rel="nofollow" href="#u80d5de26-cb7c-5de2-96ed-35d514131c15">Hello!
Why hello there! You have made a very good decision in life which has resulted in your owning this book. Perhaps you were gifted The Origin of Names by some estranged family member, or maybe you purchased it for yourself after wandering aimlessly through a dark, musty bookstore. Nevertheless, you are here now! Welcome to this fun little book that I have had the honor of writing and that you shall have the honor of reading. There are so many fun and incredible facts throughout this book that I hope you enjoy reading and sharing with your friends and family. That’s what I love about these kinds of facts and etymologies—when you hear something so fascinating you can’t help but tell everyone you know? That is perhaps the biggest kick I get out of doing this.
Yet, maybe I am going a bit too fast for you. I am sure you have a lot of questions, unless you watch the YouTube channel. You might be thinking to yourself, Who even is this guy? and Why is he so obsessed with names? Well, let me do what I do best and explain all of that for you.
NAME EXPLAIN………EXPLAINED!
My name is Patrick Foote. The name Patrick has its roots all the way back to ancient Rome with the Patrician class of people—the Patricians being the noble founding families of Rome (though I fancy myself a bit more of a pleb). And the surname Foote seems to come from the Norse who came to Britain, deriving from fotr, thought to be the name given to messengers and fast runners, though if you’ve seen my physical health, you’d gather I am far from the fastest of runners.
If you read that and thought, That’s pretty boring and I definitely do not care to know where the names of countless other things came from, then not only do you have a very specific thought process, but this book is probably not for you, though the rest of the names being explained are much more exciting than my silly name. If you did read that and it sparked the slightest bit of interest, even just a flicker of curiosity about the world of etymology (etymology being the study of the origins of words which you’ll read quite a bit of here), then congratulations! You are just as weirdly fascinated in the history of words and names as I am, you big nerd!
So, that’s my name explained, but of course, I am more than just a name. I’m guessing a lot of you will know me from my popular YouTube channel Name Explain where I do exactly what the channel says it does—explain the names of various things! Countries, cities, animals, historic figures, food, video game characters, anything goes on the channel! Perhaps what’s most interesting is how I can pinpoint the exact moment I discovered just how interesting names and their origins can be.
My interest in names came way before I had any idea that it was going to work as a YouTube channel. I remember being stuck in the backseat of the car with my brother and parents upfront. We were horrendously lost in the Netherlands with seemingly no hope of finding the campsite which would be our home for the next couple of weeks. While very lost on our adventures, we ended up in a part of the Netherlands I never knew existed. It was a selection of islands surrounded by water, connected by bridges and underground tunnels. What an odd place to find yourself in! It was only after the camping trip was over (we eventually found our way), when I was back in Blighty that I took to Wikipedia to find out what this place was. The land is called Zeeland (its name in English is, unsurprisingly, Sealand) and it is, if you will, the Old Zeeland to the southern country of New Zealand.
Since learning this, this fun little fact stayed with me. Why was no one else talking about Old Zealand? And it stuck with me all through my many failed attempts at being a YouTuber. Until one day, while working on another now defunct channel, I decided to write a video script called Where’s Old Zealand? (and Other Old & New Places!), which eventually became just Where’s Old Zealand? I felt it was so different to the rest of my videos on that old channel that I made a whole new channel for it, I also came up with ideas for more videos about names, and simply dubbed the new channel Name Explain, and here we are now.
WHAT'S IN THIS BOOK?
In this book, you will find a multitude of names being explained, from the names of humble things like childhood toys and creepy-crawlies, to huge nations and even the planets in our solar system! My aim is to cover as much as I can in this simple book in a way that everyone can understand.
And what if you’re a longtime supporter of the channel and have seen all the videos on there? Well first off, thank you! My soul and bank account are much healthier because of you. Second, there are topics covered in this book that have never been covered on the channel. Think of this book as a best hits album! But with subjects already covered on the channel, there will be new facts sprinkled in. Perhaps, most importantly, you won’t have to deal with hearing me mispronouncing every word possible.
Let’s get into it!
If you are not reading this on a boat, plane, submarine, hot air balloon, moon, extraterrestrial planet, or literally the Sun (are you a bit warm by any chance?), then you are most likely reading this in a country! Each country on this planet has a deep history, a culture of its own and, of course, a name! Much like the history of the country, the names also have deep and interesting histories. A far more sensible book would put these countries in alphabetical, or maybe geographical order. This, however, isn’t that sensible book. Imagine this as something of a world tour. One moment you may be reading about a cold Nordic country, the next you are in the Caribbean. Let’s take a look!
RUSSIA
Let’s kick things off with the huge country of Russia. It can be hard to imagine just how big Russia is seeing it on a map, but did you know that the country covers eleven time zones? When it is midnight in Moscow, the people of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky are already getting on with their day. Russia is so huge that the entirety of the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Spain can fit into it with plenty of room to spare!
Like a lot of countries that we will come across, Russia was named after the people who lived and settled the land: in this case, the Rus’ people. The Rus’ were a tribe of Vikings who are thought to have come from Sweden in the ninth century. Even though the lands of Russia were populated at the time, some scholars believe that the local people of the town of Novgorod in Russia asked them to come to settle their disputes with each other.
Imagine arguing with your brother or sister so much that you both came to the decision to ask your parents for help. Well, the Rus’ stayed in the land, founding cities and opening up trade routes around the country. So much so that, by the sixteenth century, we have evidence the land was called Russi in Medieval Latin, meaning the people of Russia.
If Russia is named after the Rus’ people, then how did the Rus’ people get their name? It’s thought that their name comes from the Old Norse term rods-, meaning the men who row, as rowing was the main way the rods (and all other Vikings) traversed the waters around them.
PAKISTAN
When you hear a name like Pakistan, you would think its roots lie in the ancient world, as it’s an equally ancient-sounding name. Yet, what if I told you the origin of Pakistan’s name cannot just be pinpointed to an exact date, but also pinpointed to the exact location where it was coined? The time and place? Well, it wasn’t somewhere in India thousands of years ago, but it was first recorded on the 28th of January 1933 at 3 Humberstone Road, Cambridge, England.
It was in this house that Indian expat student Choudhary Rahmat Ali wrote his “Now or Never: Are We to Live or Perish Forever?” pamphlet.
