Alternate Names for South Africa?

It is actually a horrible topic. Exactly because South Africa only came together as a country in 1910. And that was the Union, more than a state.

Names before that? could hardly have been there as Xhosa, Zulu, Sotho or whatever only really referred to a very (small) specific region. Like Transvaal was a separate "country" before 1899, So was Free State.

So Xhosaland, etc would fall by the wayside.

Maybe Azania would be the closests to anything.

Even South Africa is not even a name for a country, it is a geographic term at best. Are there really other countries where the name depicts a location rather than a "meaningful' name?

Very good thread. I give up.
 
Even South Africa is not even a name for a country, it is a geographic term at best. Are there really other countries where the name depicts a location rather than a "meaningful' name?

Well, outside of South Africa we have Ecuador (the Equator), the Central African Republic (exactly as it says on the tin), Australia (and in that country, the states of South Australia and West Australia), and Western Samoa (the western area of the Samoan archipelago), for starters.
 
I second this.
Cisorangia would be more appropriate.

Too pro-Boer, though? Or just a nod to history?

Capeland-Orangia? Serbia-Montenegro style? There aren't enough hyphenated countries in the world :).

Shrug. Anyway, thanks for everybody's interesting ideas. Whatever I go with I'll put in a nod to that person in the Futurist Manifesto.
 
I've always thought Austrafrica has a nice ring to it, though it does risk confusion with Australia if that continent gets the same name in-TL (for more fun, find some way of having Austrian Africa too!).

I did once create a scenario with a British dominion-state in southern Africa called Natalia, my reasoning being that, if the political power ended up in Natal province, it was possible for the name of the province to be extended to that of the nation (as happened with Canada, though that's probably more a one-off than anything). In my defence, I was considerably younger then.
 
Transorangia means "Across the Orange", so would only work as a name for the palces north of the Orange river.

True, though I was thinking more a Portmanteau of Transvaal and Oranje than a name centered on Oranje.
 
Constructed neologisms that could work:
  • Safricape
  • Safricalia
  • Susafria

NOTOS (or Notus) was the god of the South Wind, one of the four Anemoi (Wind-Gods). He was the wet, storm-bringing wind of late summer and early autumn. Notos dwelt in Aithiopia, the southernmost realm in the geography of myth.

  • Notosia
  • Notosica
  • Notoland
  • or even Aithiopia (probably too close to Ethiopia)
 
Azania has been mentioned, but it is probably too linked to the African nationalist movements of the past.

There has never been any great controversy regarding the name, most political groups in South Africa seem pretty happy with it.

Capeland would only work if restricted to the boundaries of the old Cape Colony I think. Natal, or Natalia could possibly work, if thye name applied to the whole region, instead of just the south eastern coast of what is now South Africa.

Good topic.
 
How about New Hannover? Possible POD - in an odd attempt at marketing to British and German settlers, and to commemorate his father, King George IV renames the Cape Province (annexed several years earlier) as New Hannover and Cape Town as Frederickstown, in honour of his father.
 
With a POD in the 19th century one could have used the term Australia for South Africa. OTL Western Australia and South Australia could be Westenra and Flindersland with the entire union being the Dominion of Carpentaria or New Holland.
 
Don't forget about the various parts already possessing unique place names within the country, such as Namaland and Griqualand.

The problem with Orangia and similar names is that they are too similar to a single part of the country to be a good twentieth century name for the whole.

How about Gauteng, presently used as a name for the province containing Johannesburg and Pretoria?
 
Top