But come on, the UK as a name is kind of boring.
Great Britain, on the other hand, has a much more interesting etymology. The name Britain has its roots in a tribe of people that Greek explorer Pytheas came across in the land of Britain in the fourth century BCE. These people were called the Prettani, leading to Pytheas giving two names to the land he found them in—Brettania and Prettanike. These two names eventually led to the creation of just one name Pretannia, which sounds an awful lot like a name we still hear today, Britannia.
So, with the Prettani and the name Prettanike for the country, where did the B at the start of its name come from? It seems that when writing, Pytheas had a habit of using Ps and Bs interchangeably. It was the spelling with the B that stuck around when the Romans took over the land and dubbed it the Province of Britannia.
Yet this Roman province only covered modern day England and Wales, so what was going on with Scotland? Alas, the Romans could never truly conquer the Scottish, so the Scots stayed as they were, separated from Britain, with the Roman part of Britain eventually becoming known as the Kingdom of England.
The “great” in Great Britain kind of has two different meanings. The first being that it’s greater in size compared to France’s Brittany. But it officially got the title of Great Britain to refer to the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland when King James VI became king of both nations. Both countries came together to be called the United Kingdom of Great Britain.
Britain is also sometimes referred to by a different name, Blighty. While this might just sound like a cute pet name for the land, there is actually more history to it than that. The nickname was born out of a sense of homesickness that Brits who were away from the country came to use with affection during the peak of the Victorian rule of India, and in the trenches of World War I. It comes from the Urdu word vilayati, which means “foreign,” which was a common name Europeans visiting India would be called. At one point the v was misheard as a b, and bilayati became Blighty, blimey!
THE NETHERLANDS
If you think of this land of windmills, stroopwafel, clogs, and tulips, then you may have heard it referred to as a different name, Holland. The country, however, is actually called the Netherlands. So, why does this one nation have two seemingly interchangeable names, and, more importantly, where do these two names even come from?
What’s the difference between these two names? Simply put, Holland is a region of the Netherlands. Calling all of the Netherlands Holland would be like calling all of the United States of America just Texas. The region of Holland in the Netherlands is on the country’s west coast and is actually split into the two provinces of North and South Holland. The whole country gets mistakenly called Holland because so much of the nation’s identity is within the Holland regions. Holland is home to all the classically Dutch things, like the aforementioned windmills and tulips. Holland is also home to the some of the Netherlands’ most famous cities such as the Hague, Delft, Rotterdam, and of course, Amsterdam.
The name of the Netherlands does not have the most exciting of origins. It is simply the land of nether, but what exactly does this mean then? The word nether means a few, very similar things: low, under, and beneath, as in how a certain part of your body is called “the nether regions.” Or even how the hellscape in Minecraft is called the Nether. But the Netherlands has little to do with your private area or a blocky hell. The “nether” in Netherlands refers to just how low and flat the country is. In fact, about one-third of the country’s land is beneath sea level! This makes the Netherlands quite a nether land!
The name of Holland, however, is thought to come from the Old Dutch word for wood, holt, and the Old Dutch word for land, lant. This means the name in Old Dutch translates to Woodland, though weirdly there’s not actually that much woodland in Holland. A folklore etymology of the name Holland is that it comes from the term Hollow Land, once again referencing Holland’s below sea level geography.
THE ISLE OF MAN
Now, I know what you’re thinking: Is the Isle of Man even a country? Well sort of. It’s something that is called a crown dependency, meaning that it is part of the British crown but not a part of the UK. So, even though they use the British pound, they have their own variation of it, as well as their own flag, language, passport, and government.
At first glance, the name of the country might seem incredibly sexist—an island just for men?! But I can assure you that there are both men and women living on the Isle of Man. The “Man” in the Isle of Man does not refer to the entire male sex of the island, but rather one man, whose name also happens to be Man, as his full name is Manannan Mac y Lir in the Manx language. Manannan is a god of Celtic and Manx mythology, thought to be son of Lir, the Irish god of the sea, making his son lord of the sea. Manannan is believed to be the first ruler of the island who also lent his name to it. The Isle of Man’s inhabitants hold deeply onto their mythology, claiming that the severe winds, fog, and mists that cover the island at times are his cloak, protecting the island from outsiders.
What’s also interesting about the Isle of Man is the variety of languages that have been introduced to the island over its history. The island has roots in Celtic languages. The island’s capital, Douglas, is thought to come from the early Celtic duboglassio meaning “black river,” while the town of Ramsey on the island was given its name from the Viking settlers of the island and comes from the Old Norse gohrams-á, meaning “Wild Garlic River.”
JAPAN
Japan’s famous nickname is “the land of the rising sun,” but this nickname also shines some light (see what I did there?) on the country’s actual name too. The name has its roots all the way to the Chinese jih pun which translates into “sun rise.”
The Chinese referred to Japan by this name due to where Japan is in relation to China. Japan is east of China and, of course, it’s from the east that the sun rises. The names of Japan are often associated with China, as ancient China had a huge influence on the early civilizations of Japan. Yet, this wasn’t their first name for the country. Originally, China referred to Japan under the simple name Wa which is thought to mean several things ranging from submissive and obedient, to even meaning dwarf or pygmy!
Unsurprisingly, the people of Japan didn’t like this name. It was the Japanese Prince Shotoku who first coined the term “land of the rising sun” when writing to the Chinese emperor of the time. He referred to Japan as “the land of the rising sun” and to China as “the land of the setting sun,” which clearly is a nickname that hasn’t become as popular in China.
All of this led to Japan’s name in Kanji looking like this 日本. Kanji is one of the writing systems of Japan and has its origins in China. Yet, said aloud, these characters do not read as Japan; they read as Japan’s name in Japanese, Nippon.
As time went on, this name got misheard to the aforementioned one. The name of Nippon in Japanese became jih pun in Chinese. It was this name that Marco Polo heard of as a land of riches and gold. In his travels, he wrote the name down as Zipangu, which eventually turned into the name we all know today.
Countries are important and everything, but what would they really be without cities, towns, and all other kinds of settlements for the human race to excel in? The places we live can take all sorts of forms, from humble sleepy villages to huge metropolitan sprawls. Like with the countries, let’s ditch any sort of logical order and tour the planet, its cities, and their names!
LONDON
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