Thetownend.com

As someone who drives around the UK for a living ive learnt a fair bit about place names etc...a bit dull for most but not for me,ie any name with chester in it Winchester,Manchester is Roman,there are about twenty Strattons in Brittain...they are Roman too,lots of places are named after rivers...Taunton used to be Toneton after the river Tone,Cambridge is named after the River Cam....you fell to sleep yet?...Ponty is Gallic for bridge so theres Ponte..fract which is gallic for fracture or broken so Pontefract means fractured bridge,and you have lots of Ponteys in Wales cos they have lots of rivers..zzzzzzzzzzzzzz i know,so my question is ware does the country Thailand get its name from,i expect it is obvious!

I'd imagine it ws named after the Thais, who are probably a large ethnic group.

 It has also been known as Siam.

It's because Thailand is full of Thai's nimwit :wink:

Seriously though I don't know, I just asked me misses and she doesn't know either. Before Thailand it was the Siamese empire. But I don't know what happened when the Thai's changed to Thai's from Siamese. Also sanskrit is an ancient language which likely confuses the matter.

Something to bear in mind is that Bangkok is not known as Bangkok to Thai's, the word Bangkok is western word.

Look under my avatar and you will see a short version of its full name, and the full name is the worlds longest for any city in the world.

The Thai's just abbreviate it to "Krung thep", which translates to "The city of angels".

Cheers you two,ime just glad i dont have to read the thai road signs!

 Welsh place names are particularly interesting,  in England  origins have tended to get lost and corrupted, whereas in Wales they are just very descriptive of the landscape.  The Welsh language appears a bit daunting, but in terms of placenames there are a a lot of words which crop up repeatedly. So a bit of study can open up a new understanding of the landscape.

I can't read the Thai road signs either.

It's all Greek to me.

True Reg....the name Usk means literally fish,,, so you had the river of fish in olden times.

 But Usk is the anglo version in Welsh it's Wysg

Those Anglos got everyware...didnt know that,thaught it was gallic or welsh.

Question for you leefer: Have you even been past or through "Westward Ho!" in Devon?

I believe it is the only town in the UK with an exclamation mark in the name.

Really? What about 'Oxford!'?

 May also be the only place named after a book....

Yes i was there last week Lebowski...it was a made up resort for victorians to go to,cant remember his name but some victorian entrepreneur put alot of his moey into making it a resort as big as Newquay along the coast....but it didnt work out and he died skint!!...ime off to Exmooth and Axminster tomorow,Exmouth is nice but Axminster is not to special these days....abit run down.

And said book is currently being reprinted. Source: The One Show  :D

Didnt know that either Reg.