Endonyms are the names countries call themselves in their own language(s), while exonyms are the names foreign languages call them.

Often these are clearly related (like English “Brazil” and Portuguese “Brasil”).

Other times they are clearly unrelated, like Germany and Deutschland.

And sometimes they are related, but don’t really look it (like Burma and Myanmar).

In this space I’m going to gradually build up a series of graphics that show interesting endonym-exonym pairs. Some of them look pretty different, but are actually related. Others just have interesting etymologies that I want to share. This article will be a living document, as I intend to add more fun country etymology images here over time.

The etymologies of Georgia, Georgia, and Sakartvelo

The US state of Georgia and the Eurasian nation of Georgia.
They apparently share a culture of hospitality, a love of wine and peaches, and strong musical traditions, but that’s where the similarities end. So why are they connected by identical names?
Well… they sort of aren’t.

The American Georgia was granted charter as a province back in 1732 by George II, for whom it was named.
Variants of “George” have been common names in Europe for a very long time, popularised by association with St. George of dragon-killing fame.
The name was “Georgius” in Latin, from Greek “Georgios”, which was just from the Greek word for “farmer” (literally “earth”+”worker”).

The country and culture of Georgia in the Caucasus, meanwhile, has a history stretching back thousands of years. We get our name for them from Latin Georgia, which was a borrowing from Classical Persian “gurj”. This may have happened via Syriac “gurz-ān” or Arabic “ĵurĵan” during the Crusades.

Because “gurj” sounds a bit like “George”, Europeans seemingly just merged the name George/Georgius/Georgios and the name of this distant kingdom, probably due to the country being linked with St George early in its history.

But the Persian word, as it turns out, has absolutely nothing to do with the name George, or St. George. It most likely descends from an Old Persian name for the region that just meant “wolf land”. Any connection between the name of the country and St George is a folk etymology. This is made extra confusing because St George has long been the patron saint of Georgia: there are several hundred churches in the nation named after him, they commemorate his saint’s day twice a year, and his cross is on their flag 5 times.

I’ve also shown here the etymology of the native, Georgian name of Georgia: Sakartvelo. This is also unrelated to (either) English “Georgia”. The Georgian language is the largest member of the Kartvelian language family, which is localised entirely to the Caucasus and is (as far as we know) unrelated to any other language family.

In the Georgian language the US state is ჯორჯია (ǯorǯia), so no confusion between the names of the two places exists.

The Etymology of Croatia and Hrvatska

Here I’ve shown the origins of “Croatia” in English and “Hrvaska” in Serbo-Croatian. I’ve also shown the related word for Croatia in one West Slavic language (Polish), and one East Slavic language (Ukrainian), although all Slavic languages have a related name for Croatia, not just these.
All these names trace back to a Proto-Slavic word for Croat (Croatian person), which is itself of unknown origin. Slavic, Iranian, Scythian, and many other possible sources have been suggested, but none is widely accepted.

Right as I was finishing this image I found out that the English word “cravat” is related, coming from Hr̀vāt via German “Krawatte” (necktie) and Dutch “Krawaat”, and then French “cravate” (Croatian mercenaries were apparently snappy dressers). But it would have been a pain to redo the image to fit that all in, so… never mind.

The Etymology of Myanmar and Burma

Burma was the earlier exonym for this southeast Asian nation in English, and is derived from the informal, spoken form of the endonym “Bama”.
“Bama” evolved from the more formal/literary form of the endonym, “Mranma”.
In 1989 the official English name of the country changed to “Myanmar”, a Latinised form of Mranma”, although “Burma” remains in use in many places, including the adjective form and name of the main language (Burmese).
Both “Burma” and “Myanmar” contain the letter “r”, despite being borrowed from Burmese words without an “r” in those positions. This is because Burma was a British colony, and majority of the accents of England are non-rhotic: the letter “r” is always silent when not before a vowel, and is simply there to modify the preceding vowel.
So an “r” was added to the spelling of both simply to show that the preceding vowel was long, not because it was ever intended to be pronounced.

The ultimate origin of “Myanmar” is unknown, although it began as a name of the major ethnic group of the nation (now referred to as the “Bamar”, borrowed from Burmese “Bama” as shown in the image).
As well as the Bamar majority, there dozens of other ethnic groups in Myanmar who speak languages from 4 distinct language families.

These days most Burmese people apparently recognise either “Burma” or “Myanmar” as valid names for the country, although “Myanmar” is favoured in international politics and academia.

The Etymology of Japan and Nippon

When people call Japan “the land of the rising sun”, they aren’t just being poetic: they’re translating the etymology of Japan into English. Japan is from Middle Chinese “nyit pwox”, which was composed on the word for “sun” and the word for “rise”, describing Japan’s position east of China.

In Modern Mandarin this name has become ‘Rìběn’, Cantonese ‘jat⁶ bun²‘, and Hokkien ‘Ji̍t-pún’. It is from the latter that Malay traders borrowed the word “Japang”, which was carried back to Europe by Portuguese and Dutch traders, giving us English “Japan”.

Meanwhile the Japanese also borrowed this exonym from Middle Chinese, eventually resulting in the two modern official endonyms: Nihon and Nippon. Today Nihon is the more common name while Nippon is seen as more literary. Nippon is also apparently used more in sports games as it’s easier to chant.

Some other images I may add to this post in the future:

The various names of Germany

The etymology of Kiribati and the Gilberts

The etymologies of Bhutan and Druk Yul

The etymologies of China and Zhōngguó

The etymologies of Greece and Hellas

The etymologies of Egypt and Miṣr

The etymologies of Finland and Suomi

The etymologies of Hungary and Magyarország

The etymologies of India and Bhārat

The etymologies of Korea, Hanguk and Joseon

The etymologies of New Zealand and Aotearoa

The etymologies of Morocco, Marrakech, and al-Maghrib

The etymologies of Armenia and Hayastan

If you enjoyed this post, check out my other country etymology series:

British and Irish names for British and Irish Languages

The post Etymologies of Endonyms and Exonyms appeared first on Starkey Comics.

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