Surprisingly Literal Country Names

[@NameExplain]

Let me know what other surprising literal country names I may have missed out!

[@rparl]

+

[@ianmacfarlane1241]

United States of America.

[@timvlaar]

The netherlands litteraly means the low lands

[@ianmacfarlane1241]

@@timvlaar There's an area near me in Glasgow called Netherlee, so it could be called Low Lie Lee - something that we always laughed about as kids.

[@jamescook2412]

Ivory Coast, Côte d'Ivoire ?

[@bbbb95476]

Me, someone who speaks Spanish: these are just as obvious South Africa.

[@samsunguser3148]

lol i just can kinda guess a word related to spanish

[@apossiblyhereticalalphaleg3595]

Same for me as a Portuguese speaker, after all, it is said a Portuguese speaker can understand a Spanish speaker more than a Spanish speaker can understand a Portuguese speaker

[@5roundsrapid263]

I’m American, but speak fluent Spanish. I knew all of these also. I have another: Puerto Rico means “rich port”, but it’s technically part of the US.

[@5roundsrapid263]

SamsungUser V Duos If you speak any Romance language, you can guess Spanish words fairly well. Even if you speak English, which is almost 50% Romance based.

[@seribelz]

@@5roundsrapid263 also spanish in origin Florida: (flowery) Colorado (red) Nevada (covered in snow)

[@t.sebastiao9824]

Tbh if you speak any Latin based language all of these are pretty obvious

[@tal9139]

Except for Montenegro, even for English speakers these are painstakingly obviously. And if you think about Montenegro's name for more than 20 seconds you'll also get it.

[@BirbBoiYT]

Ye

[@5roundsrapid263]

tal brosh English takes a lot from Romance languages. The Romans, and later the Normans, gave it a lot of Latin words.

[@Shadow_Drip]

I mean, yeah, Ecuador is obvious. Costa Rica wasn't obvious to me, a native English speaker tho. and I would have never guessed Montenegro meant black mountain.

[@arczi1309]

@@tal9139 But slavic speakers get that in split second as we use simmilar name to the original one i.e. Czarnogóra in Polish

[@boburiinchankludho]

I've always found the USA painfully literal, like it is a union of states that are in the american continent...

[@petercarioscia9189]

Sure, but there are 50 states within the country that have interesting names. Well...not all 50 of them....most of the 13 colonies have boring "New ____" names, a couple of north/south states (Carolina, Dakota) though how they became N/S is interesting. Ok if I had to guess, only 20-30 states have interesting names. But still, the UNITED states is dead literal, because we are 50 independent states coexisting (tentatively, with a couple minor and major hiccups) under one banner. The EU couldn't even manage it for a couple of decades, meanwhile we've managed it for over 2 centuries (less the 4 years in the late 1800s)

[@petercarioscia9189]

Also, worth mentioning there are 3 other countries on the North American continent.

[@tal9139]

@@petercarioscia9189 And the majority of states were given random names because they were just territories and the government didn't care enough to not be literal

[@angelrobles7201]

@stockart whiteman Estados Unidos Mexicanos: United Mexican States. But you can call us México. We love it.

[@Obviary]

United Kingdom too

[@Altrantis]

As a Spanish speaking person, all three of these are just descriptions, in all three cases it's just normal words in Spanish.

[@tal9139]

Isn't black mountain in spanish montaña negra?

[@JorgitoFerreira]

@@tal9139 you can say it both ways: 'monte negro' or 'montaña negra'

[@angelrobles7201]

@@tal9139 _Monte_ and _Montaña_ are valid and common words in Spanish. It's like _Hill_ (Monte) and _Mountain_ (Montaña). But many people use them without any proper difference.

[@mitchlmitten5874]

My knowledge of the Spanish language made this video kinda boring...

[@adrianatgaming8640]

@@JorgitoFerreira wait Montana stands for mountain, now the name makes much more sense for the state.

[@pachutoazumadre32xD]

Equatorial Guinea: am I a joke to you?

[@djambu]

So many Guineas, New Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, even Papua New Guinea.

[@10000Subs]

@@djambu Guinea-Bissau too

[@alaskagyal]

It's not on the Equator lmao

[@gdjokerreject2068]

Luis Hernandez 100th like

[@Gia1911Logous]

Equatorial Guinea: 1. Not on the Equator 2. Not in Guinea

[@isaacbobjork7053]

In Icelandic Montenegro is called Svartfjallaland, which is literally Black Mountain Land, and also sounds like something from Tolkien

[@circuit10]

The English name sounds like it means the same thing

[@LuchoCastle_11]

I wonder why the country is not called Blackmount in English.

[@tomascifuentesgomez6625]

On spanish it means literally: « black mountain »

[@yvplayz7813]

In Italian it also means "black mountain"

[@tana3846]

Yeah in Albanian we call it Mali(Mountain) zi(black)

[@ianmacfarlane1241]

Don't get any more literal than the United States of America.

[@joergwoelke1455]

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

[@adrianatgaming8640]

@@joergwoelke1455 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

[@johnnybaxter8078]

@@adrianatgaming8640 but Ireland and Britain are still proper names

[@scottmalkinson9545]

johnny baxter it’s Great Britain as in Scotland, England and Wales. It’s basically the same thing as the USA because it’s the United Kingdom’s of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

[@ianmacfarlane1241]

@@avaeballienealexander7402 No one said that they were.

[@hailgiratinathetruegod7564]

7:14 You seriously didn't call one of the most famous republics in history a kingdom ? By the Doge, what is happening ?

[@NameExplain]

Oops, slip of the tongue. I have republic written in my script and everything. My brain doesn't do too good these days.

[@johnidchannel6877]

He also called Venetian a variation of Italian.

[@desia.brimou]

@@johnidchannel6877 to be fair italy calls a lot of its minority languages dialects not that that makes it accurate, just a relatively easy mistake to make

[@WerewolfLord]

Much disappoint.

[@abelzatyko1513]

At least he used the correct EU4 map colour

[@SupremeLeaderKimJong-un]

People like to call us North Korea because we’re the northern part of Korea

[@apossiblyhereticalalphaleg3595]

Now that's just a lie, you're all of Korea, propaganda says you're just the North

[@zuboy4272]

It's all lies , there is no korea , its called south china , and ocean beside it is called south china sea

[@wallonice]

You are the Korea

[@Solgaleo791]

True

[@TheMV01]

In a few years it will be Nuked Korea

[@theciaoouu]

Venetian and all the other "dialects" of Italy are not variations of Italian, they're languages coming directly from Latin 😊

[@Altrantis]

Technically you could argue all Romance languages ARE Latin. There's no moment where they really stopped being Latin, but they drifted apart until they were no longer mutually intelligible. People kept thinking they spoke Latin in Italy, France, Spain and Portugal for centuries after the fall of the western roman empire. I believe it was a king of Portugal who noticed the Latin in church texts is nothing like the Latin he spoke, and in turn nothing like, say, the Latin the French spoke, so he decided to rename the language he spoke to Portuguese, and the rest of the Romance speaking world followed suit.

[@theciaoouu]

@@Altrantis Yes, I could not agree more! I think it was with the oaths of Strasbourg that the separation line between Latin and Romance languages was "officially" drawn, but I'm not 100% sure. The only thing I wanted to say is that it's wrong to consider those languages that we in Italy call "dialects" as "sons of Italian" since they're more like "uncles of Italian"

[@ronjayrose9706]

@@theciaoouu more like brothers and sisters of Italians

[@theciaoouu]

@@ronjayrose9706 I said "uncles" because I see Italian as the "son" of the Tuscan language (as Tuscan was the chosen one to become the lingua franca of Italy) and Tuscan as the most popular brother of all the regional languages spoken in the peninsula. Kinda strange metaphor, but I hope it helps!

[@Altrantis]

@@theciaoouu Italian, much like German, is a bit of an artificial language made out of other italian languages with the express purpose to be easy to understand by most italians.

[@ivanmehboob]

The us state of Vermont actually has a similar etymology as montenegro. Vermont or vert mont is green mountain in french

[@adrianatgaming8640]

mont in general, for example Montréal

[@ephraimboateng5239]

Montréal was Mont-royal but over the years the Name contracted and the Royal part changed.

[@karatehh6966]

AdrianAtGaming “Real Mountain”

[@SA-ng4uw]

Karatehh Royal Mountain

[@countolafiii3029]

Netherlands is also quite a literal name. 'Nether' or 'Neder' in (old)Dutch means low. So the Netherlands means the low lands.

[@enderdude13]

Hell Land

[@mawinstallation6626]

Not for nothing it's usually called Países Bajos (Literally, "low lands") in Spanish.

[@vonelle9122]

Elvice OS and in french pays-bas

[@lxrdsacrifice]

now we need the endlands

[@BangFarang1]

@@lxrdsacrifice Finistère in France means endland (Fini+terre). It was the most western part of the known world before Colombus' journey

[@vegabtw]

Another fact: Montenegro may be a venetian name, but "Black Mountain" is also written "Monte Negro" in Spanish, so these 3 countries had no mistery for me as a Spaniard :((

[@ephraimboateng5239]

Same for French In french, you would say Mont Noire Mont= Monte/ Noire=Negro

[@sebasgonzalez5508]

Monte is mount tho

[@asmallyoutube]

As a person whose birthplace's majority language is Romanian, i can confirm this is the same thing. Monte = Munte Negro = Negru So it basically counts as a similar version of the original name (PERHAPS the most similar one.)

[@RedTsarOldChannel-INACTIVE]

1:01 Central African "Republuc." Congratulations sir.

[@mahraba874]

Red Tsar !

[@v.k.8153]

I was looking for this comment. Sharp eyes!

[@lewatoaofair2522]

As for the Venetian language: It is NOT a “variation of” Italian. In fact, because of how divided the Italian Peninsula has been for over a millennium, an “Italian language” wasn’t a thing until after unification in the mid-19th century. What we know as “Italian” is really a variation of the Tuscan language. (It’s kind of like how Martin Luther created the German language. I’ll plug that video of yours in here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oGbFmpaEq8mceNU Also, as Enric pointed out, Venice was a Republic, not a Kingdom.

[@Enric.]

this! he was so wrong. Besides the "kingdom of Venice" killed me!

[@lewatoaofair2522]

Enric Patrick ain’t a history buff.

[@claudiodidomenico]

As an Italian, thanks for pointing out the language diversity in Italy specifying the fact they're not dialects!

[@TheRealGuywithoutaMustache]

I’m so bad at geography that I never realized that Ecuador was in the equator until I saw the thumbnail lol

[@momoslayedtbh]

XD same

[@Rex-lg6co]

The province of Newfoundland, Canada, is literally just phrase "new found land"

[@korana6308]

Same as Nova Zeelandia or New Zealand... in Russia there's also an island called Nova Zemla which also literally means New Land. Interestingly enough the etymology of land is different to Zemla where "land" is derived from "landing" , or basically "coming to something" And etymology of Zemla - literally means soil or ground . Bonus fact: Zea means green, which etymologically "Nova Zealandia" basically translates to new greenland.

[@ManuelPicadoH]

Just for fact check to people who isn't familiar with Jurassic Park Movies, "Isla Nublar" is just the fictional island near Costa Rica where the park is located in the movies, it is based on the REAL Isla del Coco "Cocos Island" :)

[@keineahnung6124]

Pura vida mae!🙋🇨🇷

[@IloveRumania]

I got the reference immediately.

[@manjensen1710]

It would be "coconut island" since there's another place called Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean.

[@SandyTidwell]

Poland - in Polish, "pole" means field, Poland, land of fields. There's also a city in Poland called Opole, literally "Oh, a field!".

[@FireurchinProductionsByzantium]

Suggestion: Names that sound literal but aren't

[@QemeH]

You mean like Cabo Verde (or Cape Verde as it's known in english)? It sounds literal and it means "green cape" in portugese, but it's not named for any cape. It's named for the Cap (as in peninsula) that is the westernmost point of africa, that just *looked* like a cape to the sailors naming it...

[@jellyelf2131]

Like the Canary Islands (Canary is derived from Canis, or dog)

[@adamcarrell]

Isla Nublar is a tourist trap. So many delicious tourists...

[@5roundsrapid263]

No expense spared!

[@pabloc.b.9837]

The guy who create this video barely knows what the hell his talking about. Isla Nublar doens't exist hahaha Also, *I love your comment*

[@elcawyo9629]

Well in portuguese ALL of those are pretty obvious, so yeah, you didn't got me this time

[@Albert_Herring]

Ikr

[@eduardogoyzueta5285]

The same in Spanish

[@starmax1000]

Well the idea of the region called Ecuador came first after the French geodesic expedition in which they were pinpointing the exact location of the equator. Naming it the República del Ecuador (republic of the equator) Had that not happened, the country's name would've remained something related to Quito

[@Gia1911Logous]

Equatorial Guinea: *_sweats nervously_*

[@nicolaswoerner2401]

I think someone should mention Australia. Back in the Age of Discovery, people thought there had to be a giant continent far down south, called "Terra Australis". However due to the inhospitable nature of the South Pole, the furthest they could travel south was Australia, which they eventally choose as their name.

[@nicolaswoerner2401]

Might have gotten something wrong and/or made some other mistakes (non-native speaker), but here's the Wikipedia article: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_Australis

[@nelhuiliztli2926]

Spanish tends to be quite literal, for example in México, 6 states have literal names and another 4 are names from people. Many of the US states have unique names, but there are still those that are named after a person, and four of them are literal (and in Spanish).

[@cheetahx13]

You explained my country s name, never saw it coming, made my day. You are awesome. Greetings from Costa Rica

[@phenomenalone7134]

Watching from Romania love ur content since 2016

[@ToutCQJM]

Fun fact #1: since a lot of the gold in Costa Rica was taken away, Costa Ricans sometimes call it Costa Pobre (which means poor coast). Fun fact #2: since many Nicaraguans have emigrated to Costa Rica in order to have a better life, sometimes Costa Ricans -sarcastically- call it Costa Nica. Fun fact #3: Costa Ricans call themselves “ticos”, so sometimes Costa Rica is called Tiquicia, which is a sort of a slang-ish word which would translate to Land of the Ticos.

[@mjmcbath]

Isn't Isla Nublar where Jurrasic Park 3 was set?

[@pabloc.b.9837]

Yeap, a fictional island. It was based on the real Isla del Coco (Coconut Island)

[@wendychavez5348]

My partner's family is from Ecuador, and he lived there for a while at age 9, so of course I'm interested in this topic! My mom spent 2 years in Bolivia, so I was extra excited to hear about Simón Bolivar, too.

[@afh7689]

You forgot about Central Asian "-stan" countries that are all named after the major ethnic groups of each (Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Tajiks, and Turkmen). The names of each of these groups is combined with the Persian suffix "-stan" which means "land of". These names are of recent vintage and part of the Soviet policy to give every ethnicity a homeland, so it's fitting that the names derived from the ethnicities. Afghanistan is somewhat similar in that it uses the term "Afghan", which was historically used to refer to what we call the Pashtuns today. The term Afghanistan had been used for many centuries. Pakistan isn't similar as it is from the Persian/Urdu term for "land of the pure", rather than for an ethnicity.

[@lewatoaofair2522]

YouTubaholic Patrick already did that.

[@robokill387]

Any country with "land" in it too.

[@QemeH]

That's kinda how Germany got it's bajillion names :) Germany (e.g. english) because of the roman name for the region "germania", but that was chosen because of the germanic tribes, Allemagne (e.g. french) because of the allemanni tribes, Deutschland (e.g. german) because of the teutonic tribes ["Teutschland"], Saksa (e.g. Finnish) because of the saxon tribe and Nimsa (arabic) because they confused it with austria... Oh, wait. The last one doesn't fit in the list. My point is: "land of X" is a very common template

[@korana6308]

Stan doesn't mean "land of" . It etymologically probably means just a place. I will help you with the words that it was derived from... Basically English "STANd" ,or a Russian - oSTANovka "stop" , or oSTANki "remains" ... So etymologically its not "land of".

[@Oturan20]

@@korana6308 The Persian suffix -stan means "place of", however -istan witch many of these countries have in there names does mean "land".

[@SamAronow]

Morocco's endonym is literally "The West Kingdom."

[@tal9139]

Doesn't maghreb just mean west?

[@eastpavilion-er6081]

China's endonym is literally "The Central Country".

[@HeadCannon19]

Ecuador's would still be on the South Africa side of the spectrum because it sounds so similar to Equator that I thought everyone knew, or at least assumed, it was named after the Equator

[@santiagomarin1882]

Me, a native spanish speaker: Nice, finally I can learn new things! Name Explain: Equator, Black Mountain, Rich Coast, like and suscribe

[@--Paws--]

Isla Nublar, if I am not mistaken, was the supposed location of Jurassic Park.

[@pabloc.b.9837]

Yeah, and it doesn't exist XD

[@theflaminglionhotlionfox2140]

Bahrain in arabic is بحرين which means "two seas" because the island is located between two seas.

[@myaw2024]

Mans spent more than 2 minutes saying why he likes the feeling of learning obvious things before actually talking about the names, that’s impressive

[@Frank-jv8ih]

6:30 holy shit he actually said Lovćen correctly

[@alejandroojeda1572]

Me: (speaks spanish) The video:... Me: 🤨

[@angelrobles7201]

Efectivamente

[@Screaming_C_8_X]

6:40 Montenegro is called Μαύροβουνιο and it means black mountain!

[@SuicidialDolphin]

OHH another one would be Puerto Rico from the Caribbean. It literally just means "Rich Port" which kinda makes sense cause during the 1500's, it was probably an important port to the new world, delivering all sorts of riches from central and south America back to the old world.

[@AverytheCubanAmerican]

Bolivar didn’t unify South America but at least he got his own currency named after him

[@wurttmapper2200]

Which happens to be worth nothing

[@5roundsrapid263]

He got a county in Mississippi named after him, too, oddly enough.

[@Roca005]

Avery the Cuban-American he actually wanted to unify the whole American Continent or as it is taught in the US continents. There was the Pan American Conference which could not achieve this. The US wanted trade deals only and the Brazilian Empire did not want to become part of a federation of American Republics. But hey, beside the currency there is the country of Bolivia named after him.

[@al_fletcher]

8:08 Sneaky Jurassic Park reference

[@pabloc.b.9837]

Hahaha isla Nublar doesn't exist, but still

[@Vengir]

Here's a thing: in Slavic languages, some familiar letters have very different pronunciations from English. A possible solution is to paste the word into Google Translate, listen to its pronunciation, and try to repeat. This may actually make things easier for you (like stopping you from attempting to say "r" when you see the Polish digraph "rz").

[@duchi882]

This reminds me of the _"The Curtain was Blue"_ joke about teachers overanalyzing things

[@legowagfles7287]

Get off the Internet and go back to the pond

[@warrenlehmkuhleii8472]

Terra Australias. Latin students like me: Its show time.

[@elysium76]

Warren Lehmkuhle , that is name of an Empire, I like it

[@nerdymaps3450]

And also Montenegro in Slavic languages is some variation of the Montenegrin word for the country "Črna Gora" meaning "Black Mountain" such as in my native language of Polish (Czarnogóra)

[@Kameliius]

Where's Österreich (Austria/Eastern Reich)?

[@fordhouse8b]

Originally Ostmark Eastern Borderland. And why would you translate öster into eastern, but leave reich untranslated? Reich = realm/domain/empire

[@JustA.Person]

@@fordhouse8b well everyone knows what reich means for obvious reasons so there's no need to translate it

[@fordhouse8b]

@@JustA.Person Well actually, most people do not know what reich means, and for the obvious reasons you allude to, many simply associate the word with the Third Reich, usually without even being able to articulate what the First and Second Reichs hinted at were. Do most people know that the suffix -reich corresponds to the -dom in Kingdom? Most (English speaking) people are familiar with the word, but it is a very shallow and limited familiarity.

[@JustA.Person]

@@fordhouse8b well that may be true but you don't need to know all about every Reich that has ever existed in order to comprehend what the OP is trying to explain. That limited and shallow understanding you're talking about is just enough for an average Joe to understand what Österreich means for the most part and then continue scrolling through the comments.

[@fordhouse8b]

@@JustA.Person Undoubtedly you are correct about the average Joe, but I guess I’m assuming the the average viewer of a channel called ‘Name Explain’ might be more interested in such things than the average Joe.

[@vonelle9122]

As a person with minimal knowledge about other languages, these are all very obvious, like south africa or united states of america

[@CarlosGonzalez-mp9re]

Since my mother tongue is Spanish, this weren't painstakingly obvious, they were self-explanatory 😂😂😂 Cool video, though, I still learned some miscellaneous stuff

[@Terrus_38]

2:57 La Paz: Am I a joke to you?

[@elirothblatt5602]

Another fantastic video, thank you!

[@BobbinMcferry]

Last year I drove from Albania into Montenegro. North of Shkoder the weather turned. In the heavy rains the mountains looked black. Didn't change until I drove into Bosnia.

[@juanmartinpinos7156]

Actually, the name of "Ecuador" was not given by the spanish rulers of the land, but by french intellectuals in the XIX century. The actual territory of Ecuador was called "Real Audiencia de Quito" under spanish rule, and "Departamento del Sur" by the Gran Colombia government. The country would have been named just "Quito" if the french geodesic mission to find the center of the Earth, led by Charles Marie de la Condamine would've never occured. Also, as a matter of fact, it is different to other equator related countries, because the exact center of the Earth is in a valley near Quito.

[@annikala]

Great video (as per usual)!!

[@petercarioscia9189]

Could you dedicate a video or series of videos on exonyms and endonyms; such as the exonym Montenegro vs the endonym Crna Gora. I feel like it fits your channel and there would be some interesting topics there. Or I could be wrong and it's all rather pedantic....I'm sure there are some curious Endo/exonym stories though.

[@crisistian_]

Argentina (literally "Land of silver"). It was named like this by Spanish in late 1500s because they believed it was full of silver. In the further years they got all types of rare metals from there, even gold and a little bit of platinum and uranium, but absolutely no silver

[@henriettagibril6381]

Maybe the River Plata wad so pristine it looked like silver.

[@janslavik5284]

8:05 well played sir

[@adnaanu]

@0:22 it was in a small house in Surbiton, Surrey to be exact.

[@cl4655]

when ever the teacher would make us draw a world map from memory i put the equator where ecuador is!

[@michaelhaywood8262]

There is also a mountain range called the Black Mountains somewhat closer to home, in south Wales.

[@kolen0421]

Isla Nublar: Welcome, to Jurassic Park.

[@Solitude2500]

I honestly thought the island was ficticiuos. I didn't expect it to be real.

[@kolen0421]

@@Solitude2500 A lot of people think that, it's very interesting that they are real😉

[@Solitude2500]

@@kolen0421 The now the question is the islands(Isla Sorna and the rest) actually real or not.

[@kolen0421]

@@Solitude2500 I think Isla Sorna is real too

[@Solitude2500]

@@kolen0421 So the five islands of death are real then.

[@crystallaxx3440]

And New Zealand makes sense because new zealand was discovered at the 1300’s pretty late and the word zealand is a whole lot similar to Sea Land which implies that it is an island.

[@robertdoherty4539]

Canada is interesting too. Literally means "ground" in the indigenous dialect. Supposedly when the settlers asked what they call the land, they pointed at the ground. The native people mistook that for "what is your word for ground" pretty much and said "Canada" and it stuck.

[@knowbody6327]

I'm still trying to find out where Old Mexico is

[@ephraimboateng5239]

Look south

[@samuelklogborg]

LUHC DUVVN

[@parthbonde2106]

@Fred Flintstone it is a place ?

[@pesetony]

The pacific or should i say Polynesian islands have some interesting names too. Sāmoa - sacred center Tokelau - north wind (located north of Sāmoa) Tonga - south ( located south of Sāmoa) Niue - middle ( located between Sāmoa and Tonga) Rarotonga - down south ( main island of Cook Island located south of most of the Cook Islands island) And Hawaii got its name from Savaii which is the name of the biggest island in Sāmoa.

[@KingsleyIII]

Skip to 2:40.

[@nekilik9214]

When you pronounced Crna Gora that was so weird and at the same time painful but nice try

[@djambu]

To Name Explain - It's CHrna Gora, like the CH in 'beaCH'.

[@nekilik9214]

@@djambu No it's not it is C but like ts

[@Dr-zd9eu]

It sounded like "srna gola" lol

[@SnixGXT]

@@djambu: false. The C in Crna Gora is pronounce as «ts».

[@vojinstefanovic5089]

Srna je gola xd

[@serenaealvarez]

We love you name explain

[@TotoDG]

You should do a videos on countries that have the same or similar names to their capitals.

[@diegoc.8759]

The very name of your channel is pretty self-explanatory. I mean, "Name Explain" "man I bet he posts funny cat compilations"

[@lewatoaofair2522]

3:02 Are you sure that’s a photo of the Galápagos?

[@starmax1000]

Lewa, Toa of Air yes that's a very famous place in Bartolomé Island. (Thanks Daniel for specifying) It's a bit far from any populated areas

[@DonPaliPalacios]

starmax1000 It’s Bartolomé Island

[@merouln700]

What always surprised me was how names for a same country can be said differently through multiple languages, and sometimes not exactly mean the same thing. For example, France is, you know, known as France both in french and in english, and it's simply a name derived from the Franks (in french "les Francs"). However in german, it's called "Frankreich" which means the empire of Franks. It adds information for seemingly no reason, yet they still keep it different. It's the same case for the country of Germany. In english, the name comes from the German tribes. In french however, we call it "Allemagne", based on a specific confederation of Germans called the Alemanni Tribes. And "Deutschland" in german would simply mean "the land of the people" (though using the old meaning of Deutsch, with the current meaning it would mostly mean "land of the Deutsch people"). Fascinating.

[@age3801]

Bolivia is named after Simon Bolivar

[@ricksahuman]

Hey name explain, can you make a video about the names of the peoples/kingdoms that were born after the collapse of the Roman Empire? The Franks, Vandals Visigoths, Ostrogoths, etc.. they're all fascinating names :)

[@gameoverzi]

Was looking for GameXplain, found this. Not the slightest bit dissapointed

[@silviaromano9182]

Kingdom of venice.... I see every venetian sharpenig their daggers right now

[@ernest6716]

“Central African Republic and South Africa” Sad South Sudan Noises

[@lxrdsacrifice]

fun fact chad means lake

[@timchauvin2576]

I was surprised that The Netherlands didn't make your list. I was guessing that they would take the number one spot.

[@matthewlee8667]

Wait does that mean the Virgin Islands... Have no alcohol on them?

[@5roundsrapid263]

Actually, they produce a lot of rum.

[@RogersMgmtGroup]

No, they have no virgins, which is why the name is ironic.

[@Whatismusic123]

0:22 - 0:27 what? Gibberish? I didn’t understand a thing he said

[@soup540]

Great video

[@killerqueenisbestmanneko8419]

That feeling falls under the category of "bruh moment" therefore that feeling can be referred to as a bruh moment

[@Emperor_Oshron]

as a huge Jurassic Park fan, the Isla Nublar reference made me smile :) there really IS (sort of) a real Isla Nublar, though--it's just called Cocos Island instead ;) incidentally, though probably alot of you know this already, "Isla Nublar" (and all the other Jurassic Park islands, like "Isla Sorna") isn't grammatically-correct Spanish; for the proper meaning of "cloud island", it SHOULD be written out as something like "Isla de Nublada"

[@shruggzdastr8-facedclown]

Conquistador is pronounced "kon-KEEST-a-dor" -- not "kon-QUIST-a-dor"

[@LuchoCastle_11]

Nobody mentions the fact that the US has a pretty obvious name too.

[@mikaelhemlingberg3695]

Norway is called Norway bc nor is for north and way is for Norway having many roads and road=way

[@abbott75]

Can you do a video on languages who put surnames before given names? @nameexplain

[@samgrillo1]

other similarly named countries: Cabo Verde (Green Cape, because theres's a lot of green in a cape), Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast, because ivory was traded by the coast), Puerto Rico (Rich Port)

[@larrygardner8293]

I used to pronounce Ecuador as "Equator" if that's any hint lmao

[@5roundsrapid263]

I don’t want to know how you pronounced Nigeria! 😀

[@MultiRobotnik]

How come the mascots are so obese with Bubs arms?

[@dhya60]

I'd love to see a video about Dihya, the Amazigh warrior queen.

[@I_am_somebody_1234]

9:47 sees a diploma of my country being given to some random guy. Me: (proceeds to smash his windows in san jose, the capital of costa rica)

[@monarchatto6095]

There’s also a state in Malaysia called “Negeri Sembilan” which literally translates to “Ninth State”

[@TheEvapiiShow]

Here in Bosnia we have 10 cantons. Every has a quite uniqe name. And then there is "Canton 10" 😂

[@drhands4679]

As for the 5th state, it would have to be named Lima, but that resembles for Peru

[@curtisthomas2670]

A cousin of sorts of Equador is Equatorial Guinea, named for its location near both the equator and Gulf of Guinea, and Costa Rica's cousins are Gold Coast and Ivory Coast, so named because in colonial times gold and Ivory were shipped from their respective ports after being obtained from their interiors

[@PRINCESSGEMINI1987]

Gold Coast as in Ghana?

[@GobbledygookG]

There is another place called Black Mountain. A borough in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, is called Mustamäe (Musta = of black/black's, noun: must=black; mäe = of mountain/mountain's, noun: mägi=mountain).

[@optimalsynergies1815]

Cool video

[@RazvanMaioru]

Pretty sure Zealand was in Denmark not the Netherlands last time I checked