' meaning "house (or temple) of the soul of Ptah".
:
★ Mişr (Arabic name, pronounced ''Maşr'' in Egyptian Arabic): a widespread Semitic word (Hebrew: "Mitzraim"), first used to mean "Egypt" in Akkadian, and meaning "city" or "to settle or found" in Arabic. The Turkish name ''Mısır'' derives from the Arabic one. However, the Hebrew form means "straights or narrow places" referring to the shape of the country as it follows the Nile River and takes on more symbolic weight in the Bible in reference to the Exodus story.
:
★ Kême (Coptic name): "black land" (Ancient Egyptian ''kmt''), referring to the mud of the Nile after the summer flood, as opposed to the desert, called "red land" (Ancient Egyptian ''dšrt'').
'El Salvador':
:"The saviour" in Spanish, named after Jesus.
'''England''' ''(constituent country of the United Kingdom):
:Derived from the Old English name ''Englaland'', literally translatable as "land of the Angles".
:The indigenous languages of Ireland and Scotland refer to England as the "land of the Saxons" — for example, Irish ''Sasana''. Cornish — also a Celtic language — uses ''Pow Saws'' — literally "Saxon country".
'Equatorial Guinea':
:"Equatorial" from the word "equator", despite the fact that the country doesn't actually lie on the Equator (though very close to it). "Guinea" perhaps from the Berber term ''aguinaoui'', which means "black".
:
★ Spanish Guinea (former name): after the former colonial ruler (Spain). "Guinea" as above.
:''See also Spain below.''
'Eritrea':
:Named by Italian colonizers, from the Latin name for the Red Sea "Mare Erythraeum" ("Erythraean Sea") which in turn derived from the ancient Greek name for the Red Sea: "Erythrea Thalassa".
'Estonia':
:From the Latin version of the Germanic word ''Estland'', which could originate from the Germanic word for "eastern (way)", or from the name ''Aestia'', first mentioned in ancient Greek texts. Palaeogeographers have not located ''Aestia'' exactly: the name may have instead referred to modern Masuria, in Poland.
:
★ Chud (Old East Slavic): originally derived from the Gothic for "people" (see "Deutschland" under the heading "Germany"); more recent folk-etymology has also linked the name to the Slavic root for "weird". Lake Peipus still bears the name of "Chudskoe Lake" in Slavic languages.
:
★ Igaunija (Latvian): from the ancient Ugaunian tribe in southeastern Estonia.
:
★ Viro (Finnish variant): from the ancient Vironian tribe in northern Estonia.
'Ethiopia':
:From the Greek word Αἰθιοπία (Æthiopia), from Αἰθίοψ (Æthiops) ‘an Ethiopian’ -- sometimes parsed by Westerners as a purely Greek term meaning "of burnt (αιθ-) visage (ὄψ)"; however, some (i.e. the 16-17th c. Book of Aksum [''Matshafa Aksum'']) Ethiopian sources state that the name derived from "'Ityopp'is", a son of Cush, son of Ham who according to legend founded the city of Aksum.
:
★ Abyssinia (former alternate name): derives from an Arabic form of the Ge'ez (and other Ethiosemitic languages) word ''Habesha'', a name referring to the collection of all tribes in ancient Ethiopia.
'Europa Island' ''(territory of France):
:The island takes its name from the British ship ''Europa'', which visited it in 1774.

F

'Falkland Islands' (overseas territory of the United Kingdom):
:The English Captain John Strong named the strait between the two main islands the Falkland Sound when he landed on the islands in 1690, and the term eventually came to apply to the whole island group. The name honoured Anthony Cary, 5th Viscount Falkland, the then First Lord of the Admiralty, who took his family title from Falkland Palace in Scotland
:
★ Islas Malvinas (Spanish language name): comes from the French sailors who frequented the islands during the 1690s. They came from St. Malo in Brittany, France, and so others often referred to them in French as the "Malouines".
:
★ Sebald Islands - a nearly defunct name of Dutch origin, which commemorated Sebald de Weert.
'Faroe Islands' (territory of Denmark):
:From Faroese (originally Old Norse) ''Føroyar'', "sheep islands".
'Fiji':
:From the Tongan name for the islands: ''Viti''.
'Finland':
:From the Germanic ''Land of the Finns''. Originally, the Germanic term ''Finn'' referred to the Sami or Lapps. The word may derive from the Germanic root seen in English ''fen'' (a synonym for "swamp") or, alternatively, from a root meaning "nomadic hunter and gatherer", related to the English verb "find". Latin ''Fennia''.
:
★ Suomi (Finnish name), Soome (Estonian name), Sum' (Old Russian name): may derive the Baltic root ''zeme'' for "land": "zeme" ← "sheme" ← "shäme" → Häme ← "shaame" → Saami ← "Soomi" ← "Suomi"
:
★ An Fhionnlainn (Irish name) is derived from ''Finlandia'' though by coincidence ''Fionnlann'' also means ''Land of the fair'' in Irish.
'Formosa':
:''see Taiwan.''
'France':
Main articles: Name of France

:French derivation of ''Francia'', "Land of the Franks". A frankon was a spear used by the early Franks, thus giving them their name. The term "Frank" later became associated with "free" as the Franks were the only truly freemen, since they subjugated the Romanized Gauls.
:
★ Gallia (Latin) from the name of a Celtic tribe. Many Celtic groups used similar names: compare Gaul and Galatia.
'French Guiana' (territory of France):
:''see France above and Guyana below.''
'French Polynesia' (territory of France):
:The geographic term ''Polynesia'' means "many islands", formed from the Greek roots: ''poly'' = many; and νῆσος ''nēsos'' = island.
:''See also France above.''
'French Southern and Antarctic Lands' (territory of France):
:From the geographic location of the territories (in the southern Indian Ocean).
:''Note: France's claims to Antarctic lands remainin abeyance in line with the 1959 Antarctic Treaty.''
:''See also France above.''

G

'Gabon':
:From ''Gabão'', the Portuguese name for the Komo river estuary (French: ''Estuaire de Gabon''). The estuary took its name from its shape, which resembles that of a hooded overcoat (''gabão''). ''Gabão'' comes from Arabic قباء ''qabā’''.
'Gambia, The':
:From the river Gambia that runs through the country. The word ''gambia'' supposedly derives from the Portuguese word ''câmbio'' (meaning "trade" or "exchange"), in reference to the trade the Portuguese carried out in the area.
'Georgia':
:Derived from Persian ''Gurj''^[5][6], probably derived from a PIE term meaning 'mountainous'. In classical times Greeks referring to the region used the names of Colchis (the coastal region along the Black Sea) and Iberia (further inland to the east). Some also believed that Georgia was so named by the Greeks on account of its agricultural resources, since "georgia" (γεωργία) means "farming" in Greek. However, the modern Greek name is now taken to be a derivation from the Persian root "Gurj".^[7] Both names probably derive from indigenous Caucasian languages.
:
★ ''Gruzia'' in Slavic languages (Грузия in Russian, for example) and Gorjestân (گرجستان) in Persian derive from the same source.
:
★ Sakartvelo (Georgian name; in English commonly "Kartvelia"): derived from a pagan god called Kartlos, once regarded as the father of all Georgians.
:
★ Vrastan (Armenian: Վրաստան)
'Germany':
Main articles: Names for Germany

:From Latin "Germania", of the 3rd century BC, of unknown origin. The Oxford English Dictionary records theories about the Celtic roots ''gair'' ("neighbour") (from Zeuß), and ''gairm'' ("battle-cry") (from Wachter and from Grimm). Partridge suggested ''
★ gar'' ("to shout"), and describes the ''gar'' ("spear") theory as "obsolete". Italian, Romanian, and other languages use the latinate ''Germania'' as the name for Germany. The Irish language uses ''An Ghearmáin'', also cognate.
:
★ Allemagne (French), Alemania (Spanish), Alemanha (Portuguese), Almân (Persian), Almanya (Turkish): either "land of all the men" i.e. "our many tribes" or from the Alamanni, a southern Germanic tribe (whose name may have the same sort of etymology) (Modern German -- ''Alle Männer'').
:
★ Deutschland (German), Duitsland (Dutch): from the Old High German word "diutisc", meaning 'of the people' (itself from ancient Germanic "thiuda" or "theoda" 'people') and "land" 'land': "land of the people".
:
★ Niemcy (Polish), Německo (Czech), Nemecko (Slovak), Nemčija (Slovene), (немецкий (nemetski) - but Германия (Germania) for the country) (Russian), Németország (Hungarian): Either from a Slavic root meaning "mute", "dumb", i.e., metaphorically, "those who do not speak our language". Or from the Germanic Nemetes tribe.
:
★ Purutia (Tahitian): Prussia.
:
★ Saksa (Estonian, Finnish): from the name of the Germanic tribe of Saxons (in turn, possibly from Old High German ''sahs'', 'knife').
:
★ Tyskland (Danish, Norwegian, Swedish), Þýskaland (Icelandic), tedesco (Italian adjective form): also ancient Germanic "thiuda" or "theoda" 'people' (see above under "Deutschland"). In the Latin the Germans were also known as ''Teutones''.
:
★ Vācija (Latvian), Vokietija (Lithuanian):
'Ghana':
:After the ancient West African kingdom of the same name. The modern territory of Ghana, however, never formed part of the previous polity. J. B. Danquah suggested the use of the name in the run-up to Ghanaian independence. His research led him to believe that modern Ghanaian peoples descended from the ancient Ghana Kingdom; others dispute his conclusions.
:
★ Gold Coast (former name): after the large amount of gold that colonisers found in the country. Compare the names Europeans gave to nearby stretches of shoreline: "Ivory Coast", "Slave Coast" and "Grain Coast".
'Gibraltar' (overseas territory of the United Kingdom):
:A corruption of the Arabic words "Jebel Tarik" which means "Tarik's Mountain", named after Tarik-ibn-Zeyad, a Berber who landed at Gibraltar in 711 to launch the Islamic invasion of the Iberian Peninsula.
'Glorioso Islands' (territory of France):
:The Glorioso or Glorieuses Islands take their name, presumably, for their wonderful (glorious) looks. A Frenchman, Hippolyte Caltaux, settled in 1880 and established a coconut and maize plantation on Grande Glorieuse. (This does not explain the Spanish or Portuguese-looking form of the name used in English.)
'Greece':
Main articles: Names of the Greeks

:From the Latin ''Græcus'' (Greek ''Γραικοί'', claimed by Aristotle to refer to the name of the original people of Epirus)
:
★ Hellas/Ellas/Ellada (Greek name): land of the Hellenes, descended in mythology from Hellen; the place name has a linguistic cognate in the English verb "settle". A popular folk etymology holds the name to mean "land of light", relating to (''), the Greek word for "sun".
:
★ ''Hurumistan'' (Kurdish variant), Urəm (Урым, Adyghe):
:
★ ''Saberdzneṭi'' (საბერძნეთი, Georgian):
:
★ ''Yunanistan'' (Azeri, Kurdish variant, Turkish), ''al-Yūnān'' (Arabic), ''Yavan'' (Hebrew): after Ionians, an older name for Greeks of Asia Minor
'Greenland' (territory of Denmark):
:English name given by Eric the Red in 982 to attract settlers.
:
★ Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenlandic name): means "lands of humans".
'Grenada':
:After the southern Spanish city of Granada. Columbus originally named the island ''Concepción''.
'Guadeloupe' territory of France):
:Christopher Columbus named the island in honour of Santa María de Guadalupe in Extremadura, Spain when he landed in 1493.
'Guam' (territory of the United States of America):
:From the native Chamorro word 'guahan', meaning 'we have'.
'Guatemala':
:The country name comes from the Nahuatl ''Cuauhtēmallān'', "place of many trees", a translation of K'iche' Mayan ''K’ii’chee’'', "many trees" (that is, "forest").^[8] When the Spanish arrived, they saw a decayed tree with lots of trees around it right in front of the palace. The Spanish believed this the center of the Mayan Kingdom. When the Spanish asked the name of the area, the Native Amerindians told them this name.
'Guinea':
:From the Susu (Sousou) language meaning 'Women'. The first Europeans to arrive in the area would have heard Susu, the main language spoken by the inhabitants of coastal Guinea. The English form comes via Portuguese ''Guiné'' from a (presumed) indigenous African name. Or possibly from the Berber "Akal n-Iguinawen" meaning "land of the blacks".
:
★ French Guinea (former name): after the colonial ruler (France), and "Guinea" as above.
'Guinea-Bissau':
:That part of the region known as "Guinea" which has as its capital the city of Bissau. Compare the usage of ''Congo-Brazzaville''.
:
★ Portuguese Guinea (former name): after the colonial ruler (Portugal), and "Guinea" as above.
'Guyana':
:From the indigenous peoples who called the land "Guiana", meaning "land of many waters", in reference to large number of rivers in the area.
:
★ British Guiana (former name): after the colonial ruler (Britain). "Guiana" has the same etymology as "Guyana".
:''See also Britain above''

H

'Haiti':
:Taíno/Arawak Indian, "Hayiti/Hayti" meaning "mountainous land". The island of which Haiti forms a part, Hispaniola (roughly, "little Spain") originally had the name ''Hayiti''.
'Honduras':
:Christopher Columbus named the country "Honduras", Spanish for "depths", a reference to the deep waters off the northern coast.
'Hong Kong' (Special administrative region of the People's Republic of China):
:An approximate phonetic rendering of the Hakka / Cantonese name "香港", meaning "Fragrant Harbour" or "Incense Harbour"; more accurately 'Heung1 Gong2' (Yale). The original ''fragrant harbour'' was a small inlet between the island of Ap Lei Chau (鴨脷洲) and the south side of Hong Kong Island, now known as Aberdeen Harbour in English, but still called 'Heung Gong Tsai' (香港仔, Little Hong Kong) in Cantonese. The fragrance came from incense grown to the north of Kowloon that was stored around Aberdeen Harbour for export, before the development of Victoria Harbour. The village of Heung Gong Tsuen (香港村) on Ap Lei Chau is perhaps the earliest recorded use of the name. Another legend goes that a female pirate named Xiang Gu （香姑）often attacks the harbor.
'Howland Island' (territory of the United States of America):
:Captain George E. Netcher named the island after the lookout who sighted it from his ship the ''Isabella'' on 9 September, 1842.
'Hungary':
:Turkic: ''on-ogur'', "(people of the) ten arrows" — in other words, "alliance of the ten tribes". Byzantine chronicles gave this name to the Hungarians; the chroniclers mistakenly assumed that the Hungarians had Turkic origins, based on their Turkic-nomadic customs and appearance, despite the Finno-Ugric language of the people. The Hungarian tribes later actually formed an alliance of the seven Hungarian and three Khazarian tribes, but the name originates from the time before this, and first applied to the original seven Hungarian tribes. The ethnonym ''Hunni'' (referring to the Huns) has influenced the Latin (and English) spelling.
:
★ Uhorshchyna (Угорщина, Ukrainian), Vuhorščyna (Вугоршчына, Belarusian), Węgry (Polish), Wędżierskô (Kashubian), and Ugre in Old Russian: from the Turkic "on-ogur", see above. The same root emerges in the ethnonym Yugra, a people living in Siberia and distantly related to Hungarians.
:
★ Magyarország (native name - ''land of the Magyars''): According to a famous Hungarian chronicle (Simon of Kéza: ''Gesta Hunnorum et Hungarorum'', 1282), Magyar (Magor), the forefather of all Hungarians, had a brother named Hunor (the ancestor of the Huns); their father king Menrot, builder of the tower of Babel, equates to the Nimrod of the Hebrew Bible.
:
★ The Turkish language uses ''Macaristan'', a compound derived from a Turkish spelling of ''Magyar'' and the Persian suffix ''-stan'' meaning "country".

I

'Iceland':
:"Land of ice" (''Ísland'' in Icelandic). Popularly (but falsely) attributed to an attempt to dissuade outsiders from attempting to settle on the land. In fact the early settler/explorer Flóki Vilgerðarson coined the name after he spotted "a firth full of drift ice" to the north. This occurred during spring after an especially harsh winter during which all his livestock had died and he had started debating whether to leave.
'India':
''
:Derived from the original name ''Sindhu'' of the Indus River in modern-day Pakistan, which gave its name to the land of Sind. People later applied derivations of the Persian form of this name, ''Hind'', to all of modern Pakistan and India.
:
★ Bharat (Sanskrit name): Popular accounts derive "Bharat" from the name of either of two ancient kings named Bharata.
:
★ Hindustan (Hindi Name): The name Hind is derived from a a Persian pronunciation of Sind. The Persian -stān means country or land (cognate to Sanskrit sthāna "place, land").India is called al-Hind الهند in the Arabic language, and sometimes in Persian. (e.g. in the 11th century Tarik Al-Hind "history of India") and Hind هند in Persian. It also occurs intermittently in usage within India, such as in the phrase Jai Hind. The terms Hind and Hindustan were current in Persian and Arabic from the 11th century Islamic conquests: the rulers in the Sultanate and Mughal periods called their Indian dominion, centred around Delhi, Hindustan.
The word Hindu (हिन्दु) was loaned from Persian into Sanskrit in early medieval times and is attested — in the sense of dwellers of the Indian subcontinent, in some texts, such as Bhavishya Purāna, Kālikā Purāna, Merutantra, Rāmakosha, Hemantakavikosha and Adbhutarūpakosha.
Hindustan was in use synonymously with India during the British Raj. The term is from the Persian Hindustān هندوستان, as is the term Hindu itself. It entered the English language in the 17th century. In the 19th century, the term as used in English referred to the northern region of India between the Indus and Brahmaputra and between the Himalayas and the Vindhyas in particular, hence the term Hindustani for the Hindi-Urdu language.
:
★ ''rGya.gar'' (Dzongkha), ''rGya.gar.yal'' (Tibetan variant):
:
★ ''hodu'' (Hebrew:
'Indonesia':
:A pseudo-Greek name, apparently invented in the mid-19th century to mean "Indies Islands", from the Greek νῆσος ''nēsos'' "island", added to the country name ''India''. (Europeans previously referred to Indonesia as the "East Indies".)
:
★ Dutch East Indies/Nederlands Oost-Indie (former name): after the former colonial ruler (Netherlands)
:
★ Nam Dương (Vietnamese variant):
'Iran':
:"Land of the Aryans" or "land of the free". The term "Arya" derived from the PIE (Proto Indo-European), and generally carrying the meaning of "noble" or "free", cognate with the Greek-derived word "aristocrat".
:
★ Persia (former name): from Latin, via Greek "Persis", from Old Persian "Paarsa", a placename of a central district within the region, modern Fars. A common Hellenistic folk-etymology derives "Persia" from "Land of Perseus".
:
★ Uajemi (Swahili variant): from the word ''Ajam'' which Arabs used to refer to any ethnics which are not Arab, including Persians. The Arabic word ''Ajam'' means "the ones whose language we don't understand".
'Iraq':
:From the city of Erech/Uruk (also known as "Warka") near the river Euphrates. Some archaeologists regard Uruk as the first major Sumerian city. Another theory suggests that ''Iraq'' derives from ''Irak'', which in older Iranian languages meant ''the Lesser Iran''. Note that the natives of the western part of today's Iran also called their area "the Persian Iraq" for many centuries.
:
★ Mesopotamia (ancient name and Greek variant): a loan-translation (Greek ''meso-'' (between) and ''potamos'' (river)) of the ancient Semitic ''Beth-Nahrin'', "Between the Rivers", a reference to the Tigris and Euphrates.
'Ireland':
:After Éire from Proto-Celtic ''
★ Īweriū'' "the fertile place" or "Place of Éire (Eriu)" a Celtic fertility goddess. Often mistakenly derived as "Land of Iron", or from a reflex of Proto-Indo-European ''
★ arya'', or from variations of the Irish word for ''west'' (modern Irish ''iar'', ''iarthar'').
:
★ Hibernia (ancient name and Latin variant): apparently assimilated to Latin ''hibernus'' (wintry).
:
★ Ireland is known as ''Eirinn'' in Scottish Gaelic, from a grammatical case of ''Éire''. In fellow Celtic language Welsh it is ''Iwerddon'', in Cornish it is ''Ywerdhon'' or ''Worthen'' and in Breton it is ''Iwerzhon''.
:
★ In Gaelic bardic tradition Ireland is also known by the poetical names of ''Banbha'' (meaning ''piglet'') and ''Fódhla''. In Gaelic myth, Ériu, Banbha and Fódla were three goddesses who greeted the Milesians upon their arrival in Ireland, and who granted them custodianship of the island.
'Israel':
:Israel takes its name from the biblical patriarch Jacob, later known as ''Israel'', literally meaning "struggled with God/he struggles with God". According to the account in the Book of Genesis, Jacob wrestled with a stranger (in later tradition said to have been an angel) at a river ford and won through perseverance. God then changed his name to ''Israel'' signifying that he had deliberated with God and won as he had wrestled and won with men.
'Italy':
Main articles: Italy#Etymology, History of Italy#Origins of the name, :wikt:Italy#Etymology

:From Latin ''Italia'', the name having entered Latin from a non-Latin source. The etymology of ''Italia'' probably directly relates to an ancient Greek word ''italos'' (bull), from PIE ''
★ wet''; the Greek word follows the sound-changes from Proto-Indo-European to Greek, but the Latin equivalent ''vitulus'' (young bull) from this root, does not. Speakers of ancient Oscan called Italy ''Viteliu'', also from PIE ''
★ wet''. Varro wrote that the region got its name from the excellence and abundance of its cattle (''italos'', "bull" hence ''italia''). Some disagree with this etymology. Compare Italus.
:
★ Friagi or Friaz' in Old Russian: from the Byzantine appellation for the medieval Franks.
:
★ Valland (variant in Icelandic): ''land of "valer"'', (an Old Norse name for Celts, later also used for the Romanized tribes).
:
★ Włochy (Polish) and Olaszország (Hungarian): from Gothic ''walh'', the same root as in Valland, see details under "Wallachia" below.
'Ivory Coast':
:''see Côte d'Ivoire above''

J

'Jamaica':
:Taíno/Arawak Indian "Xaymaca" or "Hamaica", "Land of wood and water" or perhaps "Land of Springs".
'Japan':
:The English name of "Japan" comes from Chinese pronunciation of the characters 日本 (pinyin: ''rìběn''), or "sun-origin", i.e. "Land of the Rising Sun", indicating Japan as lying to the east of China (where the sun rises). Also formerly known as the "Empire of the Sun". See also Names of Japan.
:
★ ''Nihon'' / ''Nippon'': Japanese name, from the local pronunciation of the same characters as above.
'Jarvis Island' (territory of the United States of America):
:The island was named after the owners Edward, Thomas, and William Jarvis of the British ship ''Eliza Francis'' by her commander, one Captain Brown, who discovered the island.
'Jersey':
:The Norse suffix -ey means island and is found in many parts of the British Isles. The significance of the first part of the island's toponym is unclear. Among theories are that it derives from ''jarth'' (Norse: earth) or jarl (earl), or perhaps a personal name, Geirr, to give "Geirr's Island".
'Johnston Atoll' (territory of the United States of America):
:Named after Captain Charles J. Johnston, the commanding officer of the ship ''Cornwallis'', who came across the atoll on 14 December, 1807.
'Jordan':
:After the river Jordan, the name of which derives from the Hebrew and Canaanite root ''yrd'' — "descend" (into the Dead Sea.) The river Jordan forms part of the border between Jordan and Israel/West Bank. In classical times, the region (known as ''Nabataea'') encompassed territories on both sides of the River Jordan, infrequently also territories on the Sinai peninsula in Africa.
:
★ Transjordan (former name): "Trans" means "across" or "beyond" i.e. east of the river Jordan.
:
★ ''Urdun'' (Arabic), literal translation of name Jordan, sometimes spelled ''Urdan''
'Juan de Nova' (territory of France):
:Named after João da Nova, a 15th century Portuguese explorer/navigator.

K

'Kazakhstan':
:Means "land of the Kazakhs". The word "Kazakh" does not have a straightforward exact English translation, but it means something along the lines of "independent/rebellious/wanderer/brave/free". The Russian term ''kazak'' (казак) - "cossack" in English - offers a cognate word. ''-stan'' as a Persian suffix means "land".
'Kenya':
:After Mount Kenya, from the Kĩkũyũ name "Kere-Nyaga" ("Mountain of Whiteness").
:
★ British East Africa (former name): after its geographical position on the continent of Africa and the former colonial power (Britain).
:''See also Britain above and Africa on the Placename etymology page.''
'Kingman Reef' (territory of the United States of America):
:Named after Captain W.E. Kingman, who came across the reef whilst sailing in the boat ''Shooting Star'' on 29 November, 1853.
'Kiribati':
:An adaptation of "Gilbert", from the former European name the "Gilbert Islands". Note the pronunciation of "Kiribati": //.
:
★ Gilbert Islands (former name): named after the British Captain Thomas Gilbert, who sighted the islands in 1788.
'Korea' (North and South):
:After the Goryeo Dynasty, the first Korean dynasty visited by Persian merchants who referred to Koryŏ (Goryeo) as Korea. The name of the Goryeo Dynasty itself appears to be derived from a traditional name for the "race" of people, known in Classical Chinese as Gāolí (), who founded various ancient states and empires in the area of Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula, such as Ancient Joseon and Goguryeo. At present, South Koreans call Korea ''Hanguk'', while North Koreans call it ''Joseon'', the latter of which probably originated as a local ethnonym's phonetic transcription.
:''See also: Names of Korea''
'Kuwait':
:From the Arabic diminutive form of "Kut/Kout" meaning "fortress built near water".
'Kyrgyzstan':
:Derives from three words — ''kyrg'' meaning "forty", ''yz'' meaning "tribes" and ''-stan'' meaning "land" in Persian — "land of forty tribes".
:Another version is - ''kyrg'' meaning "forty", ''kyz'' meaning "girl" and ''-stan'' meaning "land" in Persian, which means "the land of forty girls".

L

'Laos':
:Name coined under French rule, derived from Lao ''lao'' meaning "a Laotian" or "Laotian", possibly originally from an ancient Indian word ''lava''. ''Lava'' names one of the twin sons of the god Rama. Might also be from "Ai-Lao" the old Chinese name for the Tai ethnic groups of which the Lao people belong to.^[9] Formerly known as "Lan Xang" or "land of a million elephants".
'Latvia':
:Derived from the regional name "Latgale", itself a hydronym, most likely of Germanic origin.
:''See also Lithuania below''
'Lebanon':
:The name Lebanon ("''Lubnān''" in standard Arabic; "''Lebnan''" or "''Lebnèn''" in local dialect) is derived from the Semitic root "LBN", which is linked to several closely-related meanings in various languages, such as white and milk. This is regarded as reference to the snow-capped Mount Lebanon. Occurrences of the name have been found in three of the twelve tablets of the Epic of Gilgamesh (2900 bc), the texts of the library of Ebla (2400 bc), and the Bible. The word Lebanon is also mentioned 71 times in the Old Testament.
'Lesotho':
:After the indigenous Sotho people, whose own name means "black" or "dark-skinned".
'Liberia':
:From the Latin ''liber'', "free", so named from the establishment of the Liberian state as a homeland for freed African-American slaves.
'Libya':
:After an ancient Berber tribe called ''Libyans'' by the Greeks and ''Rbw'' by the Egyptians. Up to and until the country's independence, the term "Libya" generally applied only to the vast desert interposed between the Tripolitanian Lowland and the Fazzan plateau (to the west) and Egypt's Nile river valley (to the east). With "Tripoli" the name of new country's capital and the old northeastern regional name 'Cyrenaica' having passed into obsolescence, "Libya" became the convenient name for the country, despite the fact that much of the Libyan desert actually forms part of Egyptian territory.
'Liechtenstein':
:From the German "Light stone" ("light" as in "bright"). The country took its name from the Liechtenstein dynasty, which purchased and united the counties of Schellenburg and Vaduz. The Holy Roman Emperor allowed the dynasty to rename the new property after itself. Liechtenstein and Luxembourg are the only German-speaking former Holy Roman Empire duchies not to be assimilated by the motherlands of Germany, Austria, or Switzerland.
'Lithuania':
:Modern scholars tend to connect this name with the Latin "litus" (see littoral), but no proof exists of any similar regional hydronym. "Litve", a Latin variant of the toponym, appears in a 1009 chronicle describing an archbishop "struck over the head by pagans in Lituae". A 16th-century scholar associated the word with the Latin word "litus" (tubes) — a possible reference to wooden trumpets played by Lithuanian tribesmen. The country name "Latvia" and its region "Latgalia" may share the etymology of "Lithuania". A popular belief is that the country's name in Lithuanian language (Lietuva) is derived from a word "lietus" (rain), and means "a rainy place".
:
★ Lithuanian: ''Lietuva''
'Luxembourg':
:From Celtic ''Lucilem'' "small" (cognate to English "little") and Germanic ''burg'' "castle", thus ''lucilemburg'' "little castle".

M

'Republic of Macedonia':
:Known in the United Nations as the ''former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia'', the country is named after the ancient people named Macedonians. This has resulted in a naming dispute with the Greek people who also call themselves Macedonians, who consider themselves the rightful heirs of the legacy of the ancient people. According to Hesiod, the Macedonians were named for king Makedon, the founder of the kingdom, a son of Zeus and a grandson of Deucalion, the common ancestor of all Greeks. The etymology of the name is believed to be from the Greek root ''mak-'' (''long'' or ''tall''), possibly signifying the Pierian highlands where the Macedonians first settled.
'Madagascar':
:From the name of the island in Malagasy language: ''Madagasikara'', itself derived from the proto-Malay "end of the Earth", a reference to the island's long distance by sea from an earlier homeland in Southeast Asia.
'Malawi':
:Possibly based on a native word meaning "flaming water" or "tongues of fire," believed to have derived from the sun's dazzling reflections on Lake Malawi. But President Hastings Banda, the founding President of Malawi, reported in interviews that in the 1940s he saw a "Lac Maravi" shown in "Bororo" country on an antique French map titled "La Basse Guinee Con[t]enant Les Royaumes de Loango, de Congo, d'Angola et de Benguela" and he liked the name "Malawi" better than "Nyasa" (or "Maravi"). "Lac Marawi" does not necessarily correspond to today's Lake Malawi. Banda had such influence at the time of independence in 1964 that he named the former Nyasaland "Malawi" himself, and the name has stuck.
:
★ Nyasaland (former name): "Nyasa" literally means "lake" in the local indigenous languages. The name applied to Lake Malawi (formerly Lake Nyasa, or "Niassa").
'Malaysia':
:Land of the Malay people. The country bore the name Malaya until 1963 following the accession of Singapore (seceded in 1965), Sabah and Sarawak in Borneo. The change of name reflected the expansion of the country's boundaries beyond Malay Peninsula. The adjective ''Malaysian'' refers to nationality of all races while ''Malay'' specifically refers to the native Malay people which make up about half of the total population.
'Maldives':
:From Arabic ''Mahal''("palace") or "Dhibat-al-Mahal / Dhibat Mahal" as Arabs used to refer to the country. Therefore referring to the Arabic terminology it could mean "Palace Islands" as the main island, Malé, held the palace of the islands' Sultan. Some scholars believe that the name "Maldives" derives from the Sanskrit maladvipa, meaning "garland of islands". Some sources say Tamil ''malai'' or Malayalam ''mala'' "mountain(s)"), and Sanskrit ''diva'', "island", thus "Mountain Islands"
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★ Dhivehi Raajje (Maldivian name): "Kingdom of Maldivians". Dhivehi is a noun describing the Dhives people (Maldivians) and their language "Dhivehi" simultaneously.
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★ Maladwipa (Sanskrit for "garland (''mala'', pronounced /maalaa/) of islands"; or more likely "small islands" from ''mala'' (pronounced /mala/) meaning "small".
:
★ Dhibat Mahal (Arabic)
'Mali':
:After the ancient West African kingdom of the same name, upon which a large part of the modern state lies. The word "Mali" came in turn from the Malinké people.
'Malta':
:From the Phoenician root ''MLT'' meaning "refuge". The term may have survived due to the existence of the Greek and Latin word ''melitta'' or "honey", the name of the island in classical times, and also the major export from the island during those centuries. The modern name comes from Maltese, previously from Arabic ملطة ''Malṭah'', previously of the same Phoenician origin.
'Isle of Man':
:The island's name in both English and Manx (Mannin) derives from Mannanán mac Lir, the Brythonic and Gaelic equivalent of the god Poseidon.
'Marshall Islands':
:Named after British Captain John Marshall, who first documented the existence of the islands in 1788.
'Martinique' (territory of France):
:When Christopher Columbus landed on the island in 1502 (he had sailed past it in 1493 but neglected to land) he named it in honour of St. Martin.
'Mauritania':
:Misnamed after the classical Mauretania in northern Morocco, itself named after the Berber Mauri tribe.
'Mauritius':
:Named ''Prins Maurits van Nassaueiland'' in 1598 after Maurice of Nassau (1567 - 1625), Stadtholder of Holland Prince of Orange (1585 - 1625).
'Mayotte' (territory of France):
:The name is a French corruption of the native "Maore" or "Mawuti" sultanates present on the island circa 1500.
'Mexico'
Main articles: Etymology of Mexico

:After the Mexica branch of the Aztecs. The origin of the term "Mexxica" remains uncertain. Some take it as the old Nahuatl word for the sun. Others say it derived from the name of the leader Mexitli. Yet others simply ascribe it to a type of weed that grows in Lake Texcoco. Leon Portilla suggests that it means "navel of the moon" from Nahuatl metztli (moon) and xictli (navel). Alternatively, it could mean "navel of the maguey" (Nahuatl ''metl''). Also see Mexican state name etymologies.
'Micronesia'
:A name coined from the Greek words ''mikros'' (small) and ''nesos'' (island) — "small islands".
'Midway Islands' (territory of the United States of America):
:Named after their geographic location midway between somewhere and somewhere else in the Pacific ocean. Originally named the Middlebrook Islands or the Brook Islands, after their discoverer Captain N.C. Middlebrooks ("Captain Brooks").
'Moldova'
:From the Moldova River in Romania, possibly from Gothic ''Mulda'' (dust, mud) via the '' itself remains controversial.
:''See also: origin of the term Slav''
'Slovenia':
:From the Slavic "Slavs". The origin of the word '' itself remains controversial.
:''See also: origin of the term Slav''
'Solomon Islands':
:The Spanish explorer Alvaro de Mendaña y Neyra named the islands in 1567/8. Expecting to find a lot of gold there, he named them after the Biblical King Solomon of Israel, renowned for his great wisdom, wealth, and power.
'Somalia':
:Takes its name from the ''Somalis'', its indigenous people. The eytmology of their name remains uncertain, but various sources have proposed the following:
:
★ From a Cushitic word meaning "dark," or "black," a reference to the color of their own skin.
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★ From a local phrase ''soo maal'' which means "go and milk," implying a friendly people who offered milk to their guests.
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★ From the name of an ancient and mythical figure-patriarch, who almost all Somalis directly link to, known ''Samaale''.
'South Africa':
:Takes its name from its geographical location on the continent of Africa.
:
★ Suid-Afrika (Afrikaans): "South[ern] Africa"
:
★ ''Aifric Theas'' (Irish): "Southern Africa"
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★ Azania (alternative name): some opponents of the white-minority rule of the country used the name ''Azania'' in place of "South Africa" . The origin of this name remains uncertain, but the name has referred to various parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Recently, two suggestions for the origin of the word have emerged. The first cites the Arabic ''`ajam'' ("foreigner, non-Arab"). The second references the Greek verb ''azainein'' ("to dry, parch"), which fits the identification of Azania with arid sub-Saharan Africa.
:''See also Africa on the Placename etymology page.''
'South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands' (territory of the United Kingdom):
:On 17 January 1775 the British Captain James Cook landed on the main island and named it the "Isle of Georgia" in honour of King George III of the United Kingdom. He named the South Sandwich Islands after John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, who served as the First Lord of the Admiralty at the time and who had helped fund Cook's explorations.
'South Korea':
:After the location in Korea.
:''See also Korea above''
'''Soviet Union''':
:Shortening of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The word ''soviet'' (), a Russian abstract noun, means 'advice', 'counsel', or 'council', and comes from Slavic roots connoting "shared or common" and "knowledge".
'Spain':
:Phoenician/Punic אי שפנים ''ʾÎ-šəpānîm'' "isle of hyraxes". The Phoenician settlers found hares in abundance, and mistook them for hyraxes of Africa; thus they named the land in their Canaanite dialect. The Latin-speaking Romans adapted the name as ''Hispania''. The Latin name was altered among the Romance languages, and entered English from Norman French ''Spagne''.
'Sri Lanka':
:"Resplendent Lanka" in Sanskrit, the name "Lanka" sometimes appears translated as "island" - "magnificent island".
:
★ Serendip (ancient name): derived from the Sanskrit "sharan-dweepa", meaning either "island of salvation".
:
★ Ceylon (English), Ceilão (Portuguese), Seilan (former names): from the Pali ''Sinhalana'' meaning "land of the lions".
'Sudan':
:From the Arabic ''Bilad as-Sudan'', "Land of the blacks". Originally referred to most of the Sahel region.
'Suriname':
:After the Surinen people, the earliest known native American inhabitants of the region.
'Svalbard' (territory of Norway):
:Name from Norse roots meaning "cold edge".
'Swaziland':
:Named after the Swazi people, the dominant ethnic group in the country. The word "Swazi" derives from Mswati I, a former king of Swaziland.
'Sweden':
:An old English plural form of Swede. The exact development of the ethnonym remains uncertain, but it certainly derives from the Old English ''Sweoðeod'', in Old Norse: ''Sviþjoð''. The etymology of the first element, ''Svi'', links to the PIE ''
★ suos'' (one's own, of one's own kin). The last element, ''þjoð'', means "people", cognate with ''deut'' in Deutsch and ''teut'' in Teutons.
:
★ Sverige (native name): derives from the phrase ''Svia Rike'', meaning "the realm of the Swedes" (possibly through Danish, even though a similar linguistic evolution happened within Swedish: mik->mig).
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★ An tSualainn (Irish name): means (literally) ''Swedeland'' and is formed from an ethnonym ''Sua'', evidently derived from ''Svia'' (see above) and ''-lann'', a common suffix denoting abstract nouns in Irish. The inclusion of ''an'', the singular definite article, as well as the elipsis ''t'' is necessary for grammatical purposes.
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★ Ruotsi (Finnish), Rootsi (Estonian), Rūotšmō (Livonian), Ruoŧŧa (Sami): probably from a Varangian people called the Rus', originating from Roslagen in Svealand. Scholars debate the meaning of ''rus'', but it probably originates from the element ''roþs-'' ("relating to rowing") which has the same origin as ''row''.
:''See also Etymology of Rus and derivatives and Russia above''
'Switzerland':
:From the toponym Schwyz (see there) first attested AD 972 as ''Suittes'' derived from an allemanic proper name Suito
:
★ Helvetia (ancient Latin name), after the celtic Helvetii people
'Syria':
:From the ancient Greek name for the ancient state of Assyria, although the original heartland of ancient Assyria actually lies in modern Iraq. Before the Greeks, the area of the modern state of Syria had the name ''Aram'', after which the Aramaic language, a former ''lingua franca'' of the Middle East still spoken in a few villages there today, takes its name.

T

'Taiwan' (Republic of China):
:The Han characters used today mean "Terraced Bay" in Chinese (terraced rice fields typify the Taiwanese landscape). However, older characters (e.g. 台員) have entirely different meanings. Moreover, some scholars believe the characters serve merely as convenient phonetic vehicles for writing down an older Austronesian name. In the early 17th century, when the Dutch East India Company came to build a commercial post at Fort Zeelandia (today's Tainan), they allegedly adopted the name of an aboriginal tribe transliterated as "Tayouan" or "Teyowan" in their records. Chinese merchants (and, later, Chinese officials) also adopted this same name, although different transliteration into Han characters tended to obscure the real etymology by sound, and often evoked varying myths and imaginings. An old-fashioned story traced "Taiwan" to a Hokkien (Minnan) phrase (埋冤) with the same pronunciation, meaning "burying the unjustly dead," suggesting the riskiness of the sea journey to Taiwan. But this kind of story has given way to more persuasive evidence from ethnological and colonial sources.
:
★ Formosa (former name): Portuguese for ''beautiful'', Presumably because of the beauty of the island.
'Tajikistan':
Main articles: Tajiks

:"Tajikistan" or "Tojikiston" (alternative name) means "land of the Tajiks", with "Tajik" being an alternative name of the Persians. Tajikistan is the only country from all of Soviet Union Commonwealth which is persian speaking and its history goes back to Persian Empire.
: The root word "Toj" is derived from Persian language meaning "crown". Because of the influence of Russians during the Soviet period, the root word "Toj" changed slightly and by the time the word became "tojik". Literally meaning of "Tajikistan" is "place where people have crowns."
: Another possible root is the Tibetans call all Persians "Tag Dzig" (Pronounced "Tajik") but in Tibetan this also means "tiger-leopard". This could explain why so many Tibetan legends about their western neighbours feature tiger/leopard combinations. The suffix ''-stan'', from Persian, means "land".
'Tanzania':
:A combination of the names of two states that merged to form this country, Tanganyika, and Zanzibar. Tanganyika takes its name from the lake in the area, first visited by a European in 1858 in the person of Sir Richard Burton. Burton explained the meaning from local language as ''tou tanganyka'' meaning "to join", giving the sense "where waters met". In 1871, however, Henry Stanley said the word came from ''Tonga'', "island" and ''hika'', "flat". Both theories remain uncertain. — Zanzibar derives its name from the ''Zengi'' or ''Zengj'', a local people whose own name means "black". This root joined to the Arabic ''barr'', which means "coast" or "shore".
'Thailand':
:From the native Thai ''thai'', meaning free, combined with the suffix ''land''; hence "land of the free".
:
★ Siam (former name): Thai people call their territory by this word since Sukhothai period. This word became to the name of this country since the reign of the king Rama VI or King Chulalongkorn. And it was changed to Thailand in the reign of King Rama VII by the government of siam at that time. the word "Siam" probably deriving from the Pāli toponym ''Suvarnabhuma'' "Land of Gold", the ultimate root the Pāli root "sama", which variously denoted different shades of color, most often brown or yellow, but sometimes green or black.
'Togo':
:From the settlement Togo, currently Togoville. In Ewe, ''to'' means "water" and ''go'', "shore".
:
★ French Togoland (former name): See Togo (above) and France (above).
'Tokelau' (territory of New Zealand):
:From the Tokelauan "North" or "Northern", describing the islands' location relative to Samoa. The Tokelauan people traditionally originated as settlers from Samoa.
'Tonga':
:From the Tongan "South" or "southern", describing the islands' location relative to Samoa.
:
★ Friendly Islands (former name): named by Captain James Cook in 1773 after the friendliness and hospitality of the people he met on the islands.
'Trinidad and Tobago':
:Christopher Columbus encountered the island of Trinidad on July 31, 1498 and named it after the Holy Trinity. Columbus reported seeing Tobago, which he named ''Bella Forma'', but did not land on the island. The name ''Tobago'' probably derivesfrom the tobacco grown and smoked by the natives.
:
★ "Kairi" or "Iere" (old Amerindian name for Trinidad): Usually translated as ''The Land of the Hummingbird'', although others have reported that it simply meant ''island''.
'Tromelin Island' (territory of France):
:From the ''Chevalier de Tromelin'', a French Royal Navy officer, captain of the French corvette ''La Dauphine'', who visited the island in 1776 [2].
'Tunisia':
:After its capital Tunis, whose name possibly derives from a Berber word signifying a small cape ([3] in French).
'Turkey':
:The Turkish name ''Türkiye'' subdivides into two words: ''Türk'', which refers to "''strong''" in Turkish and usually signifies the habitants of Turkey or a member of Turkish nation; and the Arabic suffix ''iye'' which means "''owner''" or "''related to''". The root appears commonly among early Altaic tribal ethnonyms, and also appears in the name of the modern inhabitants of Turkmenistan.
:
★ Rum (Р'ом, ڕۆم Kurdish variant): after the Sultanate of Rüm. When the Persians met the Byzantines, these called themselves ''Rhomaioi'' ("Romans"), which gave the name ''Rüm'' to the region where the Turks would settle.
'Turkmenistan':
:From ''Turkmen'' and ''-stan''. ''-stan'' as a Persian suffix means "land". Thus: "land of the Turkmen people.
:''See also Turkey, above''
'Turks and Caicos Islands' (territory of the United Kingdom):
:"Turks" after the indigenous Turk's Head "fez" cactus; and "Caicos" from the indigenous Lucayan term "caya hico", meaning "string of islands".
'Tuvalu':
:From the native "eight islands" or "eight standing with each other" (Tuvalu actually consists of nine isands in Tuvalu - only eight of them traditionally inhabited). An earlier name, ''Niulakita'', the name of the first atoll settled in 1949, became suppressed.
:
★ Ellice Islands (former name): named after Edward Ellice, a British politician and merchant, by Captain Arent de Peyster, who sighted the islands in 1819 sailing on the ship ''Rebecca''. Ellice owned the cargo of the ship. The Ellice Islands received the name ''Tuvalu'' following a vote for secession from the Gilbert Islands (now Kiribati) in 1975/1976.

U

'Uganda':
:From the Swahili version of "Buganda", the kingdom of the 52 clans of the 'Baganda' people, the largest of the traditional kingdoms in present-day Uganda. British officials adopted the name Uganda in 1894.
'Ukraine':
:From the Slavic word ''ukraina'' ("country"), etymologically cognate with the word "krajina".
:''See also: Name of Ukraine''
'''Union of Soviet Socialist Republics''':
:Also called the ''Soviet Union'' for short. The word ''soviet'' (), a Russian abstract noun, mean 'advice', 'counsel', or 'council', but became an adjective denoting persons from the country.
'United Arab Emirates':
:The etymology of the term "Arab" or "Arabian" links with that of the place name "Arabia". The root of the word has many meanings in Semitic languages, including "west / sunset", "desert", "mingle", "merchant", "raven" and "comprehensible", all of which appear to have some relevance to the emergence of the name. ''Emirate'' refers to a territory ruled by an emir.
:
★ Trucial States, Trucial Oman (former names): Before 1971 English-speakers knew the area the country as the "Trucial States" or "Trucial Oman", in reference of a nineteenth-century truce between the British and Arab sheikhs. It borders Om