# Why do so many Country/state/Province names end with the letter A? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 17, 2007, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-country-state-province-names-end-with-the-letter-a/396288 "2007-03-17T01:38:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Full\_Metal\_Lotus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df705f/32.png) [@Full\_Metal\_Lotus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Full_Metal_Lotus)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-country-state-province-names-end-with-the-letter-a/396288/1 "2007-03-17T01:38:51Z")
America, Lithuainia, Canada, Alberta, Alabama, no doubt you can add to this list… My question is why does it happen? regards FML ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-country-state-province-names-end-with-the-letter-a/396288/2 "2007-03-17T01:59:16Z")
People had a template in their minds based on the ancient names, like Asia, and just extended it? Hasn’t ‘-ia’ almost become a catch-all ending meaning ‘place of’? I’m thinking of places like Monrovia, named after James Monroe, and Strong Badia, named after you-know-who. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![snailboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/97f17d/32.png) [@snailboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snailboy)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-country-state-province-names-end-with-the-letter-a/396288/3 "2007-03-17T02:30:03Z")
Based on the examples I can think of, by far the majority of country names in romance languages are feminine. It may be that way in Germanic languages too. I’m sure that just carried on into English. (We don’t have gendered nouns in the same way, but most names ending in -a or -e are feminine.) I’d guess that they do it to establish an easier pattern for converting from the country name to the word for its inhabitants, the language, etc. ---
**Author:** ![snailboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/97f17d/32.png) [@snailboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snailboy)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-country-state-province-names-end-with-the-letter-a/396288/4 "2007-03-17T02:37:12Z")
Oh, and I’ll also mention that many of the countries ending with -a in English are the same except for ending with -e (the feminine ending) in French, such as Lithuania/Lithuanie, Russia/Russie, China/Chine, etc. So again, I bet we just got the feminine words from French, but switched the -e to -a. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-country-state-province-names-end-with-the-letter-a/396288/5 "2007-03-17T03:27:01Z")
If you look at the [Entrance page to Wikipedia in German]]([Portal:Wikipedia nach Themen – Wikipedia](http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Wikipedia_nach_Themen)) you find only a very few -a endings in the Geography section near the top of the page. I suspect that the Romance language hypothesis answers a great many names. America, of course, is Latin and a number of similar names probably have Latin roots. California, Arizona, Nevada, Montana, Florida are all taken directly from Spanish (or some butchered version thereof). Carolina and Virginia are latiized names. (Louisiana may be Spanish as I am not sure whether the spelling and pronunciation came into English while it was occupied by France or Spain. Certtainly it came directly from a Romance language.) As for states and provinces, I suspect that the various Indian place names that might have had endings that varied among the schwa sound, and the sounds of the broad a, short e, short a, short u, and even a few short i endings tended to get normalized on maps with the -a suffix which, in turn, influenced the pronunciation that had a Latin or Spanish appearance. Alabama is taken from the Alibamu nation of Indians. Dakota is the pronunciation of the word for ally from one of the principal dialects of the Great Sioux Nation. Iowa is a “normalized” spelling and pronunciation for one of the smaller Sioux tribes rendered, variously as _Iowa_ and _Ioway_. Nebraska is a word meaning “flat waters” in the Chimere Sioux dialect. (I’m not sure of its exact original pronunciation and it, too, may have been normalized.) Minnesota is taken from a normalized spelling of a Dakota dialect work for milky water. Utah (if you are counting it with its silent final H), comes from the Ute language identifying those people (people living in the mountains) as the original inhabitants. Manitoba has an unclear etymology, but hypothesized orgins include various normalized Indian words such as _mini tobow_, _maniotwapow_, and _Manitou abah_. Alberta is named for Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, who received her name from a feminized variant of her father, Prince Albert. Canada came from Cartier’s (16th century French phonetic) rendering of a Huron word for village. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Spirit\_of\_Radio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e19b73/32.png) [@The\_Spirit\_of\_Radio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Spirit_of_Radio)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-country-state-province-names-end-with-the-letter-a/396288/6 "2007-03-17T20:15:35Z")
[QUOTE=snailboy] Oh, and I’ll also mention that many of the countries ending with -a in English are the same except for ending with -e (the feminine ending) in French, such as Lithuania/Lithuanie, Russia/Russie, China/Chine, etc. So again, I bet we just got the feminine words from French, but switched the -e to -a. [/QUOTE] Yeah, why is it that whenever nations personify their land, it’s always female? :mad: ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-country-state-province-names-end-with-the-letter-a/396288/7 "2007-03-17T21:46:36Z")
> [@](#): > > Yeah, why is it that whenever nations personify their land, it’s always female? I offer “The Fatherland” as a counter-example, at least of a sobriquet. ---
**Author:** ![kellner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c2a13f/32.png) [@kellner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kellner)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-country-state-province-names-end-with-the-letter-a/396288/8 "2007-03-17T23:03:08Z")
[QUOTE=Shoshana] I offer “The Fatherland” as a counter-example, at least of a sobriquet. [/QUOTE] _Fatherland_ refers to the land where your father (and other ancestors) came from. It doesn’t refer to any specific country. In German the term _Vaterland_ is neuter. So are _Deutschland_ and most other countries, including almost all of those ending in “-ia” in English (“-ien” in German.) A few countries are named in a way that is more typical for regions. Those are feminine with a definite article: Turkey, Mongolia, Ukraine. A few others are commonly used in masculine forms with article although it is discouraged in formal usage: Congo, Sudan, Yemen, Chad. The gender of the long forms of names is determined by the head word: _Ireland_ is neuter, but the _Republic of Ireland_ is feminine because _republic_ is. _America_ is neuter, _United States of America_ is masculine and plural. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-country-state-province-names-end-with-the-letter-a/396288/9 "2007-03-17T23:16:34Z")
_United States of America_, despite what it sounds like, is not plural. ‘The USA is one of the members of the UN Security Council.’ ---
**Author:** ![kellner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c2a13f/32.png) [@kellner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kellner)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-country-state-province-names-end-with-the-letter-a/396288/10 "2007-03-17T23:32:50Z")
[QUOTE=Captain Carrot] _United States of America_, despite what it sounds like, is not plural. ‘The USA is one of the members of the UN Security Council.’ [/QUOTE] All my examples described the German forms because several **snailboy** and **tomndeb** brought up a possible germanic/romance difference. In German both _Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika_ and _USA_ are definitely plural. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-country-state-province-names-end-with-the-letter-a/396288/11 "2007-03-17T23:41:35Z")
[QUOTE=Captain Carrot] _United States of America_, despite what it sounds like, is not plural. ‘The USA is one of the members of the UN Security Council.’ [/QUOTE] It is in German. You would say “_zu den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika_”, since _Staaten_ is plural, not “_zum Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika_” on the basis of _Staat_ being masculine, nor “_zur Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika_” on the basis of _Amerika_ being feminine. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-country-state-province-names-end-with-the-letter-a/396288/12 "2007-03-17T23:42:54Z")
Oh. Right. Oops. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-country-state-province-names-end-with-the-letter-a/396288/13 "2007-03-17T23:47:08Z")
[QUOTE=kellner] All my examples described the German forms because several **snailboy** and **tomndeb** brought up a possible germanic/romance difference. In German both _Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika_ and _USA_ are definitely plural. [/QUOTE] Well, to be fair, “_die USA ist…_” (with the verb conjugating as if _USA_ is singular) seems to be a fairly common construction; it gets 83,100 Google hits, compared to “_die USA sind…_” (plural) with 219,000. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2007, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-country-state-province-names-end-with-the-letter-a/396288/14 "2007-03-17T23:53:16Z")
[QUOTE=Captain Carrot] _United States of America_, despite what it sounds like, is not plural. ‘The USA is one of the members of the UN Security Council.’ [/QUOTE] Supposedly that dates from the Civil War. Before the war plural was common, after the was the singular form became standard. ---
**Author:** ![kellner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c2a13f/32.png) [@kellner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kellner)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2007, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-country-state-province-names-end-with-the-letter-a/396288/15 "2007-03-18T00:31:08Z")
[QUOTE=psychonaut] Well, to be fair, “_die USA ist…_” (with the verb conjugating as if _USA_ is singular) seems to be a fairly common construction; it gets 83,100 Google hits, compared to “_die USA sind…_” (plural) with 219,000. [/QUOTE] Yes, but not a single result on my first page\* used “die USA” as a subject of “ist”. All occurences were taken from the middle of phrases like “Für die USA ist …” The first result that really used “USA” as a singular was a stylistically challenged rant about the “terror state USA” on the second page. Of course the other number also contains false positives and a few people use it as a singular but trust me, it sounds far more horrible than a factor of three would indicate. - Google reorders search results based on browser language settings, so we might not see exactly the same links. ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2007, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-country-state-province-names-end-with-the-letter-a/396288/16 "2007-03-18T06:16:25Z")
Entirely in order to frustrate people trying to play the game ‘Geography.’ [sub]what?[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![hercules10301](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/da6949/32.png) [@hercules10301](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hercules10301)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2013, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-country-state-province-names-end-with-the-letter-a/396288/17 "2013-09-29T21:41:03Z")
There’s an elaborate explanation on this subject, a really really interesting read, I found in this book, “God’s Untold Story” which explains the origin to have been in Syria, where places were named as the domain of ancient God-Kings, and that’s how the standard began > **[God's Untold Story: How Religion Became Both Misunderstood and Dangerous and...](https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Untold-Story-Misunderstood-Dangerous-ebook/dp/B00DAFY4R2)** > > God's Untold Story: How Religion Became Both Misunderstood and Dangerous and What Secrets are Buried in its Language - Kindle edition by Douchi, Nour. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like... ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2013, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-country-state-province-names-end-with-the-letter-a/396288/18 "2013-09-29T22:02:02Z")
> [@Captain\_Carrot](#): > > _United States of America_, despite what it sounds like, is not plural. It was before 1865. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2013, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-country-state-province-names-end-with-the-letter-a/396288/19 "2013-09-29T22:54:44Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > It was before 1865. And it still is in Spanish (_Los Estados Unidos de América_) and French (_Les États- Unis d’Amérique_). I think it’s the same way in all Romance languages. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-country-state-province-names-end-with-the-letter-a/396288/20 "2013-09-30T03:49:28Z")
In Latin, the word for land (_terra_) is feminine. In Italian and French, the word for republic (_repubblica/république_) is feminine too. In Arabic, the words for land (_arḍ_), country (_dawlah_), republic (_jumhūrīyah_), the emirates (_al-Amīrāt_), and the United States (_al-Wilāyāt al-Muttaḥidah_) are all feminine. Moreover, Arabic names of countries are always feminine by definition. This is all merely grammatical gender, and is not trying to imply that countries are actually girls. However, the national personifications are conventionally women because in Latin their names are grammatically feminine. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-country-state-province-names-end-with-the-letter-a/396288.md?page=2)