The Old Names Of European Countries (& Why They Changed)

In this video, I explore the history of European countries and/or regions that have undergone name changes, focusing on seven examples: Bohemia - now Czechia, Dacia - Romania, Livonia - Latvia / Estonia, Caledonia - Scotland, Ruthenia - Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Castille - Spain, and Illyria - Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia, Croatia. I explore the origins of these historical names, often rooted in ancient tribes or geographical features, and discuss the cultural, political, and historical factors that led to their transformation into the modern names we recognize today. For instance, Bohemia's transition to Czechia reflects a unification of regions and a desire for a name representing all Czech lands. Similarly, Dacia's evolution into Romania signifies the region's Roman heritage.

Timestamps:
00:00 Europe's Old Names
00:45 Countries or Regions?
01:24 Bohemia to Czechia
03:43 Learning Languages
05:44 Dacia to Romania
07:33 Livonia to Latvia
09:08 Caledonia to Scotland
09:52 Ruthenia to Ukraine?
11:13 Castille to Spain
12:22 Illyria to Croatia?
14:00 Summary
14:26 Patreon Credits

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[lukalisjak]

In Czech, Bohemia has always been known as Čechy, which you can translate as Czechia. In fact, the Medieval document you show says exactly this, in Latin: Bohemia, itemque Czechia vocatur = Bohemia, which is also called Czechia. In most Slavic languages (and in Hungarian), there is no distinction between Czechia and Bohemia, Czechs and Bohemians. However, the distinction does exist in German (Böhmen vs. Tschechien), English and most western European languages. In Czechia itself, they just recently tried to introduce a new name for the country (Česko) to distinguish it from the historical region of Bohemia (Čechy): not sure how much it caught on, though. However, up to this day, this distinction doesn't exist in Polish, Slovenian, Hungarian: in those languages, there is one name (Czechy, Češka, Csehország) for both the historical region of Bohemia AND the modern independent state of Czechia.

[toxis]

the term Bohemia does not exist in czech language it is english and latin thing

[zhigis]

Prusia - a baltic tribe land, occupied by germans and the name adopted by the entire german empire at some point in history. And now it is Kaliningrad - the name who has no relation neither to the land or to the people.

[just_inker]

10:00 Ruthenia is still an old name for Ukraine, even on this map you can see a yellow area in Ukraine, which is called Rus' land, and that's what the original meaning was, before more territories came under Kyiv's rule, then it could have broadly applied to the territory we now know as Kievan Rus', but in ethnic sense it stayed as a name primarily for the territory of Ukraine for centuries.

[PresovaAnimates]

Honestly, I thought you were gonna talk about Alba for Scotland, instead of Caledonia. Another one that I think you should cover is Ireland, which was named Hibernia by the Romans.

[KarlKarpfen]

For Ukraine, it's important to mention, that Ruthenia was an intermediate name used by some foreigners. In old maps, "Russia" is roughly as often as Ruthenia. The core land of the Dominion of the Rus was Kyiv and Lviv, the rest were conquered later, so Ukraine is the historic Russia, quite like current day Lithuania is the historic Lithuanian core land, even though there once was a country called Poland-Lithuania which encompassed Smolensk and Dnipro.

[michelbuckley]

The part about Bohemia/Czechia is very inprecise. The Czechs never called themselves "Bohemians", as some commentors pointed out. I think we can cleary put a date from when "Bohemia" was no longer used: 1918, when Czechoslovakia was created and the Czechs were no longer ruled by the Austrians, with a short epilogue in the form of the "Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia" between 1939 and 1945.

[anthonyholroyd]

Great video.

As a Scot, I still identify with the name 'Caledonia', also our endonym, 'Alba'. Both are frequently used in Scottish art and music, so they haven't exactly fallen out of use here.

[Gurbejong]

The "cal" in Caledonia comes from the old pre-Roman Celts who didn't really have a border system as we have today, but had many places all throughout Europe, more like safe havens everywhere. Caledonia in Scotland, Callantsoog in Frisia or the Frisian name Gjalt, Gallia in France, Galicia in Spain, Portugal, Calella in Spain, Calabria in Italy, Gallipoli in Turkey, and so on. They were all connected in a way, but have been split up, isolated, and incorporated into other powers.

[rfvtgbzhn]

0:15 Carolingia was the name of the dynasty. The country which France was part of was still called Francia under Carolingian rule.

[johndeboyace]

Great grandfather emigrated to US from Bohemia when part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. My father visited the region with Patton’s 3rd Army during WW2.

[crylove]

9:50 you didn't mention any other name of Ukraine throughout time.
Kraina (U-kraine) literally means country in Ukrainian, and in old Ukrainian there's another version of a country Oukraina, idk what it means, but since old Ukrainian similar to current one, it feels like it means Oh-Ukraine, oh my country, oh my beautiful land.

[DC_Fedens]

Lusitania is still a VERY common name the Portuguese diaspora use. I was hoping you'd delve into it.

[HistoryPanda-ngwc]

The term Bohemia is the same as Hungary. There used to be Huns in Hungary and the Boi in Bohemia, but both of those people are gone and were gone for the entire medieval history where those two countries were defined. People speaking western languages should realize that Hungarians are not Huns but Magyars and that Bohemia isn't a different thing from Czech Republic. I often find these pro-german wehraboos online who disassociate czechs from the medieval kingdom, but it is simply false as in any slavic text from that kingdom, it is called the Czech Kingdom, Czech crown, lands of the Czech crown etc.

The Magyars and the Czechs never called themselves the old names and never claimed that past. The word for Bohemia is Čechy which means a land of Czechs. Word for the country is Česko which means a country of Czechs (english way of forming that word would be Czechland i guess). A surprising lot of modern names comes from medieval lack of knowledge and travel. Like the Dutch being taken from Deutch which is what all germanic people call themselves in their native languages. Or the Hungary issue.

[reyson]

I prefer the sound of Dacia, Illyria and Bohemia compared to their modern names, they sound more poetic.

[samsonsoturian]

Correction: Kievan Rus did not break up after the Mongol invasion simply because there never was a unified Kievan Rus. It was like the Holy Roman Empire that it was a patchwork of overlapping sovereign states.

[samsonsoturian]

Correction: The Romans didn't massacre two-thirds of Dacia because we simply have no idea what happened during that war except that large numbers of Romanian slaves entered Rome afterwards.

[Albanez]

I like some of your content, but you have to do more research! The fact that the name Illyria was used in the Middle Ages for a couple of kingdoms in modern day Croatia, the Yugoslavs have little to no connection to the ancient Illyrians. You should read about the Slavic migration during the 7th and 8th century AD. They were descendants of the Kievan Rus which sought more temperate climates by moving south into the Balkans. You mentioned one of the reasons why Illyria as a name completely disappeared: The Ottomans and their complete domination over the Balkanic people. While the Romans and Byzantines respected various cultures and peoples, giving them autonomy, freedom of religion and freedom to teach their language and customs. The second reason is the Slavs, which both fought and intermingled with Illyrians, Thracians, Greeks but ultimately turned the balkans into their own kingdom and sought to eliminate the culture and language of the peoples that lived there before their arrival. Many historians believe that modern Albanians are the descendants of the Illyrians, or better say, the Albanian language (which is a branch of its own, with no connection to Greek, Romance or Slavic languages) is the descendant of the Illyrian language/s.

I find some of your videos offensive when you intentionally or unintentionally trample on various ethnicities, languages and peoples, by omitting facts or by having done little research and half assing your way through these videos. I will remain subscribed and I have faith in you. Thanks for reading to the end and accepting critic.

[keroppibptista]

Took me until today to figure out why general knowledge’s mascot is a general

[caryca]

I'm from Poland and i've never heard that Czech was or is called Bohemia. But there is one problem with what you said. Every kid here knows about the legend of Lech, Czech and Rus. Long story short it says that those are 3 brothers, who started their own kingdooms: Lech started Poland (from Lechici if I'm correct), Rus started Russia (or lets day Ruś Kijowska, now Ukraine) and Czech started Czech. Polish wikipedia says that first apearance of this legend was in 1222, much, much earlier than you said in the film