Origin of Each European Country Name

Country names and their origins are often really interesting, as you’ll see today when we talk about Europe. Some of these names are certainly surprising and will no doubt leave you scratching your head. Don't miss today's epic video to find out where all these names come from!

🔖 MY SOCIAL PAGES

💭 Find more interesting stuff on:

All videos are based on publicly available information unless otherwise noted.

[sjlopez]

Where is Malta?! 😢😢😢😢 Malta is very much Europe!!! And Ukraine, too. My
Little geographic heart is broken.

🇲🇹🇲🇹🇲🇹🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦

[ismoouu]

Probably everyone in Austria knows the meaning "Eastern land", since it literally is named that in many European countries, including Austria.

[matejnagy]

Remind me again, since when is Kazachstan in Europe?
And also you forget Ukraine...
Matla is missing too

[corymorimacori]

I got a joke: I was Hungary 🇭🇺 so Iran 🇮🇷 to the store to get some Turkey 🇹🇷

Which I cooked in Greece 🇬🇷, and served with a side of Chile 🇨🇱, which I ate with my friends Jordan 🇯🇴, and Chad 🇹🇩. I also ordered Iraq 🇮🇶 of ribs. Chad 🇹🇩 checked the ribs and said we shouldn’t eat it because there was Moldova 🇲🇩 it. Later the waiter was Russian 🇷🇺 to get our Czech 🇨🇿. Sudanly 🇸🇩we had Togo 🇹🇬 because we were Ghana 🇬🇭 get in trouble because we didn’t Finnish 🇫🇮paying. But I’ve Benin 🇧🇯 trouble before, there was Norway 🇳🇴 they were going to catch me, I Congo 🇨🇬🇨🇩 much faster than they can.
Edit: Pls don’t get offended

[jeanclaudebugeja]

How isn't Malta on this list? There are countries smaller than Malta that are still included.

[Tanya_Maria]

Finland: U said the northern region is called Suomi. That's wrong. It's called Lappi or Lapland. "Suomi" is the finnish word for our whole country.

[jup]

I wonder if Ukraine and Malta was missed

[bara_]

Holland and The Netherlands are most definitely NOT the same thing. Holland refers to two provinces (North Holland and South Holland), while The Netherlands refers to the entire country. That is the same as saying that USA is equal to Dakota or Carolina.

Loved the video for the rest though!

[petertrudelljr]

You do know that Ukraine is European, right? Did I just miss them between Turkiye and the UK?

[diogeneslaertius]

15:27 Ukraine was never a part of Czechoslovakia. It was part of USSR at the time and earlier it was part of the Russian Empire.

[TomTom-yuxp]

Saying Germany comes from Germania doesn't really tell us the origin. Saying that a country is named after a tribe with the same name (e.g. Serbia named after the Serbs) also doesn't tell us anything. Cyprus/Kypros (pronounced koopros) is related to "copper" because copper is named after it. Its origin is much older and is disputed. "Dutch" doesn't come from Old English, it comes from an older Germanic word that's related to Old English thiod/theod and is also the source of the German "Deutsch" which means German. It originally meant "people." The Greek name for Ireland wasn't Lerna, it was Ierne. Ierne, Hibernia (Latin), and Eriu (Old Irish) come from a much older word that has been reconstructed as *Iveriu, which probably meant something like "abundant land." You should probably consult someone with a background in historical linguistics before producing videos like this.

[scy]

This is the kind of history that makes people like learning about history.

[daemotron]

A quick note on Herceg - it's not an "old" world for Duke. The English word Duke is derived from the French Duc, which itself is based on the Latin word dux (leader). The word herceg is also found in Hungarian, and also in German the title is Herzog. All these go back to the Germanic word herizogo, which originally means "army leader" (the Germanic word heri/her/heer/... originally means "many" and is (still) used for Army). TL;DR - not old, just Germanic origin vs. Roman origin.

[OptimusNero]

7:45 Speaking of the origin of Germany's name, it is quite obvious that the romans were immensely proud of creating it, since there are many people and titles of the Roman world with the name of Germania. For example, Emperor Caligula tried to rename the month of September as Germanicus (after his father), but he couldn't make it happen. Who did manage to rename September as Germanicus was Domitian, in honor of his presumed victories in Germania, maintaining said name change until his assassination. Imagine visiting Germany in Germanicus...

[krisk]

Any particular reason why you omitted Ukraine and provided very politically correct and distorted version for Russia?

[jame]

Me waiting for Malta, then it being skipped 😔

[MC-gjfg]

Germany is a weird one to me. It was called Germania in antiquity by Roma prior to Germany developing a collective identity, but once they did they've called the area Deutschland for the past 1200 years. The name apparently never caught on internationally though since nobody outside of Germany seems to call it that.

[ThrillSeeker]

The Wilhelm scream and spring sounds got me

[Pauly]

The "land of Ire" is pretty accurate as an Irish Man 😂<3

[rialobran]

When Pytheas of Massala around 325BCE he asked the inhabitants what they called the island they said 'Alba' (the Scottish still do) The people of Alba were the Prytani which later Latin scholars like Strabo added a 'B' so becoming Britannia, Alba became Albion.