Alternate Country Names

As for Latin America...

-Ecuador may have been called Quito, as in our capital.
-Bolivia was named after Bolivar, so if some other man liberated it its name would be different. Perhaps Charcas, its colonial name.
-Argentina may retain its older English name "Argentine", or be named something like La Plata.
-Uruguay could be "Cisplatina" (if it remained under Brazilian/Portuguese control long enough).
-A Peru with a name after the Andes or the Incan Empire is possible.
-If Dominican Republic remained under French control long enough, it would be called "Saint Domenigue". Also, when it declared independence it did so with the name "the Spanish Haiti Free State"
-Puerto Rico could have names in other languages like Richport (English) or Port Riche (French).
-Like Peru, some Central American state could take a name after the Aztecs or Mayans.
-Mexico was almost named Anáhuac, its pre-columbine name.
 

Redbeard

Banned
Denmark took name after one of several Germanic tribes "The Danes", probably originating in the eastern parts of present Denmark and Southern Sweden (Denmark litterally meaning "Borderland of the Danes"). The Cimbrians raiding Rome just before BC probably had their origin in NE Jutland however and I guess we could find a plausible PoD where a Cimbrian ruler unite "Denmark" (instead of going south?) and call it Cimbria/Cimberland/Cimbermark?. Sometimes it is also claimed that the Teutonians also taking part in the raid on Rome were from just a little further south in Jutland, but I think it is rather uncertain. But as "Deutschland" probably originates from "Teuton" it could have Denmark be "Deutschland" ;-)

And then of course the Jutes settling in "England" together with the Angles and Saxons - they today have given name to "Jutland", but again a Jute rule having united Jutland and the "Danish" Isles would I guess have called it "Jutland". The Angles originating in present day eastern Slesvig of course also could have chosen another path and the name "England" would be taken by the time somebody unites some Kingdoms on a rainy island to the west.

Finally some sources speak about a tribe called "Heruler" who should have originated in S. Scandinavia but having been displaced by the Danes. A few PoDs and I guess the area around the Baltic entrances is called "Herulia" or something similar.
 

Driftless

Donor
Trondheim for Norway? It was the capital for a long stretch during formative years.

Or Nidaros? - from the name of the diocese for both the Catholic & Lutheran churches - again for long stretches of the areas formative years.
 
As for how foreign country names are represented in English, I would have liked it if Germany was called Dutchland, its inhabitants Dutch and Dutch people called Netherlanders, just so it'd be in line with all the other Germanic languages :p
 
Korea is a corruption of Koryo, the second of the three main Korean dynasties. Pretty random, could easily have been something else.
 
Sometimes it is also claimed that the Teutonians also taking part in the raid on Rome were from just a little further south in Jutland, but I think it is rather uncertain. But as "Deutschland" probably originates from "Teuton" it could have Denmark be "Deutschland" ;-)

No. The term "Deutsch" does not come from "Teuton". It comes from "Theodisk", meaning "Part of the folk"/ "the people".
 
I'll recycle an old soc.history.what-if post on why "United States of America" may have been a poor choice:


"George R. Stewart, in his book *Names on the Land: A Historical Account of
Place-Naming in the United States* (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1967)
suggested that the name "United States of America" may have been
unfortunate."
Totally OT, but kind of cool to realize that that's the George R. Stewart who wrote the great post-apocalyptic-plague novel "Earth Abides" back in 1949.
 
Canada was almost the Kingdom of Canada, but instead of Canada apparently the name Tupponia was being bandied about at Quebec for a while...
 
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