Not something I thought of a lot when I was back in US since USA is… a pretty bureaucratic name by all means. But I just realized that some countries have really fascinating names in their local language
Like how China names itself Central/Middle country in a very grandiose way (as in, we are the center of the world), or Japan being “land of the rising sun”
Unlike popular belief, Chile is not named after the spicy vegetable. Story goes there wasa bird chirping and the Spanish thought it sounded like “Chile”.
The Netherlands literally means the Low countries. Pretty literally there.
In German, we also call the Netherlands “the low countries” (“die Niederlande”). 🙃
It’s the low countries because it’s the land around the river delta’s, not because of the height of the land. It’s originally meant as downriver.