The Chinese names of countries in Europe and the Americas and Africa are usually transliterated into Chinese from either the English or the local language. The "Land" bit is usually translated rather than transliterated, to "guo" (国), although it's sometimes transliterated to the closest sound they can get - "Lan" (兰), which means "orchid". There are lots of ways you could do the transliteration, and they tend to try to pick something nice if they can. They'll sometimes stick "guo" onto the end of a country's name anyway, even if it doesn't have "Land" or similar at the end. So, for example, the UK's name comes from "England". The closest sound to "Eng" is "Ying" (英), which means "brave". And then there's "Land" ("Guo" / 国 ). So Britain is called "Yingguo" (英国), or "brave land". Germany's name comes from "Deutschland". The closest(ish) they could get to "Deutsch" was "de" (德), meaning "moral"), and then you've got "Land" ("Guo" / 国), so Germany is called "Moral land" (Deguo / 德国). And so on... For America, you'll all be delighted to know, they decided that "Mei" (美), meaning "beautiful" was the closest they could get to a transliteration, so you're called "Meiguo" (美国), meaning "beautiful country". And you all are beautiful, of course.
Yeah, but then people would get confused between America and a terrible Scottish soft-rock band from the 80s. There's already enough trouble for English speakers, with us getting confused between America the country and America the band that sang "A Horse With No Name". I'm sure Saddam Hussein only said he could beat America in a war because he thought he'd be fighting three hippies with guitars. And we don't want China making the same mistake, thinking it's picking a fight with four soft-rock people and a bagpipe player when it's actually kicking off World War III. You see, you always have to think about unforeseen consequences.
How does the Chinese military see the map? Does invading "West Classtooth" sound less risky than going after "Very Lucky Soldiers"? Or does going after "Oh Ground Profit" sound enriching (which looks to be accurate naming).
Being Chinese and having grown up with these names for places, it doesn't sound any more weird than America or Britain. What is an america or a britain anyway? San Francisco didn't make any more sense than "Old Gold Mountain." (Actually old gold mountain made more sense with the gold rush and all.) But most names are just phonetic. I always liked the Chinese words for Coca Cola. Which is just gibberish sounds and happy put together. I love ordering a glass of happy.
This is just a joke. HKMP pointed it out the Chinese name for the countries are translated phonetically. When the Chinese names are translated back to English, it becomes "lost in translation".
Oh, so HKMB wasn't serious when mentioning the Chinese might kickoff WWIII due to a musical group! Now I can rest much easier.
Yes, I've always thought Old Gold Mountain was a particularly cool name. "America" is named after one of the Europeans who claimed to have discovered the continent, Amerigo Vespucci. So it could have been called "Christopher". Or "Leif". Or "Ponce", which would have had the benefit of making British people laugh at Americans all the time. "Britain" was named after the Brittani, the Latin name for one of the tribes who lived there before the Romans turned up. I think my favourite root of a name is the Chinese city of Wuxi (无锡) in Jiangsu. "Wuxi" means "hasn't got any tin". Apparently, until about 200BC, there was a massive tin mine in the area, and the city was called Youxi (有锡), meaning "has got some tin". Then the mine ran out of tin, so they changed its name. Vomit Point in Wales is another of my favourite place names. And Peculiar Knob in South Australia. And the hilariously rude Grand Tetons in Wyoming.
Look at a map of Texas - the names should amuse you. Cities like: Enterprise Arp (I say urp or vomit) Paris Dublin Moscow Athens Carthage Georgetown Pittsburgh (high school mascot is the Pirates, just like the MLB team ) Atlanta Greenville San Diego Odessa Palestine (al Queda delights in pointing out fragments of the shuttle Columbia fell there) Hebron
