What is the Chinese or Japanese name for Ireland? (and other countries)

[cckerberos]

@Kiyoshi

England / UK (the two are interchangeable in Japanese) is also written in katakana: イギリス (igirisu).

In practice this is true, but Japanese does have a way of speaking specifically about England: Ingurando イングランド (英蘭). This is most commonly encountered when sports are discussed.

[hogarth]

@Kiyoshi

According to my dictionary, there is an alternative way of writing Ireland, 愛蘭 (still pronounced “airurando”), which literally means something like “love orchid”. But the characters aren’t chosen for their meaning, just their sound (individually they are pronounced “ai” and “ran”).

There’s an extra character (“er”) in the middle of the Chinese version, but the first and last characters are the same as that Japanese version.