If that stu­dent hap­pens to hail from the Eng­lish-speak­ing world, the names Aus­tria, Italy, the Czech Repub­lic (the recent move­ment for Czechia notwith­stand­ing), and Switzer­land will sound more famil­iar. But the ques­tion inevitably comes to mind while rid­ing between one his­tor­i­cal­ly and cul­tur­al­ly rich cap­i­tal to anoth­er: where did all these coun­tries get their names in Eng­lish? How on Earth, for exam­ple, did Deutsch­land, known in cer­tain oth­er Euro­pean lan­guages as Alle­magne, Ale­ma­nia, or Ale­man­ha, get to be called Ger­many? Behind most every Euro­pean coun­try’s Eng­lish name lies a sto­ry, if some­times an ambigu­ous, con­test­ed, and con­tro­ver­sial one. He’s the author of the newslet­ter Books on Cities as well as the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Sum­ma­riz­ing Korea) and Kore­an Newtro.