List of country name etymologies

[improb]

Originally Posted by Urania93

Words etymologies are always strange...

In Roman times, Salento used to be the province of Calabria and Calabria was known as the province of Italia, whereas the whole peninsula practically had no definition for it.

[GeoGeeks]

Originally Posted by Max96

It's interesting that the name of Finland in most European languages begins with F, while this sound is not typical for Finnish language and exists there only in loanwords (same with Philippines).

That is interesting. Of course in the case of the Philippines it's because it was named after a foreign colonial monarch.

[ABQConvict]

Originally Posted by Davy-040

"Netherlands literally means Low countries or Lowlands. Dutch neder and its English cognate nether both mean 'down(ward), below'. The English word is now uncommon, mostly replaced by lower in English.

Nether is not very common in English (but not unknown as it is sometimes used in compound words like netherworld) but the word is found as the root of the very common English words, beneath and underneath.