Countries of Europe whose names in their native language are completely different from their English names

by PepperBlues

32 comments

  1. Austria = Österreich

    Also for Montenegro it’s just the same name translated into S*rbo-Croatian

  4. Crna Gora – translates into English as Black Mountain

    MonteNegro is Italian for Black Mountain

  5. Lol “Gora” in many south Asian languages means “ white people” 😂😂.

  8. Montenegro is a translation of Crna Gora, and Croatia is how most of Europe pronounces Hrvatska.

    These should not be on the list, otherwise the list should contain most European countries:

    Poland/Polska

    Switzerland/Suisse,Svizerra,Svizra

    Spain/Espana

    Sweden/Sverige

    Estonia/Eesti

    Austria/Shitland

  9. completely different =/= kinda different. i’d exclude croatia and montenegro from this list. montenegro is a translation of crna gora, and croatia is just the latin name which went through some modification throughout the years, but they are not quite different. i completely agree with the rest of the countries. e.g. germany is known to have very different names in a lot of languages

  11. And the name of Germany in Latin languages actually assumes a third form, derived from Alemanni

  12. Horvatska and Croatia are not so distant, and have the same etymology I suppose?

  16. The Polish call Deutschland / Germany … “Niemcy”

    The French call Nederland / Netherlands … “les Pays-Bas” (which means low-lands, so a translation of Neder-Land)

  20. Surely Österreich (Austria) should be on that list too?

  21. Putting Croatia <> Hrvatska on the map but not Sweden <> Sverige is way too arbitrary.

  22. I think Hrvatska resembles Croatia quite closely, wouldn’t put Croatia in the list.

  24. **In b4:**

    (H)ellas is archaic/ancient. Only ever used on stamps, jerseys.

    Elláda is the proper modern Greek name.

    Same root.

    English equivalent:

    (H)ellas is like saying “thou hath”, like you’re trying to be old-timey KJV or Shakespeare.

    Elláda is like saying “you have”.

    Better equivalent:

    Latin “Latium” vs modern Italian “Lazio”.
    Or Latin “Apulia” vs modern Italian “Puglia”.

    Bonus:

    Nafplion, Heraklion, and Patras are also archaic / old timey. But for some reason they’ve lingered in English.

    It’s Nafplio, Heraklio, Pátra.

  25. Everyone trying to correct OP, meanwhile I think he has a good selection of country names that are not immediately recognizable.

  26. Yep, but some other European languages may use them. For example the Finnish name *Suomi* has cognates in other Finnic (incl. Estonian) as well as Baltic (i.e. Latvian and Lithuanian) languages.

  27. Croatian here:

    The name “Hrvatska” is attributed to an old piece of Croatian folklore; according to legend, 5 siblings settled on what is Istria today – the oldest brother’s name was Hrvat. I should also mention that the most common surname in Croatia is Horvat – Ivan Horvat is literally a Croatian version of John Smith.

    Croatia comes from the Croatian word for necktie, *kravat* (modern word is *kravata*). During the Thirty Years War, Croatian mercenaries were employed by the French monarchy against the Holy Roman Empire – they used kravats as part of their uniforms (Note: That was only their official name, mercenaries included multiple Slavic ethnicities across the Balkans). When Croatian mercenaries paraded around Paris, Parisians took notice of the garment and began emulating it, especially ss Louis XIV incorporated it in his official dress. To this day, necktie is the official Croatian garment.

  28. I find it interesting that Germany is basically completely different some basic languages I can think of. Im sure there are more like it, but germany stands out to me.

    English: Germany
    Swedish: Tyskland
    Finnish: Saksa
    Spanish: Alemaña
    German: Deutschland

  30. Suomi -> Suomaa ->Swampland (Suo = swamp & maa = land)

    Finland -> Fenland -> Swampland

    This just one of the theories about the name origin. No one actually knows where the name originally came from.

  31. In the Netherlands we speak Dutch. in Dutch this is called Nederlands. In Germany they speak German. In German this is called Deutsch.

    Deutsch and Dutch sound very similar. That’s why the Pennsylvania Dutch aren’t really Dutch. They have German origins and should be called Pennsylvania Deutsch.

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