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Comment by Tenoke | Hacker News Reader

I've wondered why we have a different word for Germans but never realized that's where it comes from (if it's true).

It is true. Here's a map of what Germany is called by other countries in Europe: https://jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/germany-e...

Interesting that Finland/Estonia call them, essentially, Saxony.

The Latvian/Lithunian name for Germany is the only one I don't understand. Does anyone know?

Apparently it's most likely tied to the German municipality of Waake or the Swedish tribe of Vagoths. However most Lithuanians would likely explain it in the form of a joke - either about Germans being thieves ('vogti' = to steal) in reference to Teutonic/Livonic ordins, or about them being 'tough' or well armored ('vo kiets' ~= 'wow, tough/hard').

Another fun fact: at least in Croatia, we colloquially call them "schwabs" which originates from another group of germanic people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suebi

Can confirm (as a Slovenian), the term is used through the Balkans. For example, it is present in the old Serbian song:

Četrnaeste, četrnaeste, Švaba udario, (2x) Osamnaeste, osamnaeste, Srbin pobedio. (2x)

(In the 14th year, the Schwab struck. In the 18th year, the Serb won.)

https://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ko_to_ka%C5%BEe,_Srbija_je_mal...

It comes from the fact that Germany didn't unify until very late, so the people were called by the small city-states that they came from. In American revolutionary war, some British mercenaries were called Hessians....

According to Wikipedia [1], it’s a matter of some debate, with the theories being the (standard) corruption of a name for the first Western Baltic people encountered, or a take on the “unintelligible war cry” people from the Latvian root for speaking.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Germany

Similarly, the word "barbarian" comes from the ancient Greeks describing the people who lived around them as sounding like they were saying "bar bar bar".

That's amazing. Wiktionary backs you up on this and compares it to "bla bla bla".

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B2%CE%AC%CF%81%CE%B2%CE...

Funny, I always thought it came from the word Barba (hair/beard) because they considered them uncultured and unshaven.

Greeks were into beards big time.

I only knew it from Hungarian, which I guess is a slavic enough language to compare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%A9meth:

In Hungarian, német means "German" (the word has Slavic origin, literally meaning "he does not speak", since German is not a Slavic language)

Hungarian isn't Slavic.

The word is probably borrowed into Hungarian from Slavic. We have a similar word in our language as well, but it's used as someone who doesn't understand. Also used interchangeably with Turk.

Do you mean Barbar?

No, it's very similar to nemec, basically the same thing also borrowed from Slavic. The "c" ending is pronounced as "ts". The full phrase goes like: "Why don't you understand, are you German/Turk?" (as in not understanding the language). There's also a place, a citadel and river with that name, which your ancestors might have been familiar with:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Neam%C8%9B_Citadel

Barbar means what it means in Greek, because that's where it's borrowed from.

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