List of Etymologies of Country Subdivision Names - Italy

Italy

• Campania: different interpretations: 1) from the Latin campania (countryside, plain, battlefield); compare Champagne in France. 2) from the ethnonym "campani", Oscan italic people who lived in the Apennines mountains in the Southern Italy before the Greek colonization. Greek ancient sources record the term "campani" before the Roman colonization, putting doubts on the Latin interpretation. Campania is likely derived from the toponym of the ancient city of Capua (from *Campuam/Kampuam = *Campania) which was the most important city in the region during the oscan and etruscan period
• Friuli: from the Latin Forum Julii (The market of Julius), which at the beginning referred only to the city of Cividale, founded by Julius Caesar and then extended to the whole region
• Latium (in modern Italian: Lazio): land of the early Italic inhabitants known as Latins, in their turn popularly associated with the mythological King Latinus . Ovid hints at perhaps a slightly more sophisticated folk etymology, with a legend of the naming of Latium after Saturn latente deo (as a god in hiding) after he allegedly fled to Italy following his expulsion by Jupiter. - Modern linguists postulate origins in a Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) root *stela- (to spread, extend), expressing the idea of "flat land" (in contrast to the local Sabine high country). But the name may originate from an earlier, non Indo-European one. See the Online Etymological Dictionary.
• Lombardy: from the Germanic tribe of the Lombards (literally "long-beards" or "long-bearded axe people", or, according to another theory, "long-halberds"), who invaded Italy in the 6th century. Note: After the Lombard invasion, the name "Longobardia" or "Langobardia" applied to the whole of Italy for about two centuries, throughout Europe and also in Arabic (al-Ankubardiya). The name Italia did not return into wide use until the late 8th century
• Marche: literally. "marches", "borderlands". In the Middle Ages the region lay on the boundaries between imperial lands and the more independent areas of southern Italy. The March of Ancona became the best known of such marche
• Tuscany: the land of etruscans: in Attic Greek, the Etruscans were known as Τυρρήνιοι (Tyrrhēnioi), earlier Tyrsenoi, from which the Romans derived the names Tyrrhēni (Etruscans), Tyrrhēnia (Etruria), and Mare Tyrrhēnum (Tyrrhenian Sea). The Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, which was syncopated to Rasna or Raśna. In modern Italian Toscana derives from Etruria (Latin), later "Tuscia" (which now is the name of a subregion in the northern Lazio) and finally "Toscana".
• Sardinia: speculatively linked with the Shardana people and/or with Sardis
• Sicily: island settled by the Sicels