Title: The Origin of the Names of
the Countries of the World (and the many islan that they have)/ El Origen de
los Nombres de los Paises del Mundo (y de muchas de la Islas que estos poseen).
(2004)
Author: Edgardo Otero
Today I'm going to review and analyze
this beautiful history book written by Edgardo Otero, who isn't a professional
historian, but a part time journalist and a full on history nerd. The author divides
this book in large geographical chapters, and
the first one is about America which he divides in 4 subchapters :
North, South, Central and the Caribbean, then after this he works on the
countries that are in Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania and the territories of Antarctica. In each chapter
the author explains the origins of each
country in alphabetical order and where did they get their names, and most of
the time it's a fascinating read.
So after reading this book I thought to myself, I should to do something different for this post. so working on this text and out of curiosity I wanted to see statistically, using the information from this
book, lets try find
out which reason that inspired a countries name prevails over the rest, just for the fun of it and lets see where the information takes us, so today we
are going to check this out with the States that are found in South America.
| Inspiration for the names of South American States and Territories | Examples | |
| Rivers or other bodies of water | 5 | Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay… |
| Historical figures or People that discovered the place | 5 | Simon Bolivar for Bolivia , Columbus for Colombia |
| Tree or other plants | 1 | |
| Inspired by Mountains, Vallies or other geographical characteristic | 2 | |
| Because of mineral resources | ||
| Name that describe social or political organization | 1 | |
| Animals and wildlife | 1 | |
| In Honor of Religious figures | ||
| Indigenous group/tribes | 2 | |
| Name references another place | 1 |
Some fun country facts from South America that I've discovered in this book:
·
Venezuela actual means little Venice,
as in Venice Italy, this historic city served as inspiration for the name of this country.
·
Bolivia that was named in honor
of Simon Bolivar, who actually only visited the country once asked the
authorities not to name the country after him.
·
Suriname was traded by the British
to the Dutch, for a territory occupied the Dutch called New Amsterdam the
latter would be renamed New York.
If you like the review give me a hand and support me on Patreon at this Link that will make me, Matias Cavoti very happy to keep writing.
Today I Bring you guys the stats on the countries names from Central America, North America and the Caribbean + Territories and Islands.
| Inspiration for the names of States in Central America, North America and the Caribbean + Territories and Islands | Examples | |
| Rivers or other bodies of water | 3 | |
| Historical figures or People that discovered the place | 12 | Columbus named a lot of Island after people he knew or wanted to impress |
| Trees or other plants | 4 | |
| Inspired by Mountains, Vallies or other geographical characteristic | 12 | |
| Because of mineral resources | 5 | |
| Name that describe social or political organization | 5 | |
| Animals and wildlife | 4 | |
| In Honor of Religious figures | 1 | |
| Indigenous group/tribes | ||
| Name references another place | 5 | |
| Inspired out of historical events or other cultural traditions | 2 | Note this category is new |
Some fun country facts from these regions:
Some curious information:
·
Since Columbus was running out
of names for territories was discovering he actually named Dominica ( that latter it would become the
Commonwealth of Dominica), after a day of the week Sunday, which is Domingo the day he discovered this territory. Also
Columbus named many Island after people the he knew or wanted to impress.
·
The Crimean war that transpired
1853 to 1856, lead Russia who needed cash urgently to sell Alaska to the United
State of America for 7.2 million dollars.
·
Yankee is a deformation of the
Dutch word Jaankee that means little john, the way the Dutch referred to the English.
·
To my surprise Denmark's
official claim over Greenland is pretty recent, 1921 and in 1933 it was officially
recognized international as a part of Demark, but became a autonomous territory
in 1979.
Some Interesting Conclusions one can draw from this part of the book:
·
The book truly illustrates how
relevant Christopher Columbus was, this guy like it not triggered a historical
revolution that had a global impact. Modern historians tend to reduce his
historical importance, but when you read this book you rediscover the true
scope of his travels and its reduced time frame, he did a lot in a short time.
If you like the review give me a hand and support me on Patreon at this Link that will make me, Matias Cavoti very happy to keep writing.
Today I Bring you guys the stats on the countries names and Island of the great continent Africa:
| Africa and its surrounding Islands | Examples | |
| Rivers or other bodies of water | 7 | |
| Historical figures or People that discovered the place | 9 | |
| Trees or other plants | 4 | |
| Inspired by Mountains, Vallies or other geographical characteristic | 12 | |
| Because of mineral resources | ||
| Name that describe social or political organization | 5 | |
| Animals and wildlife | 4 | |
| In Honor of Religious figures | ||
| Indigenous group/tribes | 9 | |
| Name references another place | 3 | |
| Inspired out of historical events, religion and other cultural traditions | 10 | |
| Reference to a location | 3 | |
| Description of its population | 4 | Ethiopia |
| Name references comers or trade | 2 | |
| Denomination inspired from the sun, the moon or other astronomical objects | 2 | Comoras/Comoros |
| Name references langue | 1 | |
| No one knows the origin of its name | 1 |
Some curious information and Interesting Fact presented in this book:
 |
| Add caption |
·
The book presents many origins
to the content of Africa name, I'm going
to focus on only two that I found most interesting: The first one we find that
most historians affirm that name Africa
derives from Ifriq or Afer, who is known as Epher in the bible son of Abrahams
third wife Quatura, that established himself on this content. In the second
explains that the origin of the word comes from Ifrigo
bin Abraha Al-Raish the man that built the city called Ifriqiyyah, that over
time became Africa.
·
Cueta is a spanish enclave in
Morocco, that in arab tradition is one of the
first cities built after Noah's universal flood, and the first settlers in Africa came from this city
being originally called Septa, because it was founded by Noah's Septh and that
over the year the name deformed into Cueta. Others establish Ceib Noah's grandson truly founded this city
and the name derives from him.
·
Camerun receives it name from shrimps,
yes shrimps, you see when the Portuguese explorer Fernando Po traveled through
the river Wouri he called it "Rio dos Camaroes" which translates
"river of shrimps", because the amount of these little animal that he
found in it, the name stuck.
·
Liberia was actually created by
a initiative born in the United States
of America authorized by it congress, to reestablish freed African slaves, and
its first president Joseph J Roberts was actual born in Virginia.
·
It seems that Marco Polo
arrived to the coast of Madagascar in 1298, and he ask the locals the name of
the place that he had made land fall and they responded Madagascar, mistakenly or out of a misunderstanding with the European explorer, because actually that is the name for the
African mainland for these people, and the island is actually called Izao Will
Rehetra Izao. Another story with Marco Polo establishes that he thought that he
had arrived to the Somalia's capital Mogadishu and he deformed it into
Madagascar.
·
Namibia name one of the meaning
actually is "place with no
being/people".
If you like the review give me a hand and support me on Patreon at this Link that will make me, Matias Cavoti very happy to keep writing. So Finally after a long time I update my post with
the geographic juggernaut of Asia
Some interesting facts about some Asian countries and territories that maybe you didn't know:
·
Armenia is a country that has a long relationship
with Christianity and the Bible in general, in the year 301 was the first "nation"
to convert to Christianity, becoming the official religion of the State",
now the book establishes that in Armenian tradition Haig/Haik their first
king was the great grandson of Noah who
built his arc on mount Ararat , and some traditions sustain that the arc still
on the mountain up until this day.
·
It's believed the name of Gaza was given to the territory by the
Canaanites about 3000 B.C. and it possibly
mean fortress.
·
The territory of Hong Kong, has very different
country meaning compared to most other countries or territories, it originally
was called Xiang-Gang that means "perfumed waters".
·
The name of Persia the original name of Iran,
derived from the name of the Mythological Hero Perseus.
·
The treaty of Sevres in 1920, recognized the
Kurdish State, but the auto determination of the Kurdish people was ignored in
the Lausanne treaty in 1923 that is the foundation for the birth of the modern
Turkish State, basically they got screwed.
·
Both Mongolia and China mean or reference that
there country is at the center of the world.
|
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