List of country-name etymologies
This list covers English-language country names with their etymologies. Some of these include notes on indigenous names and their etymologies. Countries in italics are endonyms or no longer exist as sovereign political entities.
A
[Afghanistan]
From Classical Persian افغان, from Bactrian αβαγανο, first attested in the fourth century AD, most likely a compound of *apāka-, from Proto-Iranian *Hapá, from Proto-Indo-Iranian *Hapá, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂epó + *-āna, from Proto-Indo-European *-nós, thus: "people from a distant land". Various scholars have proposed Sanskrit etymologies since the nineteenth century, but linguist Johnny Cheung notes that these are "extremely difficult to reconcile" with recent evidence pointing to a Bactrian source.[Australia]
B
[Bangladesh]
The etymology of Bangladesh can be traced to the early 20th century, when Bengali patriotic songs, such as Namo Namo Namo Bangladesh Momo by Kazi Nazrul Islam and Aaji Bangladesher Hridoy by Rabindranath Tagore, used the term. The term Bangladesh was often written as two words, Bangla Desh, in the past. Starting in the 1950s, Bengali nationalists used the term in political rallies in East Pakistan.The exact origin of the word Bangla is unknown, though it is believed to come from "Vanga", an ancient kingdom mentioned in world's largest Epic Mahabharat even Ramayan and geopolitical division on the Ganges delta in the Indian subcontinent. It was located in southern Bengal, with the core region including present-day southern West Bengal and southwestern Bangladesh. The suffix "al" came to be added to it from the fact that the ancient rajas of this land raised mounds of earth 10 feet high and 20 in breadth in lowlands at the foot of the hills which were called "al". From this suffix added to the Bung, the name Bengal arose and gained currency". Support to this view is found in Ghulam Husain Salim's Riyaz-us-Salatin.
Other theories point to a Bronze Age proto-Dravidian tribe, the Austric word "Bonga", and the Iron Age Vanga Kingdom. The Indo-Aryan suffix Desh is derived from the Sanskrit word deśha, which means "land" or "country". Hence, the name Bangladesh means "Land of Bengal" or "Country of Bengal".Sanskrit language influenced the name of Bangladesh. The term Vanga was used in the Sanskrit texts.
The term Bangla denotes both the Bengal region and the Bengali language. The earliest known usage of the term is the Nesari plate in 805 AD. The term Vangaladesa is found in 11th-century South Indian records. The term gained official status during the Sultanate of Bengal in the 14th century. Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah proclaimed himself as the first "Shah of Bangala" in 1342. The word Bangla became the most common name for the region during the Islamic period. The Portuguese referred to the region as Bengala in the 16th century.
[Bosnia and Herzegovina]
[Brunei]
- Full name of Brunei is Brunei Darussalam, Darussalam is in Arabic which mean the Abode of Peace.
- :Etymology unknown. Modern folk etymology derives the name Brunei from a Malay exclamation Barunah!, supposedly exclaimed by Awang Alak Betatar, the legendary 14th-century sultan, upon landing on Borneo or upon moving from Garang to the Brunei River delta. An earlier folk etymology traced it to his alleged membership in an Arabian tribe called the Buranun. Chinese sources recording a mission from the king of "Boni" as early as 978 and a later "P'o-li" seem to contradict these but may refer to Borneo as a whole. It is mentioned in the 15th-century history of Java as a country conquered by Adaya Mingrat, general of Angka Wijaya, and around 1550 by the Italian Ludovico di Varthema under the name "island of Bornei". Other derivations include an Indian word for "seafarers", another for "land", or the Kelabit for the Limbang River. It is also said that the word 'Brunei' is said to have come from the Sanskrit word Bhūrṇi which means "land" or "earth" and Brunei could have been called Karpūradvīpa which means "camphor island" as camphor was one export Brunei was well known for in ancient times.
C
[China]
[Cuba]
E
[Estonia]
G
[Grenada]
I
[Italy]
L
[Lithuania]
M
[Mauritania]
[Morocco]
N
[Nigeria]
P
[Pakistan]
The name literally means "Land of the Pure" in Urdu and Persian. It was coined in 1933 as Pakstan by Choudhry Rahmat Ali, a Pakistan Movement activist, who published it in his pamphlet Now or Never, using it as an acronym referring to the names of the five northwestern regions of the British Indian Empire: Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Sindh, and Baluchistan". The letter i was incorporated to ease pronunciation and form the linguistically correct and meaningful name.[Palestine]
The English word Palestine is derived from the Latin Palestina, which is derived from the Ancient Greek Παλαιστίνη, which is in turn derived from the Hebrew פלשתS
[Saudi Arabia]
[Slovakia]
[Sri Lanka]
T
[Tunisia]
[Turkey]
- The Greek cognate of this name, Tourkia was used by the Byzantine [List of Byzantine Empire|Byzantine emperors|emperor and scholar] Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in his book De Administrando Imperio; though in his use, "Turks" always referred to Magyars.
- The Ottoman Empire was sometimes referred to as Turkey or the Turkish Empire among its contemporaries.
- The medieval Khazar Empire, a Turkic state on the northern shores of the Black and Caspian seas, was referred to as Tourkia in Byzantine sources.
- Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo) is known in local language as "Sulṭanat Misr al-Mamālīk Dawla al-Turkiyya"