[Excessum]

Originally Posted by reallylight

Hello,

I have a question which has been bugging me. How come country names in Europe are different depending which country you are in? This is especially strange when the country has the same alphabet as another. Town/City names seem to be the same no matter the language, but for example in English you would say Spain... yet the Spanish people call theiry country Espana.

Why are country names not universal?

Because people in Europe speak in many different languages and in every language the country names are different? It's not that difficult to understand once you think about how and when the people who are speaking in different languages and most probably living in different territories are naming their neighbors (and people they have only heard about for instance) and their countries. Anyway, if you are really bothered by this matter (which i doubt), i suggest reading a good book about Etymology.


Oh, and just to add to the spam pot:

In Latvian a lot of the country names differ drastically from their English versions.

Great Britain - Lielbritānija
Finland - Somija
Estonia - Igaunija
Germany - Vācija
Russia - Krievija
Sweden - Zviedrija

Most of others are phonetically copied from other languages (and altered slightly for them to meet the rules of Latvian grammar):

Japan - Japāna
Spain - Spānija
England - Anglija
Brazil - Brazīlija
Portugal - Portugāle

And so on...