As long as we're talking about geography ("balkanized'):

When I collected stamps as a kid, some countries were hard to place. What can a kid make of a stamp that says, "Magyar Republic," for example? Eventually I figured out that that's what the people in Hungary call their country. "What stupids!" I thought, "not to even know the name of their own country!"

But of course, it's simply that we use a name which differs from what the locals use. What do you call such a name?

I'd imaging there are many more examples, even ignoring those where the local name -- for example, Munchen -- is similar enough to our name that it's not difficult to recognize. For example?

Some of the non-local names are less than polite: Greece is a homophone with grease; Turkey is a rather stupid animal; and doesn't Switzerland mean land of the sweaty people?

Germany wins as a country with many, sometimes two, names for the country, the people, and the language. English Germany ~ German, Italian Germania ~ tedesco, French allemagne ~ allemand, Spanish Alemania ~ alemán, Russian Germannia ~ nemets (original meaning mute), Dutch Duitsland ~ duits, Greek Germania ~ germanika, Hungarian németország ~ német, Turkish Almanca ~ alman. ON the other hand, the Germans have a bunch of different names for many central European cities: Wroclaw ~ Breslau, Ljubljana ~ Laibach, Lvov ~ Lemberg, Bolzano ~ Bozen (Alto Adige ~ Südtirol, where Ladin is the third language).

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I quite like Switzerland's solution. It has three official languages, French, Italian and German. In 1938 Romansh was declared the fourth 'national language', but is not an official one. Rather than put the name of the country on its stamps in all the languages, it uses the ancient Latin name for the area, "Helvetia".

The International travel convention is to use the local names where surface transport (trains usually) is concerned but the English spelling for airports (which usually have an airport name as well as a city name).

It took a long time before I associated Attila the Hun with Hungary, despite it's being obvious.

Now, what's with our using the Greek-derived "Germany" instead of their own term, "Deutschland?"

what's with our using the Greek-derived "Germany" instead of their own term, "Deutschland?"

The theory I've heard is that each language chose the term for the first Germannic tribes they met: Alemanni, Germanni, etc. Italian tedesco is realted to Deutsch, which if it had survived in English would be something like Theedish.

More examples: On its postage stamps, as here, Greece refers to itself as ΕΛΛΑΣ (Hellas).

What about cities, rather than countries? Vienna is Wien to the natives, no?

I find it curious that in Roman letters an "H" is tacked on. We call Things Greek "Hellenic," so it's not a really unheard-of thing, this "Ellas." I wonder if there's a connection between Hellas and the name, Helen.


For a really funny name, check out the lovely little Scottish villiage of Twatt! What do they call the local denizens?

i]I find it curious that in Roman letters an "H" is tacked on. We call Things Greek "Hellenic," so it's not a really unheard-of thing, this "Ellas." [/i]

That's because you cannot see the rough breathing mark (that looks like a left single quote ‘ ) over the eta. It's discribed by Greek grammarians and corresponds to an /h/ and is poosed to the smooth breathing mark. It is etymologically usually an initial /w/ or /y/. There's a good book written by W S Allen called Vox Graeca (and its companion Vox Latina) that details how Classical Greek might have been pronounced. Based on all kinds of linguistic evidence. It's quite the detective novel. Anyway, the Modern Greeks for a variety of reasons insist that Classical Greek was pronounced like Modern Greek, but I don't agree with that view. Classical or Ancient Greek was also quite possibly had tones rather than stress. Helene and Hellas are at least related in the mythopoeic mind of the Greeks.

Wien ~ Vienna.

For some reason I always think of its Latin name: Vindobona. And some of Austria as Noricum.