Etymology of Romania
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Romanians are a people living in South-Eastern Europe speaking a Romance language. Their name ultimately is derived from the city of Rome and the Roman Empire and more specifically from "Romanus" (Roman citizen).
During the transition from Vulgar Latin to Romanian, there were some phonetical changes that modified "Romanus":
- ending "-s" disappeared (occured in all Romance languages)
- ending "-u" disappeared (regular change; in Old Romanian was however still present)
- "a" → "â" (regular change; vowels before nasal consonants turned into "â"/"î")
- "o" → "u" (regular change; however, in some regions of Romania, the variant with "o" was kept)
The first document written in Romanian language is a 1521 letter which notifies the mayor of Braşov about the imminent attack of the Turks. This document is also notable for having the first occurence of "Romanian", Wallachia being here named The Romanian Land - Ţeara Rumânească (Ţeara < Latin Terra = land). In the following centuries, Romanian documents use both forms: "Român" and "Rumân". It was only in the early 19th century, with the rise of nationalism that the form "Român" was decided to be used and since then, the name was officially "România".
There are other Romanic people in the Balkans that have an ethnonym derived from "Romanus", including Aromanians (armâni) and Istro-Romanians (rumâri).
In English, the name of the country was originally borrowed from French "Roumania" (<"Roumanie"), then evolved into "Rumania", but was eventually replaced after WWII by the name used officially: "Romania". With a few exceptions such as English and Hungarian ("Románia"), in most languages, the "u" form is still used (German and Swedish: Rumänien; Serbian: Румунија / Rumunija, etc).