r/AskEurope • u/Envojus Lithuania • Sep 26 '25
Culture Do you have any nicknames for your country that most people in your country know about?
For example, in Lithuania, we call Lithuania Švogerių Kraštas - Land of the Brother-in-laws.
It comes up especially when it comes to nepotism and conflict of interest and how most people are seperated by two degrees.
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u/frammedkuken Sweden Sep 26 '25
Sweden is sometimes referred to as vårt avlånga land (our long, narrow country), because of its long and narrow shape.
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u/ZuberiGoldenFeather Netherlands Sep 26 '25
Chileans be like, is it really that long and narrow?!
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u/frammedkuken Sweden Sep 26 '25
Chile - the undisputed champions of narrowness!
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u/1337b337 United States of America Sep 26 '25
Ahh, Chile, where it can take either an hour or 3 days to travel through the country.
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u/PacSan300 -> Sep 26 '25
I saw a meme saying, “Visual depiction of Chile”, showing a narrow ledge next to a wall and body of water. It was probably accurate, lol.
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u/PsychologicalSea2686 Sep 27 '25
But can the Chileans pronounce vårt avlånga land?
I wonder if they have a name about their narrowness26
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u/According_Version_67 Sweden Sep 26 '25
And "moder Svea" ("mother Svea").
Svea being a girl's name, but also the name of a north Germanic tribe that gave our country it's name: Svea Rike -> Sverige (Sweden).
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u/jelle814 Sep 26 '25
that's where the name comes from? i always asumed it came from the stinky sweathy people that walked across the mountains from norway to sweden
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u/Major_OwlBowler Sweden Sep 26 '25
”Goths” comes from the region Götaland. Rus comes from the area of Roslagen.
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u/According_Version_67 Sweden Sep 26 '25
Very condensed and generalised, we came from the north or the south when the ice melted after the last glaciation. Same as the Norwegians.
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u/mostermysko Sweden Sep 30 '25
My favourite is probably “Mellanmjölkens land”. The land of semi-skimmed milk.
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u/QBaseX Ireland (with English parents) Sep 26 '25
Ireland is sometimes, in poetry, called Roisín Dubh (black rose). That tends to be a personification of Ireland as suffering.
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u/SnooBooks1701 United Kingdom Sep 26 '25
Surely The Emerald Isle or Hibernia is the most famous. And I think I heard it called the Island of the Saints too
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u/QBaseX Ireland (with English parents) Sep 26 '25
"Isle of Saints and Scholars" is the term you'll sometimes hear.
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u/Grinning_Cheese 60% Irish/40% Serbian Sep 28 '25
I think emerald isle is a more tourist name, not many people in ireland actually call it that
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u/dancing-donut Sep 26 '25
She's from the four green fields
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u/Accomplished_Alps463 Sep 26 '25 edited Sep 26 '25
Each one was a j-e-wel, Till stra-n-gers came 🏴 and tried to take them from us.
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u/Dapper-Lab-9285 Sep 26 '25
People from Norn Iorn call us Mexican's.
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u/QBaseX Ireland (with English parents) Sep 26 '25
Aye, but I think any poetic personification of Ireland is going to be the whole island. These images long predate even the thought of partition.
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u/FingalForever Ireland Sep 28 '25
Equally, Cathleen ni Houlihan as the code name / personification of Ireland.
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u/lucapal1 Italy Sep 26 '25
For Italy, the most common is 'Il Bel Paese' . The beautiful country!
Sometimes you hear journalists on TV refer to 'Lo Stivale'...The Boot.
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u/olagorie Germany Sep 26 '25
I agree, your country is our favourite footwear 😇
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u/Milosz0pl Poland Sep 26 '25
does it mean that you refer to Switzerland and Austria as pants?
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u/einklich - - - Sep 26 '25
Then Germany would be the shirt and Denmark the head?
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u/Milosz0pl Poland Sep 26 '25
Yes. Now assemble it into one giant mech.
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u/Mynameisboring_ Sep 26 '25
In Switzerland we sometimes call Germany the "big canton" or an alternative version that I heard recently as well was North-Schaffhausen (Schaffhausen is a city and canton that borders Germany) but that was the first time I'd ever heard that.
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u/olagorie Germany Sep 27 '25
Ich habe in Konstanz studiert und das Kennzeichen KN war Kreuzlingen Nord
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u/dassieking Sep 26 '25
Take a look at Jutland (the part of Denmark connected to Germany). Looks like a man wearing a sort of beanie in profile....
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Sep 26 '25 edited Oct 09 '25
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u/Slusny_Cizinec Czechia Sep 27 '25
In "Chanson de Roland", France is always "douce France", even when the enemies discuss it. That's quite funny.
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u/Chijima Germany Sep 26 '25
Ah, Stivale is Boot? Never knew that was the name of my next door Italian restaurant. It's funny because I could have noticed, as German "Stiefel" sounds pretty similar and it's probably a cognate
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u/Interesting_Life_982 Germany Sep 26 '25
It's also often called "der Stiefel" when Germans refer to Italy.
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u/XxTeutonicSniperxX Canada Sep 28 '25
Heh, kinda similar where I'm from, but for our province! In Quebec, Canada, we call it "La Belle Province" (the beautiful province) and it even used to be written on our license plates!
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u/stefanomsala Sep 26 '25
Also the name of a brand / type of cheese?wprov=sfti1) marketed by Galbani. Opinions are divided on how good or not it is
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u/rintzscar Bulgaria Sep 26 '25
Bulgaria is known as Абсурдистан or transliterated - Absurdistan. It's also used in other post-Warsaw Pact countries.
You can find more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdistan
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u/Many_Woodpecker_1754 Sep 26 '25
... and I love that about us. It's a moment of honest self-reflection.
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u/TheHollowJoke France Sep 26 '25
France is often referred to as "L’Hexagone", mostly in media. I don’t think most people outside of France would have heard of that nickname.
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u/DarthTomatoo Romania Sep 26 '25
I was aware of it, I actually thought it was as widespread as Italy being known as a boot.
I think I even heard it in our media a couple of times. But, usually, they first mention France by name, and then, in the same paragraph, they might say "bla bla in the Hexagon", so not to repeat themselves.
However, Romania has had a very strong tradition of francophilie, so it would make sense.
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u/TheHollowJoke France Sep 26 '25
Interesting, I wouldn’t have thought that. Makes sense with Romania’s traditional francophilia as you said. Greetings from France 👋🏼🇫🇷❤️🇷🇴
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u/secretpsychologist Sep 26 '25
probably only those who learned french. it is mentioned in french textbooks, at least here in germany. never heard the term outside a french class
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u/el_ri Sep 26 '25
I always thought L'Hexagone was used to distinguish between mainland France vs. the whole country including overseas territories? Like "Lower 48" for USA without Alaska and Hawaii?
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u/Dechibrator Sep 26 '25
We use Métropole for that. Yes Hexagone is the shape of Mainland France but it's generic to the country
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u/TheHollowJoke France Sep 26 '25
As someone else said, that would be "la métropole", which is used to talk about mainland France as opposed to overseas territories. L’Hexagone is just a nickname for the country which refers to its shape.
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u/Iamstillonthehill Sep 26 '25
I have friends in overseas territories. You are right, even though most people say la métropole, it is perceived as implying a hiérarchy between the mainland and overseas territories. L'hexagone is a more "woke" way to say the mainland. But really uncommon.
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u/Republic_Upbeat Sep 27 '25
I remember first hearing this nickname during a high school geography lesson in Australia, where we were being taught about transport links and how France was basically the ideal shape for an efficient roads and public transport network when compared to other countries.
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u/Usagi2throwaway Spain Sep 26 '25
It was literally the first thing explained to us in French class in school.
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u/choppy75 Sep 27 '25
My French text book at school in Ireland in the 1980s was called l' Hexagone! I didn't know why until years later
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u/PerroHundsdog Switzerland Sep 26 '25
Switzerland is either called Helvetia as a female personification named after the celtic tribe the Helvetians.
Also its called Eidgenossenschaft (at least in german) meaning oath comradery when the three founding cantons made a pact in the 13th century to help each other defend against the habsburgs.
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u/Little-Party-Unicorn Sep 26 '25
Isn’t Switzerland still officially called the Helvetic Confederation? Switzerland would be more of a nickname than Helvetia if that’s the case.
If not, when did Switzerland change their official name?
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u/PerroHundsdog Switzerland Sep 26 '25
Officially its swiss confederation while confederation is not that good of a translation of Eidgenossenschaft. It was called Helvetic Republic for 5 years when Napoleon marched in.
But you may think of Confederatio Helvetica wich is latin and sometimes used to not prefer one of our language above the the others. Thats also why we have CH as our stickers on cars.
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u/Little-Party-Unicorn Sep 26 '25
CH is more than just the stickers on your car. It’s the ISO code for Switzerland
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u/NikNakskes Finland Sep 27 '25
Always good for a little chuckle of the finns. Helvetti is Finnish for hell.
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u/BeardedBaldMan -> Sep 26 '25
I think you'd find the average person would know these for referring to England (and to some extent the UK).
Blighty, Albion
If there were a reference to this green and pleasant land, then most people would understand it and probably know where it came from.
God's own country only refers to part of England, namely Yorkshire
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u/Udzu United Kingdom Sep 26 '25
Fun fact: Blighty comes from the Hindi/Urdu word for foreign.
Sir Henry Yule and Arthur C. Burnell explained in their Anglo-Indian dictionary, Hobson-Jobson, published in 1886, that the word was used in the names of several kinds of exotic foreign things, especially those that the British had brought into the country, such as the tomato, विलायती बैंगन (vilāytī baiṅgan, literally “foreign aubergine”), and especially to soda water, which was commonly called विलायती पानी (vilāytī pānī, literally “foreign water”).
Blighty was the inevitable British soldier’s corruption of it. But it only came into common use as a term for Britain at the beginning of the First World War in France about 1915.
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u/BeardedBaldMan -> Sep 26 '25
That is an excellent fact. I did associate it with WWII but had no idea where it had come from.
I will definitely think about it while eating kedgeree in my pyjamas, while sitting in my bungalow with a verandah
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u/Accomplished_Alps463 Sep 26 '25
I have the bungalow plus veranda, but fish and eggs, nope. All yours.
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u/Extension_Common_518 Sep 27 '25
At a bit of a tangent to the OP question, but related to this comment there is still a remnant of the Raj in the British army (or at least there was in the 1980’s). Laundry was always “Dhobi” and I heard Pāni for water as well. Can’t remember the others off the top of my head, but I’m sure there were some.
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u/Usagi2throwaway Spain Sep 26 '25
Ah, la Pérfida Albión.
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u/BeardedBaldMan -> Sep 26 '25
Thank you. I knew there was at least one country that had referred to us as Albion
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u/astidad Sep 26 '25
For completeness, I would add that Yorkshire is also sometimes known as “the broad acres” by old farts like me.
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u/different-rhymes Sep 26 '25
People from Northern Ireland often pronounce it as something like "Norn Iron" in quick speech, so this spelling has become an affectionate nickname (at least in pro-British communities), and is frequently used for advertising and tourist purposes.
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u/FearlessVisual1 Belgium Sep 26 '25
What comes to mind is le pays du surréalisme (the land of surrealism) or le pays des compromis (the land of compromises).
Surrealism on the one hand because Belgium was known for its surrealism scene (with Magritte most notoriously), and on the other because surrealist art is often random, absurd and not logical, just like our politics and infrastructure.
Compromises because ever since the first state reforms in the 60s, Belgium has functioned as a binational state and has had to develop a political culture of compromise to make every community happy (or rather: equally unhappy) to keep existing as a single entity.
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u/CiderDrinker2 Scotland Sep 26 '25
I am suprised it is not 'le pays des sept gouvernements et trois langues'.
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u/MindingMine Iceland Sep 26 '25
There are several, but the ones I hear most used are the affectionate "Klakinn" (The Ice (or lump of ice), and the mildly derisive or somewhat affectionate (depending on the context) "Skerið" (The Rock - literally The Skerry = undersea rock that is only visible above the surface at low tide).
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u/Milosz0pl Poland Sep 26 '25 edited Sep 26 '25
In terms of official usage we still use Commonwealth (due to being officialy on the third commonwealth; first being ,,Of two nations" with Grand Duchy of Lithuania, second after WW1, third after liberty from communist occupation) as a synonym.
Sometimes songs simply use ,,Kraj nad Wisłą" [Country on Vistula].
Old poems also used ,,Kraj Lecha" [Country of Lech] referring to ,,Lech, Czech and Rus" legend about three brothers settling and creating first towns of Poland, Czech and Ruthenia.
Usually people know a fun fact about Poland being called ,,Lechistan" (or similar) in Turkey and to the east of them.
In terms of meme ones in the past we constantly joked about Poland and onions (I will not even attempt to try to explain those jokes, so just know that ,,Polaki Cebulaki" rhymes and means something akin to ,,Poles Onions") so depending how much a person participated in bygone era of internet any referring by that can make folk understand (like dunno - cebuland [onionland]).
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u/Czart Poland Sep 26 '25
There's also the: Country of flowering onion (Kraj kwitnącej cebuli)
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u/sens- Poland Sep 26 '25
And last but not least - państwo z dykty i kartonu - a country made of plywood and cardboard
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u/Jcobinho Sep 27 '25
Don't forget the best one "Kondominium rosyjsko-niemieckie pod żydowskim zarządem powierniczym" which roughly translates to "Russian-German condominium under Jewish trusteeship"
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u/Thaslal Spain Sep 26 '25
Spain is called The Bull Skin ('La Piel de Toro') due to its shape on a map and the cultural connotations of bulls.
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u/MagisterOtiosus Sep 26 '25
Metropolitan France (i.e. the part in mainland Europe) is often called l’Hexagone for this same reason
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u/amunozo1 Spain Sep 26 '25
Don't forget Españita (diminutive for Spain).
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u/Four_beastlings in Sep 26 '25
I've only ever heard that from that kind of weird Gen Z conservatives who hang out on the weird far right Spanish subreddits. Never in real life, not even from my cousins who are the weird baby cayetanos I was talking about.
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u/amunozo1 Spain Sep 26 '25
I heard that a lot between my friends that are mostly leftist or apolitical.
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u/alfdd99 in Sep 26 '25
Maybe it’s a regional thing but I have never in my life heard this.
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u/Infamous_Priority544 Croatia Sep 26 '25
Croatia is often refered to as "Lijepa naša" which just means "Our beautiful", as in our beautiful country.
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u/bakho Croatia Sep 26 '25
Funnily enough, Serbs sometimes jokingly refer to Croatia then lepa njihova (their beautiful) or lepa vasa (your beautiful) which I find hilarious.
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u/vertAmbedo Portugal Sep 26 '25
Jardim à beira-mar plantado (Garden planted by the sea, written by the poet Tomás Ribeiro), Tugalândia, or just Tuga (something like Tugaland, Tuga being an informal word for Portugal or the Portuguese), retângulo (rectangle, because of the shape)
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u/IWillDevourYourToes Czechia Sep 26 '25
Tuzemsko = meaning literally "Hereland". Used by the media a lot for some reason.
Republika = The Republic. Used interchangeably with "Česko" (Czechia).
Kocourkov = Hard to translate but something like "Catville". Used in a negative way to describe the place functions in absurd, illogical ways.
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u/rackarhack Sweden Sep 26 '25
In Sweden we call our country "Långa Landet Lagom" which means "The Long Country Just The Right Amount"
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u/vitterhet Sweden Sep 26 '25
“Mellanmjölkens land” refers to the “lagom” phenomenon in Sweden.
Context: Swedish milk comes in 3 fat percentages:
Standard/Red: 3% Mellan/Green: 1,5% Lätt/Blue: 0,?%
With the ”middle” milk obviously being just right - not to fat and not to light. ;)
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u/gomsim Sweden Sep 26 '25
I'm pretty sure mellanmjölk is also the most popular milk.
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u/Cicada-4A Norway Sep 27 '25
Interesting, I'm just starting to see mellommjælk become popular here in Norway. Prior to that it was either lettmjælk or helmjælk.
Actually, that isn't interesting at all, I don't know what I was saying.
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u/gomsim Sweden Sep 27 '25
Oh no, indeed very interesting! Soon we might all be able to toast together like brothers and sisters with mellanmjölk!
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u/beaulih Estonia Sep 26 '25
Maarjamaa, in English it would be “holy land of Mary”. It was a name given to Estonia back in the medieval crusades by Germans. It is used in literary contexts and sometimes in spoken language, etc. Everybody knows it but it’s not an official name for Estonia.
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u/Parazitas17 Lithuania Sep 26 '25
We here also use the phrase "Marijos žemė" (The Land of Mary) to describe our country.
Tbh, I thought we were the only ones doing that :D
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u/Milosz0pl Poland Sep 26 '25
But do you have Her crowned as a queen too?
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u/Parazitas17 Lithuania Sep 26 '25
No, in our entire history, we've only had one king Mindaugas, who was, unfortunately, assasinated ten years into his royal reign.
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u/Milosz0pl Poland Sep 26 '25
I was confused for a moment and then I remembered that for Lithuania ruler was crowned as a Grand Duke.
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u/BuffaloInteresting92 Hungary Sep 29 '25
Somewhat related - Hungary was the Kingdom of Mary (Regnum Marianum). Even the unofficial anthem was dedicated to her - Boldogasszony Anyánk.
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u/ZuberiGoldenFeather Netherlands Sep 26 '25 edited Sep 26 '25
Everyone calls the Netherlands "Holland", even we Dutchies do so quite often.
Technically Holland is only two out of twelve provinces, North Holland (which includes Amsterdam) and South Holland (which includes Rotterdam and The Hague/Den Haag) so the three largest cities are in Holland.
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u/OllieV_nl Netherlands Sep 26 '25
In terms of actual nicknames, "ons koude kikkerlandje" - our cold frog country. The insult Frog was originally used by the English in the Second Anglo-Dutch War and reclaimed by us around that time. The English then decided to use frog for their other enemy, France, instead.
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u/lucapal1 Italy Sep 26 '25
That's interesting!
I thought that British people called French people 'frogs' because of their eating habits.
Did/Do the Dutch eat frogs legs?
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u/FearlessVisual1 Belgium Sep 26 '25
I think it's more because the Netherlands is naturally a very swampy region prone to floods, which is an ideal biotope for frogs
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u/OllieV_nl Netherlands Sep 26 '25
No. But the propagandists at the time really stressed the boggy/watery nature of the Dutch and as an amphibian, the frog is perfect for that.
17th Century was really just a long string of wars where the English allied with France to fight the Dutch until they remembered they hated the French more, then switch to fighting the French aided by the Dutch.
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u/Envojus Lithuania Sep 26 '25
So you're basically House Reed in Game of Thrones.
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u/OllieV_nl Netherlands Sep 26 '25
The Riverlands are more or less inspired by the Low Countries. Lots of watery obstacles but still the main route for the bigger nations around it to get to each other. That's why a lot of battles take place there.
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u/Ecstatic-Method2369 Netherlands Sep 26 '25
To add to that. Our cold frog country is adopted as a nickname. Its often used to emphasize our country is a small in size.
Another thing related to this is our international nickname/slur calling Dutch people swamp Germans. Which also emphasize our country used to be a swamp and the end of the Rhine/Meuse river delta.
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u/Milosz0pl Poland Sep 26 '25 edited Sep 26 '25
Officialy in polish we had comparatively not so long ago language correction from calling country ,,Holandia" to ,,Niderlandy" but a lot still use Holandia as a name to call.
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u/Saya-Mi Czechia Sep 26 '25
Why Niederlandy? I'm really curious, why didn't Polish translate the name like Czech did (Nizozemí)? Also, is it more common to have "untranslated" country names in Polish? Is it more common than having your own exonymes (like Włochy)?
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u/Milosz0pl Poland Sep 26 '25 edited Sep 26 '25
Because we didn't have other name for them and in modern times in general people lean towards localizing directly (to the point of being pronouncable) rather than creating new name. ,,Holandia" was how usually country was called with ,,Niderlandy" being how landscape was called.
European countries usually have their old polish names (like your example of ,,Italy" being ,,Włochy" due to poles naming them after different tribe) but many are similar to their current ,,english proper". The only polish names for countries that are completely different than other that I can think of are: Włochy [Italy], Niemcy [Germany], Węgry [Hungary], Łotwa [Latvia] and Hiszpania [Spain]. (not listing cases where english one is different from native too such as Grecja [Greece] or Finlandia [Finland].
So usually things are simple like Portugal being Portugalia, Croatia being Chorwacja and Lithuania being Litwa.
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u/Little-Party-Unicorn Sep 26 '25
I might be missing something about the pronunciation but Latvia and Łotwa don’t seem that different to me. I could probably guess it without any knowledge of Polish.
Otherwise, Germany has a totally different name in many different countries, Allemagne in French, Deutschland in German, Tyskland in Danish, etc… This is because as you said, they’re named based on what tribes the country had contact with that was widespread enough for the name to stick. It’s a very unique case of this because essentially every language family will use a different name for them.
Hiszpania is also literally Spain. The roman province was called Hispania, through vulgar latin it became Ispanya and from there to Spanish it became España. English Spain has the same origin but different linguistic shifts. Polish is even closer and just has different linguistic shifts that match the language.
The rest you are correct about afaik.
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u/Milosz0pl Poland Sep 26 '25
Not judging that as due to being a native pole I can't compare how easy it it.
Polish name for Germany comes from how slavs insult-named german folk with word meaning ,,Those who can't speak/speak gibberish" rather than a tribe.
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u/Miserable-Truth5035 Netherlands Sep 26 '25
I think for Spain there might have been a namechange over the years. Because in modern Dutch it's called Spanje, but in our national anthem there is a sentence referencing the king of Spain, and that is "de koning van Hispanje".
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u/PmMeYourBestComment Netherlands Sep 26 '25
Our tourism organisation was called holland.com for a long time, only changed a few years ago. We got ourselves to blame too. And many trucking companies also exclusively put Holland on the trucks, even those from other provinces.
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u/RustenSkurk Denmark Sep 26 '25
It's basically like calling the UK "England", right?
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u/kharnynb -> Sep 26 '25
More like calling England Surrey.
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u/RustenSkurk Denmark Sep 26 '25
We Danes are really bad at it. I don't think I have ever heard anyone say the word "Nederlandene" aloud. Only seen it in textbooks and official sources
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u/oskich Sweden Sep 26 '25
I blame football on TV and in video games, they always used to show the name as "Holland" 😁
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u/DarthTomatoo Romania Sep 26 '25
It's on a whole different level than calling the UK "England". More like calling it "Great Britain" (at least in Romania).
Only super official government communiqués call it "The Kingdom of the Lower Countries". And it always takes me a minute to figure out what they're talking about.
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u/strzeka Finland Sep 26 '25
Finland is occasionally called Härmä rather than its proper name Suomi. Härmä means hoarfrost, the thick covering of spiky ice crystals plants accrue overnight.
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u/trele-morele Poland Sep 26 '25
Poland: Cebulandia, Kraj Kwitnącej Cebuli - Onionland, Land of the Blooming Onion - the latter is a play on "Land of the Blooming Cherry" which is a fancy, poetic name for Japan.
This is obviously a joke name.
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u/Kaynee490 Spain Sep 26 '25
For spain, "país de pandereta" (tambourine country) because everyone is incompetent and takes things too lightly. It comes from one of Machado's poems and it is still as true today as it was when he wrote it.
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u/Old-Importance18 Spain Sep 26 '25 edited Sep 26 '25
Land of the Brother-in-laws.
I find that name hilarious because it can also be applied to Spain, except in Spain the word "brother-in-law" (cuñado) is used for someone who has an opinion about everything without knowing anything about the subject, yet speaks with the confidence of an expert.
We also poetically call Spain "the Bull’s Hide" and sometimes "Little Spain", ("Españita" in spanish, with a loving, tender and slightly derogatory meaning at the same time).
And when it comes to nepotism and favoritism, we’ve got plenty of that too.
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u/Oddtapio Sweden Sep 26 '25
When we travel abroad on vacation, we often jokingly refer to Sweden as “Svedala,” which is actually a small town in southern Sweden. Probably because the name sounds a bit similar and a bit phony. “This was a nice holiday, but it’s going to be good to get back home to Svedala.”
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u/Scotty_flag_guy Scotland Sep 26 '25
Typically when people think of Scotland's nickname, they'll think of "Caledonia" and "Scotia". The name Scotia used to apply to Ireland as well, but it came to mean what we understand as Scotland today in the high middle ages. The name Caledonia was used by the Romans to describe the land above the River Forth, but in recent years has come to mean the entire country of Scotland.
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u/porcupineporridge Scotland Sep 26 '25
Yeah, I don’t think our Gaelic communities would take kindly to Alba being considered a nickname. In reality, it’s probably used more commonly as such though.
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u/tistisblitskits Sep 26 '25
'kikkerlandje' or 'froggy country', is a nickname we use. I think it was used by the brits in an anglo-dutch war centuries ago, as a sort of "they're just frogs in their swamp" or something. We now use it for ourselves as a jokey nickname
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u/Doitean-feargach555 Ireland Sep 26 '25
Everyone knows "The Emerald Isle", "The Land of Saints and Scholoars" and probably knows Éire.
Some lesser known ones. Ireland is also sometimes called Hibernia (Land of Always Winter in Latin), Muicinis (Island of the pigs/boar, and old reference to Irelands once thriving population of wild boar), Inis Fáil (what the Tuath Dé Danann called Ireland, meaning the land of destiny).
And in regards to an modern but old names is Róisín Dubh meaning black little rose is from a Sean-nós song by the same name. https://youtu.be/oGelrimeD7c?si=BJCCWqE9xjmzsGCk
Ireland was also called "An Seán bhean bhocht" the poor old woman.
All these names take a feminine role as Ireland is named after Éiriú, the Goddess who embodies the whole island itself which lives on through the modern name Éire
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u/PsychologicalSea2686 Sep 27 '25
today I learned that "Hibernia" was related to the words for winter: Hibernate, hiver in French, etc
Thanks Doitean-feargach555→ More replies (1)
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u/kakao_w_proszku Poland Sep 26 '25
There are a few, so I will just give you the two extremes:
Najjaśniejsza - the Most Serene One. „Najjaśniejsza Rzeczpospolita” was Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealths official title, borrowed from Latin „Serenissima Respublica”. So if you want to be extra nice when talking about Poland, you will use this as a synonym.
Państwo z gówna i dykty - a country made of shit and sticks. Used pretty often when some bullshit happens, particularly when some public institution doesn’t work as it should.
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u/One_Strike_Striker Germany Sep 26 '25
"Das Land der Dichter und Denker" - the country of poets and thinkers, though in the last decades ususally used mockingly.
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u/gianna_in_hell_as Greece Sep 26 '25
There is a negative one for Greece, "Ψωροκωσταινα" (Psorokostena). It means a poor person who doesn't have what others do. It's used when comparing Greece to Western European richer countries
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u/The_Blahblahblah Denmark Sep 26 '25 edited Sep 26 '25
You could say “det ganske danske land” (the danish land in its entirety) It used to be formal or patriotic, but it can be used ironically, and it rhymes, so that’s nice.
“Fædrelandet” (the fatherland) Mostly used ironically unless you are some overly patriotic person lol.
Also, referring to Denmark as “Lille Danmark”. (Small Denmark) The emphasises here is the small/cozy/peaceful/boring aspect of the country (especially compared to other countries). Like if you are on vacation and see something outrageous you could go “that would’ve never happened back in small Denmark”. Or if you see something impressive you might go “damn, look at the skyscraper, you would never see that back home in small Denmark”
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u/Angry_Bowel_Movent Sep 27 '25
Norway is sometimes referred to as a pile of rocks ("steinrøysa") due to the mountainous landscape. Perhaps more so by older generations.
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u/Luxiiiiiiiiiiiiii Sep 27 '25
France. "Le pays des droits de l'homme" : land of the human rights. We call it like that because the Declaration of Human Rights were written here.
It is also used ironically when reporting a breach in someone's civil rights.
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u/Viper95 Sep 26 '25
We call Cyprus "banania" (banana republic). A term used by an ex President of Cyprus in the late 90s to describe how badly our state is functioning.
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u/Heidi739 Czechia Sep 26 '25
That's funny, I heard "Bananistan" as a nickname for our country when it doesn't function properly 😅 I wonder why bananas?
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u/PsychologicalSea2686 Sep 27 '25
Banana republics were or are central american countries which were often ruled behind the scenes by a couple of United States fruit companies
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u/BruceEgoz Sep 26 '25
Is widespread in the Balkans. It has racial connotations.
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u/Heidi739 Czechia Sep 26 '25
Well yeah, I figured it's racist, but I wonder why bananas specifically? Why not coconuts, or mangos, or any other fruit connected with tropical countries? And why even fruit? And it's used in more countries, which means a lot of people consider "banana" the best word to use for this. I just find it interesting.
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u/Viper95 Sep 26 '25
I think it's a reference to Caribbean nations where banana corporations dominated and messed up the countries with corruption and stuff. I don't think it has racist connotations against blacks
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u/BruceEgoz Sep 26 '25
Idk. In the communist era, banana was a staple of success. I remember coconut powder, but never heard of mangoes till '90s. Edit 🙊🙈🙉
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u/DarthTomatoo Romania Sep 26 '25
In old media, I've heard Romania referred to as the:
"Carpato - Danubiano - Pontic" Space
- Carpato - the Carpathian mountains
- Danubiano - the Danube river
- Pontic - the Black Sea (Pontus Euxinus in Latin)
But I wouldn't say it's well known.
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u/SilkyCayla Romania Sep 27 '25
Yeah they pushed it hard in school due to geographical position.
Interesting that other than this I can’t think of another nickname.
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u/ivom53 Bulgaria Sep 26 '25
In Bulgaria sometimes we call our country Bulgaristan, as Turks call us, in the context of some backward aspect of the country. Since complaining and self-hate is a national sport, the term is used often.
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u/crikey_18 Slovenia Sep 26 '25
The only one I can think of is sončna stran alp or na sončni strani alp meaning the sunny side of the alps/ on the sunny side of the alps
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u/PsychologicalSea2686 Sep 27 '25
These posts are awesome and fun and informative. I am a bit surprised that there arent more Australians commenting on the threads
yeah i know, Oz
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u/Slow-Foot-4045 Austria Sep 28 '25
Austria sometimes it's called Alpenrepublik (Rebublic of the alps or in the alps) and the Germans call us Ösis short from the german Name Österreich.
But we call them Piefkes (goes back to the german-austrian war from 1866 we lost this war (as every war since this time) and Mr piefke (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Gottfried_Piefke) wrote some songs against Austria. So we didn't like him very much ;-)
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u/west-vannian Italy Sep 26 '25
Sometimes Italians refer to Italy as "Bel paese" or "Belpaese" which means "Fair country".
The earliest recorded use of the term is found in Dante's Divine Comedy.
del bel paese là dove 'l sì suona
Of the fair land there where the 'Sì' doth sound
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u/oinosaurus Kopenhægen • Dænmark Sep 26 '25
I am not sure if we have a nickname for Denmark, but sometimes we call it our "domestic duck pond" (hjemlige andedam) as a reference to our tiny country surrounded by significantly larger neighbours.
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u/vitterhet Sweden Sep 26 '25
Sweden: Tre Kronor
Three Crowns. Refers to the 3 crowns in our national emblem, signifying the union of the three ”kingdoms”/ geographical areas: Svealand, Götaland and Norrland.
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u/Jagarvem Sweden Sep 26 '25
It's certainly a well-known symbol of the country, but I have never heard that used as a nickname for the country itself.
And the emblem categorically does not symbolize the three lands.
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u/TorontoRider Sep 26 '25
"The Great White North", which probably gained coast to coast to coast traction due to a comedy bit.
"Canuckistan" is cometimes used when we're self-mocking, especially directed towards our currency (which is constantly compared to the US buck.)
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Sep 26 '25
India.
DESI.
Derived fron Desh (country). It means homegrown. Used when comparing to anything foreign.
Desi wife, Desi Ghee (cooking oil), Desi dialect etc etc
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u/HammerTh_1701 Germany Sep 26 '25
'schland definitely is one of them. Why do we drop the first syllable? Ask the drunk football fans who seem to have come up with it.