Can you name the Non-Cognate English Exonyms? by Riko

Can you name the Non-Cognate English Exonyms?

created by Riko

Enter a English Exonym in the box below
Correctly named English Exonyms will show up below
Click any empty Native Endonym or English Exonym to answer for that location
Source: GeoNames
Native short form endonyms are of a language that is native to the country and/or an official language and/or widely spoken and whose English equivalents are not immediately obvious or clearly related
This quiz has not been verified by Sporcle

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Show Missed Answers

Native Endonym	English Exonym	Exonym (probably*) comes from...
Bhārat		the Indus River.
Chosŏn		the ancient Goguryeo Kingdom.
Crna Gora		an Italian translation of 'Crna Gora'.
Deutschland		the Latin name 'Germania'.
Divehi Rājje
Druk Yul		the Sanskrit for 'highlands'*.
Ellada		the mythological King Graikos.
Hanguk		the ancient Goguryeo Kingdom.
Hayastan		the Old Persian name of the region*.
Hrvatska
al-Imārāt		the translation from Arabic.

Native Endonym	English Exonym	Exonym (probably*) comes from...
Kampuchea		the ancient kingdom of Kamboja.
Lietuva
Magyarország
Mişr
Nihon
Österreich
Saḳarṭvelo
Shqipëria
Suomi
al-'Urdunn
Zhōngguó		most likely from the Qin Dynasty.*

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Unusual English Exonyms (Country Names) Quiz

by Riko

Created Jun 2, 2010 in Geography
Game Plays 4,648

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	Riko:	Jun 3rd, 2010 at 00:25 GMT	1 point
	Thanks for playing. Please let me know what needs to be changed, added or removed or if something isn't explained clearly enough.

	Riko:	Jun 3rd, 2010 at 01:13 GMT	1 point
	Embarrassing side note but I confused the words 'demonym' and 'exonym' which is the reason for the erroneous URL.

	rufis:	Jun 3rd, 2010 at 03:22 GMT	4 points
	I thought Greece was Hellas?

	cantthinkofaname:	Jun 3rd, 2010 at 04:09 GMT	-4 points
	change it so the game matches the title.

	kristofferjay:	Jun 3rd, 2010 at 04:22 GMT	3 points
	Great quiz! I've never understood where the word "Japan" came from.

	Shay:	Jun 3rd, 2010 at 07:53 GMT	6 points
	@rufis - Hellas is Ancient Greek; Ellada is Modern Greek

	Riko:	Jun 3rd, 2010 at 08:09 GMT	2 points
	@cantthinkofaname: can you explain what you mean?

	Riko:	Jun 3rd, 2010 at 08:15 GMT	11 points
	I was thinking of adding an explanation of the english name for the third column but some of them are kind of long. should I do it?

	Psyk:	Jun 3rd, 2010 at 17:57 GMT	3 points
	Yes, it would be interesting to see the explanation.

	campervana:	Jun 3rd, 2010 at 19:36 GMT	5 points
	i wouldn't call the exonyms strange, rather just exonyms

	Riko:	Jun 3rd, 2010 at 21:11 GMT	5 points
	Yeah, the more technical term would be irregular exonyms or non-cognate exonyms but strange is catchier.

	sc00:	Jun 22nd, 2010 at 20:42 GMT	3 points
	I would not use the word strange. Otherwise I liked it.

	giovanioriley:	Jun 26th, 2010 at 23:14 GMT	3 points
	The explanations are very interesting. Very good game.

	zmoney:	Jul 1st, 2010 at 03:34 GMT	1 point
	The name "China" may have come to Europe through Persian, but the ultimate origin of the name is the Qin state, which eventually became the first dynasty to rule over a unified China.

	Riko:	Jul 1st, 2010 at 07:26 GMT	1 point
	I've read the Qin origin has been disputed but that is the only etymological origin that was talked about in every source i checked out so i changed it.

	Riko:	Jul 1st, 2010 at 07:46 GMT	3 points
	An explanation of "al-Imārātu"- what I read was that UAE citizens typically indicate the individual emirate if say someone was to ask where s/he is from. If s/he was to indicate the country as a whole, the short name would simply be 'the Emirates'. The only inconsistency I've found is some sources citing this as 'al-Imārātu' and others as 'al-Imārāt' [and other typical vowel variants like 'al-Emarat' etc.]. For now, I'm leaving it as-is but if anyone has more/better information, I would be quite grateful.

	ulashima:	Jul 1st, 2010 at 12:05 GMT	1 point
	Ellada and Ellas are both used in Greece. I don't know in what context they differ. Just like Nihon and Nippon for Japan. This word "strange" is a little bit non-PC, that's why people kinda react.

	Riko:	Jul 1st, 2010 at 18:26 GMT	4 points
	A Greek friend of mine told me Ellas or Hellas [Ἑλλάς] is typically used for Ancient Greece or Greece as a cultural or national identity rather than the modern sovereign state of Greece, almost like how some identify as say German or Irish or Chinese as a cultural heritage but American, Australian, Brazilian etc. on a geopolitical level. In regards to Japan, Nippon is reserved for formal situations like documents and coins while Nihon is used in regular conversation and in other words like 'Nihonjin' [Japanese Person] or 'Nihongo' [Japanese Language]. I changed the 'strange' in the title. I think it sounds kind of clinical now but lets see how it plays.

	Riko:	Jul 1st, 2010 at 18:27 GMT	2 points
	Also, thanks everyone!

	elnok:	Jul 9th, 2010 at 14:23 GMT	4 points
	Doing this, I thought "why did they only put 21 in there? There has got to be tons more." Then I racked my brains, and the best I could come up with were Eire, al'Urdunn, and Myanmar. That there are so few non-cognate exonyms is interesting, I think. But maybe that's because I'm an ethnic Magyar...

	urkondor:	Jul 9th, 2010 at 15:31 GMT	2 points
	Great quiz! The name "Sakartvelo" went through a linguistic "telephone game" to get to where we call it today. The Armenians called it "Kvarts," then the Persians (I forget quite what they called it, but I do remember that they couldn't pronounce the K+V together), then the Ottoman Turks ("Gurj"), then Italians and English, who thought it sounded enough like "Georgia" to just call it that. The St. George link didn't hurt either.

	treelol:	Jul 9th, 2010 at 19:46 GMT	1 point
	Finland's name comes from finnish "suo", which means swamp

	Riko:	Jul 14th, 2010 at 08:02 GMT	1 point
	@treelol: the etymological explanations are for the English name, not the endonym. Thanks for the explanation on the root of Suomi though. Quite interesting.

	Riko:	Jul 14th, 2010 at 08:14 GMT	1 point
	@urkondor: wow, you've got this down! i've read a few discussions/arguments about the name... and then i gave up and went with the folk etymology. the jump from 'k' to 'g' and 'v' to 'w/u' is a fairly common one so it's not hard to see how one could get from 'kvarts' but i couldn't find any source that would say 'here is how we got the name' only 'the name is usually said to have originated from St. George but etc.' But I loved the way you phrased your explanation, so I included it too. Many word origins are contested and i'm hoping that asterisk gives me enough wiggle room. Thanks!

	Riko:	Jul 14th, 2010 at 08:31 GMT	3 points
	@elnok: i decided to just stay clear of the 'myanmar' argument that would have ensued and cut it all together. but i did put in al-'Urdunn: thanks for the tip! also, Magyars FTW!

	dan12:	Jul 14th, 2010 at 18:45 GMT	1 point
	yeah man, i live in the uae. the country name is def not al-imaratu the full name is emiratel mutahediya al emarat but if u wanted to shorten it, itd be al emarat

	johnlk:	Jul 19th, 2010 at 03:48 GMT	2 points
	Choson refers to both Koreas, no?

	ChileNoseJam:	Nov 21st, 2010 at 07:28 GMT	1 point
	Any chance you could make it a bit bigger please? As it is it's really hard to read.

	Sollair:	Mar 14th, 2011 at 16:06 GMT	1 point
	Thanks for the explanations. Very interesting. Didn't know many of them, though.