Of the Origin of Countries I Trivia Quiz

Answer: Saudi Arabia

The creation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia started at the beginning of the 20th century when Abdul-Aziz bin Saud, known as Ibn Saud, captured Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family and the current capital of the modern country.

The name Kuwait comes from the Arabic "ākwāt", which means "a fortress built near water".

The name Bahrain comes from the plural of the Arabic word "bahr", meaning "sea". The name al-Bahrayn means "the two seas" but it is still unclear which two seas the name refers to.

There are two possibilities for the origin of the name Yemen. The first one comes from "yamin", Arabic meaning "on the right side", since the South is on the right side of the country when facing the sunshine. The second one comes from "yumn", which means "felicity" in Arabic.

Answer: Sierra Leone

In 1462, the coast of present Sierra Leone was explored by the Portuguese navigator Pedro da Cintra, who called it "Serra de Lećo", probably because the shape of the mountains in the distance reminded him of a lion.

The origin of the name Moldova is not clear. One legend says that prince Dragos named a river "Molda" after his favourite hound, who was named Molda, drowned in it. The river eventually gave its name to the whole country.

In the Lao language, the country's name is "Muang Lao" or "Pathet Lao", which both mean "Lao country". The French united the three Lao kingdoms when they colonised the region and pluralised the name into Laos.

It seems that the name Suriname comes from a native tribe of the region, the Surinem, who were Arawak-speaking. They inhabited the region before colonisation.

Answer: Pakistan

According to the story, Choudhary Rahmat Ali, a Pakistani activist, thought of the name "Pakstan" while studying in England (the 'i' was added later to make it easier to pronounce). He published a pamphlet in 1933, "Now or Never", in which the name appears for the first time in print. According to Ali, Pakistan is an acronym of the five regions of Punjab, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Sind, and Baluchistan. Other theories claim it is an acronym of just Punjab, Afghanistan and Kashmir, followed by -stan, which is found in several countries of the region.

Liberia was given its name by the American Colonization Society, which purchased land from native tribes in Africa with the aim to bring freed slaves back to Africa. The name itself is a derivation of the Latin word "liber", which means "free".

The Swazi people were named after Mswati II, king of the tribe. When it became an independent nation from South Africa, it took the name Swaziland, the land of the Swazi.

Abel Tasman, a Dutch explorer, first named what is now New Zealand Staten Landt, thinking it was connected to the tip of South America. In 1645, Dutch cartographers had changed the name of the islands to Nova Zeelandia, after the Dutch province of Zeeland, which means "land of the sea". Its Maori name is Aotearoa, which is generally translated by "land of the long white cloud".

Answer: Singapore

Singapore's name, in Sanskrit, was Simhapuram, from "simhah" (lion) and "puram" (city). It was then transformed in Malay to Singapura. There are no lions in Singapore, so the origin of the name remains obscure. Today, the country is often referred to as the Lion City.

Brunei was called Barunai during the 14th century, a name which may have been influenced by the Sanskrit word "varun", meaning "ocean" or "king of ocean". Today, the country's full name is Negara Brunai Darussalam. Darussalam is Arabic for "abode of peace" and "Negara" means "country" in Malay.

Sri Lanka's name means "resplendent island" in Sanskrit. It received its current name in 1972, but before that it was called Ceylon by the British, a name which probably comes from the Sanskrit name Sinhala, which can be interpreted as "the blood of a lion". The island has also been called Lankadweepa, and in Tamil its name is İlankai.

The exact origin of the words "bangla" or "bengal" is unclear. It is thought to come from the name of a tribe, the Bang, which settled in the region around 1000 BCE. Until 1971, Bangladesh was known as East Pakistan. Bangladesh means "country of the Bengali".

Answer: Lebanon

The Semitic root "lbn" means white, which probably refers to the snow-capped peak of Mount Lebanon or possibly to limestone cliffs. The story say that when Julius Caesar arrived in Lebanon in 47 BCE, he called it Lub Na'an for "white land".

Libya's name comes from the ancient Libu tribe, which lived in the region. The name Lehabim and Lubim both appear in the Bible to indicate the people and the land of Lybia.

The origins of the name Albania are unclear. It could come from the pre Indo-European word "alb", which means hill, or from the Indo-European word "alb", which means white. The Albani people were recorded by the Greek geographer Ptolemy in 150 CE.

The rock of Gibraltar was captured in 710 CE by the Arabic leader Tariq and it was renamed "the Mountain of Tariq", or "Jabal Tāriq" in Arabic. Gibraltar is the Spanish variation of the name.

Answer: Sudan

Sudan's name comes from the Arabic Bilad-al-Sudan, which means "land of the blacks". The plural form for "black" is "sauda". The term is said to have been used by Arab travellers and historians to describe the skin colour of the people living in the region.

The name Aithiops appears in the Iliad ans the Odyssey. According to Pliny the Elder, the name comes from a son of Hephaestus named Aethiops. In the Book of Aksum, an extrabibilical grand-son of Ham is mentioned under the name Ityopp'is, which was also the name of two ancient kings. The names are thought to be come the Greek "aitho", for "I burn" and "ops", for "face".

Mauritania is named after an ancient Berber Kingdom of Mauretania, which was actually not in the same region. It was in fact on the Mediterranean coast of North Africa, and it was named after the Mauri tribe. It is unclear whether the Greek word "mauros", which means "black", gave its name to the Mauri tribe, or if it the other way around.

The word Niger was first used to name the river, which was called "egerew nigerewen" in Tuareg, which probably means "river of rivers". The word "nigerewen" was probably altered by Latin to become "niger", which means "black".

Answer: Venezuela

There are two theories about the origin of the name Venezuela. One story says that the stilt houses on Lake Maracaibo reminded the explorer Amerigo Vespucci of the city of Venice, so he gave the region the name of "Veneziola", "little Venice" in Tuscan. The name was then influenced by Spanish. The other story, told by the Spanish, talks about a native tribe called the "Veneciuela".

Vanuatu's name comes from the combination of two Southern Oceanic Austronesian words, "vanua" ("land" or "home") and "tu" ("to stand").

Fiji's name comes from the main island's name, Viti Levu, which simply means "great island".

There are two theories about the origins of the name Belize. One says it comes from the native Maya word "belix", meaning "muddy water", in reference to the Belize River. Another says it comes from the Spanish pronunciation of a Scottish man, Peter Wallace, who had founded a settlement along the Belize River.

Answer: Cameroon

Lepidophthalmus turneranu is a ghost shrimp (also called mud lobster) that lives off the coast of West Africa. When Portuguese explorers reached the Wouri River, they witnessed a swarm of ghost shrimps and called the river "Rio de Camaroes". The name was then used for the whole country.

The island of Mauritius changed names several times, depending on who was controlling it. Its current name was first given to the island in 1598, when Dutch sailors named it Mauritius, after Maurits van Nassau, Stadtholder of Holland and Prince of Orange.

Comoros's official name in Arabic is al-Ittiḥād al- Qamarī. The Arabic word "qamar" means moon, and the country was originally called "Djazair al Kamar", which means the "Island of the Moon".

The origins of the word Somalia are unclear. It does mean "land of the Somali", but the etymology of the tribe's name are disputed. Some say it comes from a legendary ancestor called Samaale. The name Somali could also come from "soo" ("go") and "maal" ("milk"), or "sac" ("herder") and another meaning of "maal" ("cattle"), both a reference to the herding practices of the Somali people. Some even say it comes from a derivation of the Arabic word "dhawamaal" ("wealthy").

Answer: Argentina

Argentina's name comes from "argentum", the Latin name for silver. The first Spanish conquerors believed rumors which claimed there were silver mountains to be found in the region.

Slovenia's name simply means "land of the Slavs", but the etymology of the word "slav" is uncertain. It probably comes from "slovo", which is old Slavonic for "word" or "speech", which suggest the name originally referred to people who spoke the same language.

Azerbaijan's name originates from the Persian name Atropates, the satrap of the town of Media under Alexander the Great. The name Atropates itself is a derivation of an old Iranian term meaning "protected by the holy fire" or "land of the holy fire". Another - simpler - theory is that the name comes from two local Iranian words "azer" ("fire") and "baydjan" ("guardian"), to refer to fire-worship.

Grenada's name comes from the Spanish city of Granada, whose name comes from Arabic, "Gharnāṭah", originally a Jewish neighbourhood in the city which stood where Granada is today. It is said the Spanish called the island of Grenada not because it reminded them of the city of Granada, but because of the presence on the island of fruit which resembled pomegranates ("granatum" in Latin).

Answer: The Netherlands

It is said Austrians were the first one to call the Netherlands "the lower land", because of the contrast they presented with their native mountains. In old Dutch, "neder" simply mean "low", "down", or "below".

Luxembourg's name comes from Medieval Germanic meaning "little castle", or "little fort".

Estonia means "land of the Aesti". One theory says that the name Aesti comes from old Germanic for "east". Another theory says it could come from a native name meaning "waterside dwellers".

Belgium means "land of the Belgae", after the Latinized name of a native tribe. The autonym name of the tribe is unknown, but it is thought it comes from the old Celtic "belg", which means "to swell" (in anger).