Hacker News Reader

Comment by pySSK | Hacker News Reader

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?

View on HN

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

Reply on news.ycombinator.com