• _skj@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    Greece’s official English name is the Hellenic Republic, named after Helen of Troy.

  • tal@lemmy.today
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    6 hours ago

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_country-name_etymologies

    checks first few entries

    Antigua and Barbuda

    Antigua: “Ancient”, corrected from earlier Antego,[22] a truncation of the Spanish Santa Maria la Antigua,[23] bestowed in 1493 by Christopher Columbus in honor of the Virgen de la Antigua (“Virgin of the Old Cathedral”[24]), a revered mid-14th-century icon in the Chapel of La Antigua in Seville Cathedral.[25]

    • tal@lemmy.today
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      43 minutes ago

      I think that the “female names end in a vowel, male names in a consonant” thing might not be the norm in non-English languages.

      searches

      https://ans-names.pitt.edu/ans/article/download/2485/2408

      The relationship between names, phonology, and gender has been reliably demonstrated in studies focused on English names (Mutsukawa 2014; Cassidy et al. 1999). For example, in an analysis of male (n = 267) and female (n = 222) students, Slater and Feinman (1985) identified several phonological gender differences including: (i) more phonemes, more syllables, and a higher ratio of open syllables in female names in comparison to male names; (ii) a strong stress on the first syllable of both female and male names; (iii) a greater likelihood of female names ending in a vowel in comparison to male names; (iv) male names having a larger percentage of voiced beginnings when names begin with consonants; and (v) male names having a higher percentage of endings with high central unrounded vowels when names end in vowels, in comparison to female names.

      A few studies have examined phonology, gender, and names in languages other than English. In a series of studies, Mutsukawa (2014) observed that first syllables in Japanese names illustrate gender difference. For example, the letter “a” in the first position is found in female names whereas the letters, “k” and “s” are more common in the name-initial position among males.

      The historical analysis indicated that female names ended more frequently with the letters “a”,“e”, “i”" in comparison to male names both in Korea and the U.S.A. As illustrated in Figure 2(a), through each decade under review, female names were more likely to end in the letters “a”,“e”, or “i”. This finding is consistent with observations documented by Barry and Harper (2000).

      Hmm. So maybe it does affect some languages outside of English if Korean sees a similar phenomenon, but it doesn’t sound like it’s a universal, if Japanese uses different conventions.

    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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      14 hours ago

      I love Superstore. I’d absolutely DESTROY Justine!!! Let her parents know they aren’t getting the deposit back on this one!

    • Deebster@programming.dev
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      15 hours ago

      The names Ireland and Éire both derive from Old Irish Ériu, which in turn comes from Proto-Celtic ɸīweriyū meaning “fertile soil”. The Classical Latin name for the island of Ireland, Ivernia, also comes from this same root

      Not sure why you’re mentioning Ireland, did you think it was named after Kathy Ireland?

        • imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works
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          14 hours ago

          Everything we think we know about the goddess Ériu (and Irish mythology in general) was written down within the past 1000 years by Christian monks. They purported to be recording the oral mythology of the Irish people, but it’s hard to say how much of it was a faithful transcription and how much was invented/reworked by the monks to fit into a Christian/Greco-Roman worldview.

          The etymological root of Ireland as a place name ultimately derives from ancient Greek sources, which obviously predate such mythology by over 1000 years.

          The name Ériu has been derived from reconstructed Archaic Irish *Īweriū, which is related to the ethnic name Iverni. The University of Wales derives this from Proto-Celtic *Φīwerjon- (nominative singular Φīwerjō). This is further derived from Proto-Indo-European *piHwerjon- (“fertile land” or “land of abundance”), from the adjective *piHwer- “fat” (cognate with Ancient Greek píeira and Sanskrit pīvara, “fat, full, abounding”).

          The Archaic Irish form was borrowed into Ancient Greek as Ἰέρνη Iernē and Ἰουερνία Iouernia, and into Latin Hibernia.

          So, even ignoring the fact that a mythical goddess is not equivalent to a human woman, Ireland wasn’t named after a goddess either.

        • Deebster@programming.dev
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          14 hours ago

          Ériu, Banba and Fódla are from Lebor Gabála Érenn, Ireland’s creation myth, and they each wanted the whole country named after them (and still can be, poetically). This is a mythologised history, not etymology.

          Also, downvoting someone you’re debating with is extremely bad form.

    • Tikiporch@lemmy.world
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      14 hours ago

      Lucy of Syracuse is a woman who, by all accounts, did physically exist. Maybe that’s the difference?

  • Luci
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    15 hours ago

    They named it after me dontchaknow

    • jjpamsterdam@feddit.org
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      8 hours ago

      All that needs to happen now is for the countries of Europe to unify and St. Lucia loses this incredibly important title!