Talk:List of countries named after people

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Is the list complete now? It depends partly on what the canonical list of countries is. ISO 3166-1 is a possibility, although it contains many dependencies and a couple of uninhabited "countries". On the other hand, one of the items on the list is Rhodesia, which is obsolete. How far back in history should we go? Rome, supposedly named for Romulus and Remus? Fernando Po, a separate Spanish colony until 1909? Another set of borderline cases would involve alternate or informal names of countries, like Congo-Brazzaville and Congo-Léopoldville.

In doing my last update, I covered the ISO 3166-1 list except for the following: Bouvet Island, Heard Island and McDonald Islands, and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, which have no permanent population; Norfolk Island; Svalbard and Jan Mayen (Jan Mayen is an eponym); and Nicaragua. The problem with Nicaragua is that Wikipedia currently says it was named for the Nicarao tribe, but my sources say that there was a (perhaps legendary) individual named Nicarao, and that the country was named for him.

Gwil 19:12, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 USA 2 Split 3 Denmark 4 Kenya 5 Liechtenstein

[edit] USA

United States is not named after Amerigo Vespucci. It is named after a continent named after him (which is also debated). I suggest removing USA from the list.

[edit] Split

I'm thinking that it would be useful to split this list under subheadings into countries named after legendary figures, those named after proven historical people, those named after saints, etc., and maybe another section for historical examples, such as Rome. --Xyzzyva 13:13, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I support this; someone (I might be tempted to do this later, but I'm tired now) should create a temporary page, for instance List of countries named after people/temp where we can assign countries to one of a couple of categories, so that when the main page changes its essential a fait accompli. --Neo 19:02, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

List of countries named after people/temp -is now essentialy complete. Can people double check my work and help decide where the few example which don't have sources, or don't quite fit into my schemata should go. Thanks. --Neo 14:14, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Denmark

Since I am from Denmark, I know a lot about the Danish history, and it's a fact, that Denmark (in Danish called Danmark) was named after the first Danish king, Dan, who lived contemporary with king David. However, it is only a legend, but I think Denmark ought to be mensioned.

[edit] Kenya

I removed this entry, with "Njomo Kenyata" as the person, because Jomo Kenyatta took his name long after the country was named. Gwil 14:32, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Liechtenstein

Um, why? The article on Anton Florian indicates that he took the name from the existing Liechtenstein family anyway, while Liechtenstein refers to Liechtenstein Castle which means bright stone. I wouldn't say that constitutes naming the country after a person. Mister.Manticore 20:58, 25 November 2006 (UTC)