Countries With Similar Names! | Video Compilation

Slovakia and Slovenia have perhaps the most similar sounding names of two countries in fact they are so similar slovak republic dot-org have a page on their website explaining the confusion between the two nations and the staff of the slovakia as lavinia embassies have to meet once a month to exchange post sent to the wrong address surely with names so similar there must be a connection between the two both countries exist from bigger countries breaking up with Czechoslovakia breaking into the Czech Republic and Slovakia and Yugoslavia breaking up into bosnian has go vena Croatia Kosovo Macedonia Montenegro Serbia and of course Slovenia to find out how these two modern nations got their names let's look into how these original countries of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia got their names how they were formed and eventually split up to the nations they are today the land area that once covered a Czechoslovakia and now the Czech Republic and Slovakia was once part of the austro-hungarian Empire the idea of a combined Trek and Slovakia started during the late 19th and early 20th century both groups of people felt they were being oppressed I wanted to gain their own and national identity the Czechs had a natural movement through the 19th century and the Slovaks were struggling to keep their national identity after huge nationalist movement in Hungary which were oppressed that the Slovak people talks between the two people really started to kick in by the 1890s and things only got more serious during World War one as groups of Czechs and Slovaks formed a Czechoslovakian legion after the Great War on May 31st 1918 plan to put ahead to unify the two states on the 18th October of that same year Tom nice colleague mazanik issued a declaration of Czechoslovakian independence and went on to become the first president of the newly formed nation of Czechoslovakia okay so that was going a bit off-topic you guys are here to find out how names are formed with not nations of course the name @ Czechoslovakia comes from the two groups of people who lived there the Czechs and the Slovaks how the people got the name Czech is unfortunately unknown but legend say comes from their leader Czech who brought them to the land Slavic which is what we're more interested in for the namesake of this video simply comes from a shortening of the proto Slovak Slovenian and if I said that right seriously apologize I'm just going with what Google Translate told me to say by the late 20th century the nation of Czechoslovakia was waning some had felt that this was inevitable but others feel that there were factors that played into the separation however happened what we do know is that it was completely peaceful and the separation of Czechoslovakia was approved on the 31st of December 1992 and in the following day one nation split into two the Czech Republic and Slovakia with each country keeping the names that reflect on the people who lived there moving on to Yugoslavia this name comes from the serbo-croatian Yogo Slavia which in turn breaks that into your meaning south and Slavia meaning the land of the Slavs coming together to mean the land of the southern Slavs there had always been an idea of unifying the South Slavic nations dating back to the 17th century and in 1918 in the fallout of World War one the nation was first formed under the name the kingdom of Serbs and Croats and Slovenes but in 1929 the king assumed dictatorship of the land and renamed it to at the kingdom of Yugoslavia the nation eventually split up due to political upheaval in the early 90s with Slovenia the country we are most interested in for this video becoming an independent nation in 1991 the full story in history of Yugoslavia could be a video in itself but perhaps done by someone who deals more with historical topics but for now there be further reading down below for those of you interested the country of Slovenia gets its name much like the way Slovakia does from the people who live there the Slavens whose name was also self-appointed like the Slovak coming from the Slovenian language word at Slovenia the name Slovenia was not used prior to the 19th century and was coined for political reasons by Slovene nationalists so why do these two nations have such similar names I guess it comes down to a lot of the other similarities they have both nations are what's part of larger nations both countries are named after their people and both people come from the same ethno-linguistic group Slavs with Slovenes however being South Slavic and Slovaks being a West Slavic with the proto Slavic language branching out enough between West and South Slavs to give us these two similar yet different name Paraguay and the Uruguay are two countries that are not only close to give it geographically but close together phonetically both nations have pretty similar names in fact the last four letters of each name identical why what does this guai in Paraguay and Uruguay mean where did it come from and why did one nation get the power prefix and you ever get the U prefix Paraguay and Uruguay are both named after rivers that run through their respective countries this is for it to be where the guaipe are their name comes from now my favorite thing in the world is totally information that clashes with each other when one source says one thing and another source says something else my favorite this is the issue I've run into with finding out what guai means why can't from the Guarani language as we both full names for the two countries yet what y represents in each country's name it seems to differ it definitely however has aquatic origins the general consensus is that ye means a river in Guarani variation this is that the Gua part means from or belonging to and the y part means water we go further into the confusion of why when we figure out where Paraguay comes from there is no consensus on where the name Paraguay exactly comes from one idea is that it means born from water with a power part meaning water and the guai part this time meaning born in the Guarani language are you understanding my confusion about why now of course like I said there are other ideas on where the name comes from another idea is that it comes from an indigenous tribe that lived along the Paraguay River the paya gas or even their leader Paraguay oh so we'll what about Uruguay well in Uruguay it is of course named after the Uruguay River that runs through the country unlike Paraguay it seems to be genuinely agreed that the guai in this case it does mean River so what does it you mean then the original EU was fought to be some kind of beautiful bird that lived along the river recently however it's fought to in fact refer to a type of extinct snail that were plentiful in the river so of course there are some Kea similarities in the origins of these two names they both derived from the same language and they're both named after rivers with the general consensus being that the guai part of their names are referring to the rivers but from there it divides where things are being born from the and tribes to beautiful colorful birds and mundane water snails Taiwan and Thailand have similar names yes that wasn't always the case throughout history both places have had different names but how did their names change to these two names that are so similar so before we look into names let's clear the air notice how I refer to Taiwan and Thailand as places not countries that's because of Taiwan's confusing States's as to what it is so what is Taiwan well Taiwan for all practical purposes is an independent nation but China has claimed ownership of the island and refuses to let other nations have relations with both China and Taiwan but anyway I'm here to explain names not explain political relationships and all that kind of stuff but before it was called Taiwan it had another name for more sir this name supposedly came from when a Portuguese ship was on its way back to Japan and saw the island struck by its beauty they titled it amia Formosa which means a beautiful island and this name stuck with the island in the West until after World War 2 the name Taiwan on the other hand comes from the Dutch in the early 17th century when they established a post on the island and named it Talon in relation to the name they use of the Taiwanese Aboriginal tribe tower when it comes from the Formosan language Sharia with the tape are coming from the word Tao meaning people the Dutch and Portuguese used variations of this name and it was even adopted by the Chinese people and eventually evolved into the name we know as today Taiwan much like Taiwan Thailand a to hasn't older name Siam Siam is actually an exonym meaning it's a name user by non natives of the country like germany deutschland and the japan Nihon you guys know the drill Siam comes from the tyre Siam which in turn comes from the Sanskrit syama meaning dark in reference that are relatively darker skin tone of the people of Thailand compared to the people of the surrounding nations the name Thailand however comes from the name of the people the Thai so unsurprisingly Thailand simply means the land of the tide so what does just Thai mean Thai supposedly means free or free man or even just people or and beings it's a beautifully simple meaning and if I were Thai it'd be an etymology I'd be proud of the land of free humans the natives of Taiwan accorded Taiwanese and the people of Thailand are known as Thai while these two names for the people don't sound it too similar people seem to get confused between the two even before I started making this video I got confused between the two how I've come to remember them is Thailand is the land of Thai so the Taiwanese must be from Taiwan so why are these names are similar the start of both names refer to people with the Thai in Taiwan are coming from the Sharia toi meaning people and the Thai part of Thailand also meaning people among possible other things it's also interesting to note that both the languages spoken of Taiwan and Thailand may come from the same family sinner Tibetan with Chinese specifically the version of Mandarin spoke in Taiwan and the Thai spoke in Thailand being two subgroups of this family however somebody that Thai and Chinese it should consist of one a single subfamily called sin Oh Siamese it's still up for debate Iraq and Iran are as close to each other as countries get like it they're literally right next to each other yet of course they're not only close together geographically they're close together phonetically with their only being a one letter difference in their names so what why do these two countries next to each other have such similar names so a first off let's start with Iraq in it's very very very early history the modern country of Iraq actually went by a different name Mesopotamia well I guess it wasn't so much the same country but with different names it's more modern Iraq houses what was once ancient Mesopotamia but what exactly was a Mesopotamia well Mesopotamia was more a collection of varied cultures in that region of the world it is often referred to as the cradle of civilization as it was in Mesopotamia we're pretty much the modern human life began bored from Mesopotamia were some of the earliest myths religions philosophies the idea of a city as we know it today and perhaps most importantly writing the name Mesopotamia comes from the ancient word missile meaning between and Tata masa meaning rivers meaning the name means between two rivers as the land is situated between the Tigris River and the affray tees River Mesopotamia lasted for thousands of years with the Iraq region forming from it the land eventually came to be ruled by the Ottoman Empire but in the fall out of World War one at the British Empire underwent what was called it the Mesopotamia campaign and took control order free of villa yet that's provinces the ume they're formed Ottoman Iraq the Mosel villa yet the Baghdad a villa yet and the Basra villa yet and formed the kingdom of Iraq in 1920 as a nation under British control until it declared itself a republic in 1958 becoming the country we know it has today the Republic of Iraq now that was the history of the country of Iraq but what about that name there's actually a couple ideas for where the name comes from one idea is that it comes from the Arabic arooga meaning perspiring a deeply rooted well water which may reflect the impression that desert based Arabs had of the rivers and luscious lands of Mesopotamia the name could derive from the name of the ancient Sumerian city of Uruk or even come from the Persian Iraq meaning a lowland speaking of Persian words that brings us nicely to the second country of this video Iran in the same way Iraq was once a central part in the civilization of Mesopotamia Iran was once a central part of the Persian Empire with the name Persia merely coming from the old persian word parser while the name iran it comes from a contraction of this which is the ancient homeland of the Aryans with Iran being the home of the Iranians the name Iran is actually an end aneema meaning it's the name of the country in the country's language with Persia actually being the exonym even to this day the names Iran and Persia are used interchangeably but officially the country is called Iran due to the Iranian government in 1935 requesting that all countries that had diplomatic relations with the nation to call the country Iran so with despite these two countries being next to each other and having similar histories of being focal points to previous civilizations the similarity of their names that seems to be nothing more than a coincidence Japan is a country of two sides one side is a country of ancient history deep tradition shrines temples and winding roads littered with pagodas the other side is a modern powerhouse sprawling cities abundant with neon and web pop culture is king DS two sides of Japan can perhaps be seen most clearly in two of the country's most popular cities Tokyo and Kyoto what's interesting about the names of these su cities is not just that their name sounds similar but they're actually anagrams of one another well when they're written English they are anyway so what else do these cities have in common well they're both the capital city of Japan well kind of Kyoto was once the capital of Japan and the Tokyo is now so how did this happen well a cute it was founded first in 794 C II when the base in the city is located in it was chosen by then Emperor camel to be the location of Japan's capital city this city was given a few names such as high in kayo meaning capital of peace and tranquility and Miyako meaning at the capital however it was the name cute that was settled upon so what does this name of Kyoto mean well in kanji Cooter's name is this which simply means capital city with the first character of kanji in English being Akio meaning capital and the second character meaning city the city of Kyoto fry for over 1,000 years being the heart of Japan and where the royal family Japan resided for all those years however while Kyoto was frying another settlement in Japan was emerging one which was founded in 1603 next to the sea in the east of Kyoto at the time this small fishing village was known as Edo which means estuary an estuary is the part of a river whether sea in the river meet this a meeting place between the sea and the river that Edo was named after is now the rainbow bridge covered Bay of Tokyo Edda was founded at this time by Takayama es su who set up the takawana Shogunate in the city even though the emperor and the royal family were still living in Kyoto and was still well the Emperor it was the taça wire Shogunate that was ruling the roost in Japan and it stayed this way for over 200 years with the village of Edo growing more and more due to its location by the sea it became the main hub of trade with the outside world and importantly the west by the 18th century Edo already had over 1 million residents the economy of Edo even outgrew that of Kyoto's the country's capital at the time this boom in popularity a narrow kind of left Kyoto in the dust Kyoto is based in a basin surrounded more or less completely by mountains and as beautiful as this looks it doesn't mean the city was and as though is to an extent pretty isolated this wasn't helped by the fact that the policies helped by the emperor in Kyoto decreed that there should be less Western influence in the city hence why to this day Kyoto has a much more traditional Japanese look to it then Tokyo does rule of the taco why Shogun it came to an end however in around 1868 thanks to the Meiji Restoration which in the grand scheme of Coos was a relatively peaceful one the Meiji Restoration was when the emperor finally took back rule of Japan from the taqwa Shogunate and while he was back in power the effect of the shogunate's rule and the stated left Kyoto and Edo in were cemented Edo was now the farm advanced city and whether power lay in Japan and Kyoto was left more or less in the dust the Emperor at this time Emperor Meiji was just 15 years old and while he was coronated as Emperor the true power and decision-making in Japan labor of his men the Japanese oligarchs it was decided by them due to eddies location the power of the city had established and his trade looted the West that the royal family shall move there first making Edo the capital of Japan with this change of home for the royal family came a change of name for the city of Edo the new name falero was chosen to be a Tokyo this name is written in kanji as this and means East capital as a Tokyo's East the Kyoto this for time led to Cooter's name becoming sucio meaning West capital but that name didn't stick around what's also interesting is that there was never an official decree as stating that Tokyo was the new capital for the country so technically Kyoto still the capital - so we have one city called a capital city and one city called East capital both these cities names have capital in them which can be seen with this character of kanji meaning capital it's this character that makes the key of sounded their names so with Kyoto is at the start of the name while in Tokyo it's at the end of the name but what about the tour part of their names well in Tokyo's name that this toe sound is represented with this Kenji character meaning East and in Kyoto's name it is representative of this character meaning city or metropolitan in more modern usage it's more a quince advance that they both make the toe sound kenji and pronunciation is just a whole thing but nevertheless it spot Queensland and part to the intertwined histories of these two cities as to why they have such similar names there were two parts of Europe one in Northern Europe and one in southern Europe these regions of Europe occurred the baltic and the balkans as well as both been in Europe they have another similarity their names are sound similar both beginning of the bowl prefix and ending with a one word that syllable suffix that contains a hard curse sound Baltic and Balkans you know I think I actually got them mixed up in a video once let me know which one has all these videos doesn't become a bit of a blur to me so like we've done in the past of Austria and Australia Iraq and Iran Slovakia and Slovenia and of course most noticeably were Thailand and Taiwan let's look at why these two parts of the world have at similar names so first off I guess we should figure out what exactly the Baltic and the Balkans are let's go north to south for a look at the Baltic first there's actually a couple definitions of what Baltic means there's the definitive Baltic States which comprised of Estonia Latvia and Lithuania however sometimes countries like Finland Poland Sweden of Russia and sometimes even Denmark and northern Germany are considered to be Baltic why is this well it's because they all bordered the Baltic Sea and the Baltic Sea is where the name baltic comes from make him Baltic a Hydra name which is the word for a name of a body of water and it's probably one of my favorite words ever I just love how it's the cheap part of hyponym the Baltic is named after the Baltic Sea so where does the name for the Baltic Sea come from well it's bleed to come from the Scandinavian bolter which means Belt / Strait in reference to the narrowness of the Baltic Sea especially at the Seas entranceway it's also believed to possibly come from the Lithuanian but us which can be traced to it in the European route of birla which means white and fair which could be due to have relatively calm and fair the sea is for the most part what's also fun about the Baltic seas the variety of names it has and how its name changes depending on where you are in German it's called it the Oost z meaning EC as it's Easter Germany but in Estonia it's called Lana Mele which means at West sea as its Western Estonia also this is a super big tangent but if you're an Indian takeaway fishing are they like myself the Balti dish might be coming to mind I mean I'm personally thinking of Indian takeaway most the time but I think that says more about my diet than you guys this name comes from the Hindi word for bucket as the dish is often prepared in a deeper bucket like pan it has nothing to do with the Baltic States or sea anyway moving along from my takeaway order less the Balkans now the Balkans isn't as easy to define as the Baltic there are many definitions as to what consists of the Balkans I've done my research but I ignore lycée your countries part of the Balkans and you feel it isn't then I apologize in a Geographic sense the Balkans is considered to be a peninsula in southern Europe countries are generally considered to be part of the Balkans are Albania Bulgaria Bosnia and Herzegovina Macedonia Montenegro and Kosovo which you guys can argue about in the comments whether that's an independence day or not I'm from the UK the UK recognizes it as an independent state so that's my personal perspective countries considered to be partially in the Balkans are Croatia Greece Romania Serbia Slovenia and even Turkey partially regardless what is and isn't part of the Balkans isn't what this video is about we are here to look at where the name Balkans comes from well the name is believed to come from the Turkic language word Balkan which means mountain in reference to the Balkan mountain range that crosses from Bulgaria to Serbia in the same way the Baltic is named after the Baltic Sea the Balkans is named after the Balkan Mountains so why did these two areas of land have similar names well while there isn't a language connection between the two there is something of a geographic connection between the two in the sense that the two areas are named off the geographic locations one being named after a sea and the other being named after mountains it's a fairly common practice to have places named after features like this with the Baltic and the Balkans been two more examples of this this time however thanks to their languages it led to these two areas having similar names anything we love here on name explained it is of course countries and places that have very similar names countries with similar names can be found all over the globe some are right next to each other and others are thousands of miles apart the two we are looking at today however are both within the continent of Africa one on africa's west coast and one just south of the continent center these are of course Zambia and The Gambia I'm sure you can see why these names are so similar there's literally just one letter and a definite article that we will definitely look into difference in the names so is there any reason as to why these nations have similar names or is it just another coincidence of language so today I feel like starting South and working our way up Africa and going in non alphabetical order so let's start with Zambia now what even is a Samba well it's the 17th largest country in Africa and one of the only two nations in the world that name starts with the letter Z the second being is neighbors involved way it's handy they're next to each other however it's just the Z that links these names as they don't share a similar etymological root when it was under British rule that the nation was known as Northern Rhodesia yet when it gained independence in 1964 the name a Zambia was established that's already one country of two names Rhodesia and a Zambia Rhodesia might sound somewhat alien for me the ancient supercontinent of edenia comes to mind but in fact it was just named after Englishman Cecil Rhodes who played a large role in the Scramble for Africa imagine if it ended up being called a Sessa lopoliths the name Zambia hava has origins in the name of the river that runs and not just through the country of Zambia but for a huge part of Africa the Zambezi River we aren't really too sure as to where this name for the river comes from but it's believed that could mean Grand River which would make sense as it's pretty grand there are also other theories however for how this river came to be named from what being named after the BC people to it coming from the Bantu term mb's which means fish so the river would be called a river of fish but what we really need to know for the sake of this video is that the country was named after the river anyway let's move on to our second country that of course being at the Gambia the Gambia is the smallest nation in mainland Africa and I'm pretty sure most people notice straight away it's rather unique borders the entire country is within the larger nation of Senegal with just a part of its borders being next to the ocean this bizarre border is fought to come from the land and resource disputes between the French and English the English wanted a river in West Africa under their control and the French already had the Senegal River the story goes that the English sailed a ship up the river firing cannonballs either side and where the cannibals ended up on either side of the river will become the borders for the Gambia though this story is debated it helps explain why the borders of the Gambia reflect the river that runs through it and what is this river called well obviously is called the Gambia River and yes the country of the Gambia is named after the Gambia River and this rivers name is fought to come home Eva the Portuguese word for trade slash exchange Gambia as the Portuguese were the first Europeans there and a lot of trading and exchanging were done on the river or the theory that this rivers name just comes from the Manteca name for the river Hembrough /a camber and of course we have that the or definite article as it's called in fancy English terms the Gambia is one of the two nations in the world that uses a definitive article in their official shortened name along with the Bahamas and even in its full official name of that there still seems out of place the Republic over the Gambia not just the Republic of Gambia many nations actually do have the in their official name like how France is at the French Republic and there are other countries that use their - like the Philippines the United Kingdom and United States but for some reason the Gambia just seems to stick out like a sore thumb my theory as to why the Gambia seems so all in our heads is due to the fact that definite articles in country names usually come with names that are pluralized or a collection or things the Bahamas and the Philippines are collections of islands and have that s at the end to to make them plural and the United States and United Kingdom's names imply they are a collection of things state and kingdoms respectively The Gambia didn't come into formation for many states or provinces coming together and it doesn't have an S at the end to make it sample Oh does at the Gambia's make it sound more correct so to our is it just sounds odd though this is all my own fee rising so take it with a pinch of salt anyway maybe we should we ask him why / sounds so odd at the start of the Gambia and just ask what's there in the first place there are two main reasons as to why this definite article exists this is due to the fact that the Gambia was named after the Gambia River and because when the nation became independent the Prime Minister wrote a letter to the United Nations requesting that the Gambia keep this definite article so could distinguish itself from another country becoming independent at the time that of course being Zambia which brings us nicely to the fact that Zambia and the Gambia have at similar names so what were these names similar well at there are similarity between the nations names and there also aren't there isn't one etymological root that ties these two names together it doesn't seem to be that the am be apart of these names means the same thing and the Z and G mean different things but then there are also similarities in the names both a form of British territories both names come from languages of the larger Niger Congo language family and of course perhaps what ties the names closest together is the fact they're both named after rivers but then again loads of countries are named after rivers and their names don't sound anything like a zambia or the Gambia never look at places with similar names are still on our planet today however we need to look into the past to find a similar name well a for one of our places anyway today we are looking at the gigantic country of Russia home of a crazy history full of crazy characters the first dog in space and a certain 2018 World Cup along with Russia we have the former Germanic state of Prussia which literally has the exact same name as Russia with a P at the start though to be fair all awesome names start with a P if you're anything like me you may have heard of Prussia but maybe thinking to yourself what exactly was Prussia Prussia was a former German state that was the largest part of the former German Empire Prussia's reached at its very peak was way bigger than modern Germany and stretched out over far more land Harvard the state of Prussia and the German Empire came to an end with the land the Germany lost in World War one and World War two this video however isn't a complete history of Prussia it's about why Prussia had such a similar name of two of Russia do you understand this we need to look into the name of Russia first also can we just take a minute to look at how unfathomably huge Russia is Russia covers 11 time zones like there's a nine hour difference between the west of the country and the east if you're starting your nine-to-five job in Moscow your friend at the same job in petropavlovsk-kamchatsky is already back home these are just some of the countries that can fit comfortably into Russia at the same time with thanks to the great the true size calm anyway that's more than enough about how big Russia is let's a look at that name like a lot of countries Russia is believed to be named after the people who lived there however these people weren't the natives of the land the loose were group of Vikings who originally came from Sweden who settled in Russia they became known as delusi in Latin and which eventually became the English name of Russia but where did the name of the roots come from to begin with the name is believed to come from the finish from the old norse term Allods meaning at the men who row as rowing was the key mode of transportation for Vikings who said who in Russia interestingly enough the name of Sweden in Finnish comes from the same etymology too as the loss who rode to Russia were from Sweden this is why in Finnish Sweden is called royalty so what about Prussia then was it named after a different group of Vikings who were called applause unfortunately not in fact we don't seem to be you sure from exactly where the name Prussia comes from one theory of how the name came to be makes it sounding similar to Russia a coincidence or the other theory links the names together closely it's believed the name Prussia just comes from the name of the old Prussians the people who lived in the area at the time with it not being too clear as to where the name came from the second theory is that it comes from the Slavic polis meaning of the land that near the loss as at its peak Prussia bordered Russia as fun as that second death homology that links the two names together is I don't personally think it's the correct one mainly because this second etymology explains Prussia's name in English and both Prussia and Russia are exonym x' in german prussia is called a person and in russian russia is called lasya which don't sound that similar at all West Africa we have the two nations of nija and Nigeria not only do they both in West Africa they're right next to each other with neva in the north and Nigeria in the South however is not only their geographic location that they have in common the names of these two nations are exactly the same except that Nigeria has their ever present es suffix attached at the end of it I'm sure you all know the drill by now why these names is so similar well as well as their geography and their names being similar they also have something else in common the same river runs through both of these nations with that River being the Niger River many nations are named after rivers that run through them but this is one of the few exceptions where the same River gives its name to two nations the only other example has been the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo being named after the Congo River and India and Indonesia both been named after the Indus River well sort of so if both these nations were named after the river then how did the river get its name the river actually has a lot of different names across the languages of the regions that the river goes through a lot of these names reflect the importance of this river all these names having very definitive feels to them with name's Amanda and Zama meaning things like great river and the Touareg name means a river or rivers and it's bleed that this is the route that we got the name neva for the river - there's a few ideas about this name one of the earliest mentions of the name we know esterday comes from the 15:50 italian book the scriptures of africa by giovanni battista Oh Monsieur it's what that this name might come from the Berber phrase at Girton ger which means a river of rivers and it's also for that mase them from the latin word for black that might be how the nija river got its name and while we know that nigeria and neva are both named after this river the next question is why are they both named after dis river there are many rivers that run through multiple countries all the countries that run through them aren't named after the river and there are other nations at the nature of run tree that aren't named after the river so what's ink without these two nations to be named after it it seems that this is due to the empires that ruled over these lands in the past Nigeria was once part of the British Empire and neva was once part of the French Empire a lot of the time these empires were quite literal when it came to naming territories in Africa like how the southern part of Africa was simply called South Africa and it still is today other parts of Africa under British rule were named after geographic features the Gambia and Ghana were once part the British Empire and both names used by them were Geographic based with the Gambia been named after the river that runs through the nation and June its time under British rule Guyana was called the Gold Coast at referencing how this land was on the coast and rich with gold it would make sense for the British and French to simply name these massive land they were claiming by simple geographic features and with the river niger running through both these places it made sense for them both to be named after this river luckily however they didn't end up with the exact same name with the British territory adding the EO suffix while the French territory just stuck with the name of the river what I couldn't see an exact answer for this the French language does give us a clue from what I can tell despite how popular this suffix is across the globe it doesn't seem to be too commonly used in French even Wiktionary is list of French word buy suffixes only has one entry that being the French word for petunia even looking at former French colonies not many of them have the EO suffix it just seems to not be something used to often in French even translating other country's names into French seems to remove the EO suffix from them though I'm happy to be wrong so if there are some French places that end with ear please leave it down below you we have two nations well I mean there's a few others too but for the sake of this video we are looking at just two of them these of course the nations of the Dominican Republic and Dominica and you don't need to look too hard as to see why these two names of so much interest to us they're identical - the N and the Republic at the end of the dominican republic it's not only their names that close together but the nations are close together geographically to both being in the archipelago of the anteus specifically the great unless an Tears for the Dominican Republic and Dominica respectively how this name came about is somewhat unknown however some believe it comes from the Gaelic an anti era which means water land what others like to argue that the name links to Plato's fictional island of Atlas known today as Atlantis Dominica is a completely separate island nation in the Caribbean while the Dominican Republic is the eastern part of the larger island of Hispaniola with the separate nation of Haiti on the eastern side of this island and we will look into the name for this island as a whole in a bit and while their names are similar there's a name they share which are exactly the same that been the name for the people who live there people from the Dominican Republic are called Dominicans and people from Dominica also called Dominicans which is just a little bit confusing however one source I read Tom that while these names look the same they're actually pronounced differently with Dominicans from the Dominican Republic the me syllable is stressed while Dominicans from Dominica the nice syllable is stressed Dominica and Dominica respectively yet despite the similarities in the name for these lands and the name for their people there are many differences between them the sort of things that differentiate most countries they have different official languages with Spanish being the official language of the Dominican Republic and English being the official language of Dominica along with a variation of French called a Dominican Creole French hence why the name is said with something with French accent to it and not said as a Dominica as I would have been tempted to say if I didn't check beforehand their populations are vastly different with the Dominican Republic having over 10 million people while Dominica has just over 70,000 the nations are vastly different in size with different currencies and ethnic groups and of course one of the biggest differences in the nation being their names despite how similar their names are there's the whole additional word of Republic added to the Dominican Republic and conversely with Dominica it's four names actually the Commonwealth of Dominica so what makes one of Republic and one a Commonwealth Dominica is called a common walk because it was once part of the British Empire and now all of the nations that were part of this Empire are now part of a new collection of nations called the Commonwealth while a Republic is defined as a government of state whose leader is not part of monarchy and the people of the nation are entitled to vote did could Republic fits this bills that a name makes sense though Dominica does also have elections Prime Minister and president SATA fits the pillars of Republic to I guess the importance of it being part the Commonwealth becomes before being a republic so that may be the differences between these nations and the key differences in their names however we aren't interested in differences here on name explained we want to know about similarities so how did these nations end up with these names and are there any connections between the two to start off let's look into the history of the dominican republic while of course the lands of the dominican republic when habited by natives first it makes more sense for us to start this story in 1492 it was in this year the island was first visited by Europeans and by Europeans I mean none of them mr. Christopher Columbus himself it was he who gave this island as a whole the name of Hispaniola this name comes from the unsurprisingly Spanish la isla Espanola which I've read from different sources to mean either the Spanish island or little Spain regardless of which every one of these names are correct we can see in this name the important Columbus and the Spanish put on the island naming it directly after their homelands and there is a key reason for this and that's because this was the first land in North America settled by the Spanish and for a while it would become their hub of operation for controlling and overseeing the rest of their conquest for the Americas and because of this they needed a city on the island to work out solve this came four years after Columbus found the island in 1496 and the city was founded by Columbus not Christopher however but rather Bartholomew Columbus Christopher's younger brother this city was named Santo Domingo and named we'll get into later and the city grew and grew like I said becoming the hub of the Spanish conquest and Santo Domingo to this day is still the capital of the nation as the Spanish explored more of the new world other European nations wanted a slice of this American pie in the case of the island of Hispaniola it was the French they set up a colony on the western side of the island and with this came anger between the two nations of France and Spain over the claim to the island however this came to a head in 1697 with the Treaty of res walk named after the Dutch city of res work where it was signed that split the island between the French and the Spanish the western french side of the island became haiti run by the french or the eastern spanish started the became known as a whole by the name of his largest city Santo Domingo this led to the end of the completely Spanish ruled Hispaniola and while that name still exists is only use of the geographic term for the island as a whole and I don't believe it holds any political power or anything like that and this is how things stayed on the island although until 1795 when Spain ceded their part of the island to the French yet by 1808 it would be taken over by the Spanish yet again then from 1822 to 1844 Haiti and Santo Domingo would reunify however it would be in 1844 that the Santo Domingo part of the nation would become independent for the first time and it was here for the first time we took on the name the Dominican Republic and from here the nation has been once again taken by the Spanish occupied by the USA and of course once again become independent however for the sake of the name Dominican Republic we can probably wrap things up here so what about that name and Dominican Republic well as we mentioned this name for the nation as a whole is a variation of the Capitals name as Santo Domingo so what we really need to look into is how this city got this name well just look at this name can give us a pretty clear idea many places in the Caribbean and named after saints and this one is no exception you don't even need to be fluent in Spanish to look at this name and see that translates into st. Dominic who is unsurprisingly the patron saint of the Dominican Republic he's also the founder of the Dominican Order an order that promoted a life of simplicity in Christianity in 1216 so the Dominican Republic was named after the city of Santo Domingo which was named after Saint Dominic so how did st. Dominic get his name the name Dominic comes from the Latin demonicus which literally translates to pertaining to the Lord so it makes sense that a saint would have this name this routes back further Latin Domino's which means Lord slash master and this is the same route that Sunday considered the holy day for Christians gets his name in Latin with Sunday's name in Latin being a Dominica and that brings us nicely to the next nation will be looking into today the small island nation of a Dominica which shares its name exactly with the Latin word for Sunday and this nation isn't named after Saint Dominic this time the story goes that Columbus Christopher once again this time sail past the island on the 3rd of November 1493 which of course was a Sunday so in celebration of finding this island on a Sunday he named it after the holiest of days but obviously in Latin if it was just named Sunday Ireland that would be tantalizing and unlike Hispaniola Russia Santo Domingo / the Dominican Republic this name hasn't changed and Dominica has been the name for this island since despite finding the island the Spanish actually didn't have much success with colonizing it instead it was the French had success taking over at first they held on to the island from 1715 till 1763 however the island got caught up in the seven-year war a massive war which was fought from 1756 to 1763 spanned a lot the globe and was battled between the British and French each of allied kingdoms and empires on their sides it was eventually won by two British and when the Treaty of Paris was signed the island of Dominica was handed over to the British it was under British rule that English started to become the main language of the island as it is today and as part of the British Empire would remain all the way up until 1978 when the nation gained independence from the Brits however as we saw in his name the nation is still part of the Commonwealth along with many other former British Empire nations so what connects these two nations names well weirdly enough it seems to be Sunday which really isn't what I expected going into this video Dominica is literally named after Sunday and so is the Dominican Republic albeit via st. dominic and his order whose name shares at the malesko ties with the Latin word for Sunday but it doesn't make sense in a weird way they were both named by Columbus's and they were a deeply religious family sunday is a deeply religious day so it seems fitting I can't imagine Dominica would have got this name who was spotted on any other day of the week hump day Ireland just doesn't sound as nice however despite the similarities in their names and a shared history of Columbus and the French it seems that their names being similar it's just another coincidence of language one being named after a day and one being named after a person who had gone to be their patron saint not raelia the home of big rocks black stumps and Chas waters Austria however is the home of Freud Mozart and slow-motion it would be a safe assumption to say that these countries don't have the most in common yet they have one thing very much in common their names how do two countries in different hemispheres end up having names so similar that even certain world leaders can get them mixed up the name Austria is a Latinization of his native German name booster like this derives from the old high german word of stoic ii which means eastern realms due to austria being east to germany the earliest recording of this name comes from the Osterley he documents dated first of November 996 while this doesn't mean that the country of Austria is just over 1,000 years old it doesn't mean that the name we all know it as in the English world laid its roots just over a thousand years ago the area of land that covers Austria has had an interesting history from belonging to the Celtx the Romans and the Germans however I'm just here to explain the names and I'm nowhere near qualified to discuss the fascinating history of Austria so let's go back to that old high german word for the eastern realms of star a she of course a modern German is different old high german but some similarities are still there east in modern german is austin which matches the author at the start of austere Oishi which of course became austere ash which in turn became austria as we all know this name has led to some confusion it's the very reason this video exists and that's because of the similar sounds austin has with another compass direction in another language which brings us nicely to our next country note Ops is the greek of god of the southern wind when dis code came to the romans however they came to call him in latin by a different name Oster when the greek wind system was adopted by the romans the name Oster became used for the south wind this name evolved into the idea of Terra Australis Terra Australis it was the idea of a continent on the southern hemisphere of the earth and even appeared on maps between the 15th and 18th century there was no clear evidence that Terra Australis actually existed but people just presumed if there's a huge amount of land in the north then it must be balanced in the south the actual name Australia has his earliest recordings from 1625 in a note of Australia del espíritu Santo written by Sir Richard hack light this came from a corruption of Australia del espíritu Santo which means in Spanish southern land of the Holy Spirit a name for an island in vanilla - Matthew Flinders popularized the name in 1814 when he circumnavigated the continent the name subsequently was used in official reports and in 1824 the name was a ashlee adopted so there we have it two countries were very similar names and rather similar origins both related to compass directions but different directions in different languages which however sounds somewhat similar in the languages they're spoken so why do you Austria and Australia have such similar sounding names appear Quinn Siddhant albeit a coincidence roving around the same subject there's got to be a name for that what you guys tell me what it is down below or if that word doesn't exist why don't you guys coin a word for it and tell me down below I really enjoyed your ideas for Ganga gu last time [Music]

Channel: Name Explain

Views: 488,835

Rating: 4.821496 out of 5

Keywords: name explain, etymology, educational video, compilation, countries with simialr names, geography video

Id: SCnOZWORGV4

Length: 45min 0sec (2700 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 13 2019