The article was written by WHG Student Assistant Remy Koehler as part of a new student-driven initiative, “Place in the News.”
You may have heard of Georgia, a transcontinental Eurasian country on the Black Sea that’s home to almost 4 million people. You may also have heard of Georgia, a state in the USA with a population of 11 million people that is famous for its peaches. To some, it might seem hard to mix these two up, and yet, people do all the time.
This is an issue that plagued Nugzar Rukhadze, a Georgian (the country) journalist who spoke to The New York Times about his experience when living in Georgia (the U.S. state). Rukhadze, among others, has argued that the solution lies simply in changing the name of the country of Georgia, or rather, using the name Georgians use for their country: Sakartvelo.
This might prompt some to ask an obvious question: if Georgians call their country “Sakartvelo,” why do English speakers call it “Georgia”? More generally, why do languages often assign countries names that differ from their own self-designations?
The name that people who live in a place use is called an “endonym,” while an “exonym” is a name used by outsiders to refer to that same place. In the case of Georgia, the exonym is Georgia, and the endonym is Sakartvelo, which in Georgian means the land of the Kartvelians – the Georgian people.
In the case of Georgia/Sakartvelo, the exact origins of the name “Georgia” are unclear, but it possibly originates from the Persian exonym for Georgia: “gurğ”. It’s a popular myth that the name is derived from St. George, the patron saint of Georgia/Sakartvelo, but this is probably not true.
Using an exonym rather than an endonym to refer to different countries is extremely common and occurs across languages worldwide. A good example is the country called “Germany” in English, which is called “Deutschland” in German.
The reasons why an exonym may be used instead of an endonym are varied and complex. Sometimes it has to do with ease of pronunciation. Sometimes it’s just the first word for the country that entered the language. English speakers took Germany for Deutschland from the Latin “Germania,” which in turn may have gotten it from the Gaulish “Germani,” which might have meant “neighbor”.
Meanwhile, in Polish, Germany is called “Niemcy,” which is possibly derived from a proto-Slavic word meaning something like “mute” or “silent.” This name originates from the inability of early Slavic-speaking peoples to understand the language of early Germanic-speaking peoples. The word “Slav” itself is believed to be related to the Proto-Slavic “slovo” meaning “word”. Deutschland may come from the Old High German “diutisc” meaning “of the people”.
While there has not been a significant push to adopt Sakartvelo instead of Georgia worldwide, some other countries have recently requested that their exonym be used instead of endonyms to describe them. For example, the country of Türkiye, which is better known in English as “Turkey”, recently requested that its endonym be used instead of an exonym, especially in international contexts.
While you can probably expect “Georgia” to stick around for a while, don’t be surprised if you start to hear people talk about “Sakartvelo” instead someday.
Visit the place portals for both the country and the state on the World Historical Gazetteer whgazetteer.org/places/12346701/portal/ & whgazetteer.org/places/12932433/portal/
Bibliography:
Koyfman, S. (2021, July 13). Why Is Germany Called Deutschland? Babbel. Retrieved July 3, 2026, from https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/why-is-germany-called-deutschland
Nechepurenko, I. (2026, May 29). No, Not That Georgia. A.I. Compounds a Nation’s Identity Woes. New York Times. Retrieved July 3, 2026, from https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/29/world/europe/georgia-name-confusion.html?unlocked_article_code=1.m1A.ZMgL.YmUTBFV0q31b&smid=url-share
O Języku. (2025, October 20). The Georgian language – What is Georgia called in Georgian?
