Meaning of country names.

Nobody knows for sure any more! Depending on the root words that you choose it can mean either "sunburned" (sounds logical), or "goat-fall" (connected to the milkyway that was represented as the Nile?- a bit far-stretched but who knows?).

Most of the words we use about Egypt are Greek and they have fun origins as well. So "obelisk" was a type of small spit that was used in Greece for meat cooking (something like "souvlaki":-). When the Greeks saw the huge Egyptian "Obelisks" (who knows what the Egyptians called them?) they thought they resembled meat-sticks and humorously named them "Obeliskos"

(Obelias = spit, obeliskos = small spit)

Kebab-stone?

Since I live here, and the country does tend to get overlooked, I'd better add that Luxembourg is named after the capital city Luxembourg*, which derives from Lucilinburhuc, Alleman Frankish for 'little castle'.

It's interesting the French call Germany 'Allemagne' after the Alleman Franks, and the Germans call France Frankreich meaning Empire of the Franks also after the Alleman Franks, when the Alleman Franks were one tribe, and the only little bit of Europe that still remains of their realm is Luxembourg.

*Note noted for their imagnination, Luxembourgers. And I get bored with people thinking something is wrong when I say my address ends 'Luxembourg Luxembourg'

Actually Scot is quite interesting for the same reason as the earlier Welsh example. The Scots cal l themselves Gaels, Scot is the English name for them and it roughly translates to barbarian in the Angle tongue.

Ha,ha! Indeed, that was a clever observation, I haven't thought of it that way, but you're absolutelly right!

Ironic, isn't it?

It's very possible the word Scot found it's way into English from Latin. The Romans would very definately have thought of the Scotti as barbarians. Nowadays we use the tribal names of Vandal and Visigoth to mean uncivilised behaviour in modern English, probably deriving from Roman influence. Perhaps the Anglo-Saxons did the same back then with Scotti.