Variation of Countries names

You don't need to know any Norwegian to read this sentence from The Fount of All Knowledge (AKA Wikipedia):
Tyskland er eit land i Sentral-Europa( Midten ). Det tyske namnet er Bundesrepublik Deutschland, med Deutschland som kortform.

It's the same word in Danish & Swedish.

Wikipedia even has a page on Names of Germany

"Tyskland," which is related to Deutschland comes from the Proto-Germanic þeudiskoz, from þeudō (folk).

Edited by: nutraxfornerves, to use HTML for the thorn, so it will show up.

What countries have the most variaration of their names, especially markedly variations Deutchsland/Germany/Nemačka

And Allemagne (and variations thereof in Spanish and Italian). Germany may be in first place in terms of number of names with fundamentally different etymologies, at four (Tysk is from the same root as Deutsch (and Italian tedesco = German) . The next best I can come up with in terms of names with fundamentally different etymologies are Greece/HellasYunanistan and China/Kitai/Zhong Guo. Unless Arabic Sin is from a different root from China, in which case China ties Germany.

(I'm not counting translations. A number of China's neighbors call it by names that mean "middle country" (= Zhong Guo) in their languages. And I think the Netherlands/Pays Bas is like that too in some languages.)

The Caucasus are fertile ground for battling etymologies.

Armenia calls itself Հայաստան (Hayastan) and is called სომხეთი (Somkheti) by the Georgians.

Georgia calls itself საქართველო (Sakartvelo), is called Грузия (Gruziya) by the Russians, and Վրաստան (Vrastan) by the Armenians. At a glance, this would appear to match your four different roots for Germany, but Грузия / Georgia may ultimately be the same root.

If you look down a similar list in Icelandic, you'll probably now recognise Þýskaland (if you know about Þ), but you might then be thrown by Bandaríki. It's obvious once you've got it.

Finnish is much more tricky. You'll probably recognise Saksa by now, though it is another etymology for it. Tanska and Ranska ought to be easy enough once you realise that certain letters are not found in Finnish proper, and Kreikka is fairly obvious too. But probably Ruotsi will throw you. Though you might just guess Yhdistynyt kuningaskunta (what a brilliant name for it!), and once you've got that one then probably you'll guess Yhdysvallat too.

In Hungarian, Lengyelország and Olaszország are a surprise. Placed together, Egyesült Államok and Egyesült Királyság become guessable, but will you get them the right way around?

In Czech, Rakousko is another surprise.

In general we can note, it is often a fairly near neighbour that a country can have an unusual name for.

Great list, iviehoff, even if it does include some translations. I'm happy to know Bandariki, translation or not.

I forgot about Saksa. Germany does seem to be the champion if we're counting distinct etymologies and not counting translations (as I think is right to keep this interesting). Six altogether, counting Hebrew Ashkenaz, which I also forgot.

Re: Lengyelország. Poland is Lenkija in Lithuanian. Does anyone know the etymology of those? Was there a particular group of Poles called Lensky or something? (That sort of thing is not uncommon. It's the origin of Allemagne from Alamanni, the group of Germans closest to France; and also of Arabic Yunan for Greece, from Ionia; and probably of Ruotsi.)

And re Olaszország. Does Hungarian lack initial v or w? In Polish Italy is Wlochy, from the Germanic root (meaning "foreign" or "Celtic or Romance speaking") that you get in Welsh, Vlach, Walloon, walnut (=the foreign nut). My bet would be that the Olasz in Olaszország came from something like Volochs.

Don't know why Austria is Rakousko in Czech. Does anyone?

Quiz time: Looking for iveihoff's names took me to a site, a link to which would would spoil the fun. From that site I learned that there is a country that the the Estonians call Uus-Meremaa, which is arguably the biggest exception to iviehoff's "near neighbor" rule (and arguably not). Noddy badge to anyone who gets it without looking. (I'm sure I wouldn't have, even with the very vague hint I just gave.)

Edited by: VinnyD to add Ashkenaz.

Wikipedia has six main names for Germany, omitting Ashkenaz but including Latvian Vācija and Lithuanian Vokietija, possibly from German Volk, and some others, including Ashkenaz and Tahitian Purutia, from Prusse, and others from Old Norse, Lower Sorbian, and Navajo. The Navajo shouldn't count IMHO (coined for Navajo code-talker purposes during the war; they couldn't say something like Germania for fear of being understood by listeners-in). Germany über alles then, definitely.

Was there a particular group of Poles called Lensky or something?

Close. Called Lendians in English. (I only knew this because it came up in an answer to a question mathilda asked at some point.)

Don't know why Austria is Rakousko in Czech. Does anyone?

Wikipedia knows

#5 Six altogether, counting Hebrew Ashkenaz, which I also forgot.
The Hebrew name used today for the country is גרמניה "Germania" (hard G as in green). "Ashkenaz" is a medieval term, and here is an interesting article about the origin of the name.

Vinny, I observe that the most common wine grape in Hungary, that they call Olasz Riesling, is called Vlašsky Riesling in Czech/Slovak, Laski Rizling in Slovenia, and Welschriesling in German, so I think it is a good guess that Olasz is what you say it is. The Italians call it Riesling Italico, but it is a central European, not an Italian grape. So I suspect the Italian name is a misconceived translation of the Hungarian rather than the other way around. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olasz

As my wife comes from very close to the bit of Czechland known as Valašsko, which obtained its name for the same reason as the Wallachia in Romania, ie itinerant Vlachs came there, I'm used to the idea that it isn't just the English who have "Welsh" neighbours. But rather surprised to discover that the term has been applied to Italians: I wasn't aware of the Polish name for Italy.

I came across the Czech term Uhersko a while back, to discover it is an old name they had for Hungary, which they call Mad'arsko now.