I saw a claim that 15 countries were named after rivers, but I couldn’t find a good site that listed them.
Some poking around did give me 15.
Belize - Belize
Bosnia – Bosna
Cameroon – Rio dos Camaroes
Democratic Republic of the Congo - Congo
Republic of the Congo – Congo
The Gambia – Gambia
India – Indus
Jordan – Jordan
Moldova – Moldova
Niger– Niger
Nigeria – Niger
Paraguay – Paraguay
Senegal – Senegal
Uruguay – Uruguay
Zambia – Zambezi
Those are all modern names. There might be others whose names have changed. And some of the names have uncertain origins.
I also don’t know what to do with Argentina, whose etymology as given by the CIA is borderline.
etymology: originally the area was referred to as Tierra Argentina, i.e., “Land beside the Silvery River” or “silvery land,” which referred to the massive estuary in the east of the country, the Río de la Plata (River of Silver); over time the name shortened to simply Argentina or “silvery”
Punjab means “Five Waters”, and Sindh (almost certainly) means “River”: these supply the Pa- and -S- in Pakistan. So this may count if you allow the existence of river(s) as part of your survey.
Among former countries there is Upper Volta, now Burkina Faso.
The naming of the Americas, or America, occurred shortly after Christopher Columbus’s first voyage to the Americas in 1492. It is generally accepted that the name derives from Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian explorer, who explored the new continents in the following years on behalf of Spain and Portugal. However, some have suggested other explanations, including being named after the Amerrisque mountain range in Nicaragua, or after Richard Amerike, a merchant from Bristol, England.
Tangentially related to this discussion: I learned some number of years ago that Missouri probably means something like “people of the dug-out canoe.” So I concluded that Missouri (the state) was named after the tribe. Not so fast. The river is named for the tribe. The state is named for the river.
There’s quite a few US states named for rivers. In fact, a quick list I made has exactly 15, just like countries. And many of those rivers were named for tribes. Only two do not have a Native American origin.
Silver in Spanish is plata, which is also the name of the river. Argentum is the earlier Latin form. Plata comes from plattus, meaning wide, because silver was hammered into sheets. Etymology is weird.
No doubt the the name an allusion to the river. The indirectness is why I called it borderline. I haven’t found any reason why the early explorers used the Latin instead of Spanish, though.
In case anyone’s mind works like mine does, the German Palatinate does not come from plata or plattus but from the Latin palātium or palace.
It’s possible that in some cases the river might be named for the country instead of vice versa. I don’t know of a Canada River, but near where I live there is the Canadian River. Located in Oklahoma.
The Czech Republic is composed of three historical regions: Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. Moravia, in Czech “Morava”, is named after the river Morava, which, per Wikipedia, “…runs from its north to south, being its principal watercourse.” In the Dark Ages, Moravia was much larger and was a principality; later it became a Margraviate that was part of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown.
The people making maps often used latin. eg they put on latin versions of peoples names mentioned. Portuguese explorer called Lopo Homem wrote Argentea on a 1554 map. Using a latin word…
Also ? or perhaps because, plata could imply its silver foil or silver plated… Argentine implies solid silver.
