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”

  • SilverShark@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    2 days ago

    Portugal comes from “Portus Cale”. It was in the general area of the city of Porto. The word “Postus” and “Porto” mean port, as in a port for ships.