Thetownend.com

I was just wondering after watching the Euros why countries call other countries different names.

For example, we are England - so why doesn't everyone else call us England not Angleterre, Ingleterre and all the other dago names.

Germans call their country Deutschland - so why do we call it Germany.

You would think it polite for people to call a country by the name the country calls itself.

I know, I know - I'm bored - just cleaned the kennels out and a bit shagged at the mo

Most of northern Europe forms the germanic nations (those of Saxon origin anyway), and germanic tribes presumably lived in the country we now call Germany.

So that's one example...

Yeah, but if the Germans (or Italians or Spanish etc) call their own country Deutschland, Italy and Espana why do we call them Germany, Italy and Spain?

Our Frog friend Jean-Pierre remains Jean-Pierre no matter what country he goes to - we wouldn't automatically call him John-Peter.

Yeah but once we called it Germany its difficult to change it.

Look at the confusion Istanbul was Constantinople, Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople. Been a long time gone, Constantinople. Now it's Turkish delight on a moonlit night caused.

Then again Even old New York was once New Amsterdam, Why they changed it I can't say, People just liked it better that way.

Or put another way, no idea

That's nobodies business but the Turks

and Caicos

Originally named by Dutch settlers, renamed by the English.

Never knew the Dutch invented indigestion tablets

They call them something different.

  At the UN member countries have to have their name plates in English or in French....there are only 2 in French.  Quiz question without cheating....what are the 2 countries that are known by their French names?

Ivory Coast ?- Big old guess.

Cambodia?
Vietnam?

Laos?

France. ;-)

Spain is one isn't it (E)

:)

Because we'd never been able to pronounce Hungary's proper name?

Cote d'Ivoire

Croatia is Hrvatska and Montenegro is Crna Gora. The Montenegro thing is weird, Crna Gora means Black Forest in Serbian, whereas we call it Montenegro which means Black Mountain in Italian. Make your mind up guys.

Pretty sure England is something other than England in German, Italian, etc too

I live in Zhong Guo = middle kingdom. 

Yep....as KR says Cote d'Ivoire....t'other is Timor Leste....East Timor to us.

Hey?  According to my wife's English / Serbo-Croatian dictionary "gora" means mountain. Forest is šuma

Burma is actually known as Myanmar, after being changed from Burma

However, as the British government do not formally recognise the regime is legit they don't recognise the name change either.

Sri Lanka was formerly Ceylon....not many countries are named after people suprising .

Norway was named by old mancunian explorers who on setting foot on the snowy ground one said.....live here?....Nor way.

Depends whereabouts you're from.

The weather has actually been nicer here than in the UK the last few days.

Apparently (I looked it up because your post made me curious) the name for Norway comes from the old Norse for 'the north route'.

I'm in one of the two countries whose official names begins with The.
No idea why there's a THE
 :hmmm:

When did they drop The from Ukraine?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18233844

In reply to the original question the best answer I can come up with is, it depends.  In my experience it depends on how a country came to know about another and whether the given name was easily pronounceable in that nations mother tongue.

For example in Cambodia we are Anglais, because they didn't know about us until the French turned up.  Except because of their language the country has the same name as the people/language.  They call the French 'Barang', because that's what they felt like calling them when they turned up.  The French call England 'Angleterre' because that means land of the Angles in French, and Angle is where we got the name England from.  

Like I said, it depends.

Because Ukraine comes from a Russian word that means 'edge' or 'country'. So, 'The Edge' or 'The country' makes a little more sense when describing where you come from.