List of Etymologies of Country Subdivision Names - Romania

Romania

For etymologies of Romanian counties, see Etymological list of counties of Romania

• Bessarabia - from Basarab I, Wallachian prince who led some expeditions in this land
• Bukovina - (from Serbian Bukovina in German: "Buchenland") = "beech land"
• Dobrogea - from Dobrotitsa, ruler of the region in the 14th century
• Haţeg - "Terra Herzog"=Duke's land
• Muntenia - from muntean=man of the mountains, from Romanian munte=mountain
• Oltenia - from the river Olt, called Alutus by the Romans, possibly from Latin lutum, meaning "mud" or "clay".
• Transylvania - "beyond the woods" — i.e., from Hungary
  • Ardeal - possibly a borrowing of the Hungarian name Erdély, like the Romani name Ardyalo — speakers of old Hungarian pronounced Erdély as Erdél. The initial Hungarian "e-" occasionally changes to "a-" in Romanian (compare Hungarian egres "gooseberry" and Egyed, which became agriş and Adjud in Romanian). However, the ending '-eal' in Romanian does not suggest a Romanian borrowing from Hungarian. In parallel examples, Hungarian -ely becomes -ei in Romanian. But when Hungarian adopts a word from Romanian, “a” usually becomes “e”: Andreas becomes Endre, the Latin ager becomes eger, etc. Thus the word Ardeal could become Erdély. - The linguist Josep Lad Pic determined that the word "Ardeal" has an Indo-European origin, while the words Erdely and Erdo do not. The Proto-Indo-European root *arde ("to grow", "high") manifests itself in the Old Indian árdhuka ("prospering"), and in Latin arduus ("high"). In Celtic Gaul, Arduenna silva parallels the English "Forest of Arden" and the Ardennes Woods in Belgium. In Romanian, deal means "hill" and ardica “to grow, high, prosperous”.
• Wallachia - "land of the Romance-speaking people"