Theme Week at the Nations Naming Committee Quiz

Answer: Panama

Tajikistan means "home of the Tajiks", a Persian ethnic group. Similarly, Slovenia means "land of the Slavs", an Indo-European ethnic group. The name of France comes from the Latin word "Francia", meaning "land of the Franks". The Franks were not a collection of middle-aged Irish men but a group of Germanic tribes.

Other countries to use this theme include Afghanistan, Albania, Botswana, Burma, Burundi, Cambodia and...well, let's just say that it's a popular choice.

As for Panama, there are a few different theories but the one officially backed by the government is that it means "abundance of fish, trees and butterflies". That's fair.

Answer: Cameroon

Explorer Ruy López de Villalobos dedicated islands of The Philippines to the Prince of Asturias, later King Philip II of Spain. In a similar vein, Mauritius is named after the Prince of Orange, Maurice van Nassau. Interestingly, the islands of Seychelles do not honour a member of royalty but a politician: French finance minister Jean Moreau de Séchelles.

Cameroon is not named after someone called Cameron. Instead, its name comes, via several language shifts, from the Portuguese word for shrimp. Bet you never would have guessed that!

Answer: Slovenia

But wait, there's more! Moldova, Senegal and Nigeria are also on the list. It is also possible, but not 100% certain, that Peru got its name from an indigenous word for river--"biru".

Famously, the cradle of civilisation that is Mesopotamia derived its name from a Greek phrase meaning "between the rivers", the rivers in this case being the Tigris and Euphrates.

Answer: Colour

The Republic of Cape Verde, off Africa's west coast, gets its name from the nearby peninsula Cap-Vert, which means "green cape" in Portuguese. The name of the Balkan republic Montenegro comes from the middle ages Venetian term for the region, meaning "black mountain". While Belarus literally translates as "White Rus". Rus was a medieval region in what is now eastern Europe, but opinion is divided as to how the name "White Rus" came about.

Of course, Greenland also belongs on this list--but that would have been a dead giveaway! Less obviously, Eritrea is the "Land of the Red Sea" while both Sudan and Ethiopia mean "Land of the Blacks"--via Arabic and Latin, respectively.

Answer: Somalia

The origin of Australia's name is well known in Australia, at least. It was mentioned once or twice at school. Tonga (an archipelago in the southern Pacific Ocean) also means south, although in this case in a number of Polynesian languages.

Austria is a tricky one because "Auster" is south in Latin. However, Austria is the Latinised name for what the locals call Österreich, and "Ost" is east in German.

Norway is more straightforward: Anglo Saxon for "north way". Yep, I can see that.

Bonus info: the island of Timor gets its name from a Malay word meaning "east". Thus the nation East Timor is essentially east east.

Answer: Numbers

Monaco will be the one that makes most sense to English speakers familiar with the prefix "mon-": it means "single dwelling" in Ancient Greek. Note: this does not mean that Monaco has only one house. It has at least several.

Bahrain means "two seas" in Arabic, although which two seas this refers to is not clear because there is quite a lot of water in and around the island nation. Tuvalu means "eight islands" in the Tuvaluan language, which is a bit confusing since the country has nine islands (but, to be fair, one of them used to be uninhabited).

Kyrgyzstan, as well as being very hard to spell, derives from East Turkic and Persian words that, combined, mean "land of forty tribes". Both this and the 40-rayed sun on the Kyrgyz flag pay homage to the forty clans of Manas, the hero of a epic Kyrgyzstani poem. Personally, I think this is a pretty cool naming story.

Answer: Oman

The most obvious of these is El Salvador ("The Savior"). The central American nation was once called "Provincia de Nuestro Seńor Jesus Cristo, el Salvador del Mundo" (Province of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of the World). The name was subsequently shortened. Good call.

The Solomon Islands was named in the 16th century after the biblical King Solomon. The Spanish explorer who bestowed the moniker was thinking less about wisdom than about treasure, as he hoped to find the king's legendary mines.

More obscurely, Antigua was originally given the title of Santa Maria la Antigua by Christopher Columbus, in honour of an icon in the majestic cathedral of Seville.

Answer: The animal kingdom

Both Sierra Leone and Singapore have something to do with lions: Singapore, from Sanskrit via Malay, means "Lion City" while Sierra Leone was named "Lion Mountains" by the Portuguese explorer Pedro de Sintra. I think we can all agree that lions are pretty impressive beasts and you would be proud to have your country associated with one.

Meanwhile Mali is the word for hippopotamus in the Mandinka and Bamanankan languages. I guess since there are hippos there, and most countries *don't* have hippos, it's as good a national animal as any.

According to one dominant theory Spain is also named after an animal, after several steps of translation and some mis-identification. According to this theory someone long ago mistook wild rabbits in Spain for the African animal hyrax. "Land of rabbits" in the Punic language is "I-Shpania", which became "Hispania" in Latin and thence the contemporary "Espańa" (Anglicised to "Spain"). It would be remiss of me not to note that there are competing theories, including that the name of Spain comes instead from a term for "western land", "edge", or even "place where metals are forged". But none of those fit with this question, so I'm going with the hyrax.

Answer: Freedom

The nation of Liberia began as a homeland for freed African American slaves, so it took it name from the Latin word for "free".

The Republic of Kazakhstan is, appropriately enough, the "land of the Kazakhs", an ethnic group whose own name means "independent" or "free" in an Ancient Turkic language.

Similarly, Uzbekistan is the "land of the Uzbeks", a word believed to derive from two words: "uz" (self) and "bek" (master), so the country's name is popularly rendered "land of the free".

Answer: Vanuatu

Yep, Vanuatu means "our land", which while not getting any points for originality at least can't be accused of obscurity or inaccuracy. Vanuatu used to be called New Hebrides, a name explorer James Cook bestowed in honour of the Scottish Hebrides. In 1980 the archipelago became an independent nation and changed its name accordingly.