List of national capital city name etymologies
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This list covers English language national capital city names with their etymologies. Some of these include notes on indigenous names and their etymologies. Some of these etymologies are uncertain. The former capitals also have their etymologies listed in this article.
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- Kabul (1774–present): Many scholars have argued that the city's name comes from the Kamboja tribe.[1][2][3][4][5] It is also known in classical writings as Kophes or Kophene. The name could also be derived from Sanskrit कुब्ज "kubja" meaning "hump-backed" or "crooked."
- Kandahar (1747–1774): There are many theories about the origin of the name Kandahar:
- From the Pashto Iskanderiya (Alexandria).[6]
- From the name of the historical city of Gandahar.[7]
- From the word قند, kand or qand in the local languages (Persian and Pashto), meaning "sweet" and هر, har may be short for شهر, shahar (city or town). The ancient word Gandh, derived from Gandhar also means a sweet, nice smell. The city is a source of fine grapes, pomegranates, apricots, melons and other sweet fruits.
- From two PIE words: kand (wall) and har (mountain, or stone), i.e., a city constructed of stone, or a stone-walled fortress. These words remain in use by the nomadic Indo-Pakistani Bagga and Sansi tribes.
- Tirana: There are several hypotheses for the origins of Tirana's name: Tirana is thought to come from the word Theranda, mentioned in ancient Greek and Latin sources, which locals called The Rana, since the field was formed as a result of solid materials that brought water from the surrounding mountains. Or, Tirana comes from Tirkan. Tirkan was a fortress on the mountain slope of Dajti. The ruins of this ancient castle still exist, dating back to the beginning of the first century before the birth of Christ, which is thought to have had a tower that Byzantium historian Prokop (shek. VI) called the tower of Tirkanit. Or, Tirana comes from old Greek Tyros (Τύρος) which means dairy. In the area of Tirana, dairy products made by shepherds from surrounding areas are traded. Or, Tirona, or Tirana as it is called in the dialect of the country, has its origins in what the people of this country are called. Given that the population located in this area comes mainly from the mountains of the area around it, locals call them "Te Ronet" (the fallen). Even today, in everyday language, families who come from mountainous areas use the expression "have fallen (e.g.) in Durres" (or elsewhere). (J. N. Priska) The name of Tirana was mentioned for the first time in 1418 in a Venetian document.
- Durrës (1914–1920): via Latin Dyrrachium and Greek Δυρράχιον Dyrrachion meaning "bad spine" or "difficult ridge." The city's former name is Epidamnos Επίδαμνος meaning "The Damned" and is a cognate with Latin damnum meaning "loss" or "harm."
- Shkodër (1042–1385): The origins of the city's name remain shrouded in mystery. The name on coins minted in Hellenistic Scodra (during the rule of Genthius) have the legend (Greek: ΣΚΟΝΔΡΙΝΩΝ). Some[who?]believe the name has a Latin root, while others[who?] that the name was Illyrian. In the early 20th century, Shkodër was referred to in English by the Italian name Scutari. In Greek, it is known as Σκουτάριον (Scutarion) or Σκόδρα (Skodra), in Serbian, Croatian Montenegrin, and Macedonian as Скадар (Skadar), and in Turkish as İşkodra. Some scholars[who?] believe that the name derives from "Shko-drin" which in Albanian means "where Drin goes", Drin being the Drin River that connects with the Buna River next to the castle of Rozafa.
- Krujë The name of the city is related to the Albanian word kroi, krua, meaning "fountain", from Proto-Albanian *krana < *krasna.[8][9] The city was attested for the first time as Kroai (in medieval Greek Κροαί) in Byzantine documents of the early 7th century.[10] In medieval Latin it was known as Croia, Croya and Croarum. During the Ottoman era it was also known as Ak Hisar or Akçahisar from the Turkish words ak (white) and hisar (castle).[11][9]
- Algiers: Derived from the Arabic word الجزائر (al-ǧazāʼir), which translates as the islands, referring to the four islands which lay off that city's coast until becoming part of the mainland in 1525; al-ǧazāʼir is itself short for the older name جزائر بني مازغان ǧazāʼir banī mazġannā, "the islands of (the tribe) Bani Mazghanna", used by early medieval geographers such as al-Idrisi and Yaqut al-Hamawi.
- Andorra La Vella: "Andorra the Old" in Catalan.
- Luanda/Loanda: The place name comes from the root word Luanda lu-ndandu. The prefix lu, originally a plural form of the Bantu languages, is common in the names of parts of the coast of river basins or wetlands (examples: Luena, Lucala Lobito) and in this case, refers to the sandbank surrounded by the sea. Ndandu means value or traded and alludes to the exploitation of small shells collected the island of Luanda and which constituted the currency in the ancient Kingdom of Congo and much of the West African coast, known as zimbo or njimbo. As the Mbundu people shaped the pronunciation of place names in various regions of their manner of speaking, eliminating some sounds when they did not alter the meaning of the word, Lu-ndandu became Lu-andu. The word in Portuguese became feminine, since it referred to an island, and resulted in Luanda.[12]
- Huambo: Etymology unknown; formerly known as Nova Lisboa meaning "New Lisbon" in Portuguese.
- Saint John's: "Belonging to Saint John."
- Buenos Aires: "Fair Winds" in Spanish. The original settlement was called Ciudad de la Santísima Trinidad y Puerto de Nuestra Señora la Virgen María de los Buenos Aires ("City of the Most Holy Trinity and Port of Saint Mary of the Fair Winds"), after the site of the Santa Maria di Bonaria (Saint Mary of the Fair Winds) in Cagliari (Sardinia, Italy). The short form "Buenos Aires" became the common usage during the 17th century.
- Paraná (confederate capital from 1852 to 1862): from the Guarani paraná, "wide river"; the words for "river", "large river", "lagoon", "sea" and "lake" have different meanings in Tupi, leading to confusion that Paraná meant sea.
- Yerevan: Early Christian Armenian chroniclers attributed Yerevan's origin to having been derived from an expression exclaimed by Noah, in Armenian, while looking in the direction of Yerevan, after the ark had landed on Mount Ararat and the floodwaters had receded: "Yerevats!" ("it appeared!"). Another theory on the origin of the name is that the city was named after the Armenian king, Yervand IV (the Last), the last leader of the Orontid Dynasty and founder of the city of Yervandashat. However, it is likely that the city's name is derived from an Urartian military fortress called Erebuni (Էրեբունի), which was founded on the territory of modern-day Yerevan in 782 B.C. by Argishti I. As elements of the Urartian language blended with that of the Armenian one, it eventually evolved into Yerevan; scholar Margarit Israelyan notes these changes when comparing inscriptions found on two cuneiform tablets at Erebuni: The transcription of the second cuneiform bu [original emphasis] of the word was very essential in our interpretation as it is the Urartaean b that has been shifted to the Armenian v (b > v). The original writing of the inscription read «er-bu-ni»; leading Armenianologist–orientalist Prof. G. A. Ghapantsian to say that the Urartu b changed to v at the beginning of the word (Biani > Van) or between two vowels (ebani > avan, Zabaha > Javakhk)....In other words, b was placed between two vowels.
- Canberra: The word "Canberra" is derived from the word Kanbarra meaning "meeting place" in the old Ngunnawal language of the local Ngabri people. Alternatively, the name was reported to mean "woman's breasts", by journalist John Gale in the 1860s, referring to the mountains of Mount Ainslie and Black Mountain.[13] The Ngunnawal name was apparently used as a reference to corroborees held during the seasonal migration of the Ngunnawal people to feast on the Bogong moths that pass through the region each spring.
- Melbourne (1901–1927): "Mill Stream" or "Mill Spring."
- Vienna (German: Wien): From Celtic Vindobona (vindo "white" + bona "foundation, fort")
- Baku: The name Baku is widely believed to be derived from the old Persian names of the city باد-که Bād-kube, meaning "Wind-pounded city", in which bād means "wind" and kube is rooted in the verb کوبی kubidan, "to pound", thus referring to a place where wind is strong and pounding. Indeed, the city is renowned for its fierce winter snow storms and harsh winds.[14] It is also believed that Baku refers to Baghkuh, meaning "Mount of God".