An image first used by the Romans in classical antiquity, the Latin Britannia was the name variously applied to the British Isles, Great Britain, and the Roman province of Britain during the Roman Empire.
The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia (Scotland).
In Roman times, there was no such country as Scotland. What we now know as Scotland was called**'Caledonia'**, and the people were known as the 'Caledonians'. Caledonia was made up of groups of people or tribes. Some got on peacefully with the Romans, but others fought back.
Thus, the area today is called Brittany (Br. Breizh, Fr. Bretagne, derived from Britannia). Common Brittonic developed from the Insular branch of the Proto-Celtic language that developed in the British Isles after arriving from the continent at some point between the 10th and the 7th century BC.
What Did Romans Call England? - Ancient Wonders Revealed
What did the Greeks call Britain?
Albion, the earliest-known name for the island of Britain. It was used by ancient Greek geographers from the 4th century bce and even earlier, who distinguished “Albion” from Ierne (Ireland) and from smaller members of the British Isles. The Greeks and Romans probably received the name from the Gauls or the Celts.
Hibernia, in ancient geography, one of the names by which Ireland was known to Greek and Roman writers. Other names were Ierne, Iouernia and (H)iberio. All these are adaptations of a stem from which Erin and Eire are also derived.
Roman men were usually known by their praenomina to members of their family and household, clientes and close friends; but outside of this circle, they might be called by their nomen, cognomen, or any combination of praenomen, nomen, and cognomen that was sufficient to distinguish them from other men with similar names ...
Caledonian is a geographical term used to refer to places, species, or items in or from Scotland, or particularly the Scottish Highlands. It derives from Caledonia, the Roman name for the area of modern Scotland. Caledonian is also used to refer to places or people in or from New Caledonia.
In AD 43, the Roman emperor Claudius launched an invasion of Britain, and over the next 45 years the Roman army gradually extended its control over much of present-day England and Wales and ventured into territory now in Scotland.
Name. The Anglo-Saxons referred to themselves as the Engle or the Angelcynn, originally names of the Angles. They called their land Engla land, meaning "land of the English", by Æthelweard Latinized Anglia, from an original Anglia vetus, the purported homeland of the Angles (called Angulus by Bede).
The oldest human remains so far found in England date from about 500,000 years ago, and belonged to a six-foot tall man of the species Homo heidelbergensis. Shorter, stockier Neanderthals visited Britain between 300,000 and 35,000 years ago, followed by the direct ancestors of modern humans.
The modern form of the word is Lloegr (pronounced [ˈɬɔɨɡr̩] or [ˈɬɔiɡr̩]) and it has become generalised through the passage of time to become the Welsh word for "England" as a whole, and not restricted to its original, smaller extent.
The Anglo-Saxon period spans the time after the Romans left England in 410 and before the Norman Conquest of 1066. England was not a united country. It was divided up into separate kingdoms. The best-known Saxon king was Alfred the Great, who ruled Wessex from 871-886 and all of England from 886-899.
Cambria is a name for Wales, being the Latinised form of the Welsh name for the country, Cymru. The term was not in use during the Roman period (when Wales had not come into existence as a distinct entity) or the early medieval period.
Who Lived in Britain? The people who lived in Britain before the Romans arrived are known as the Celts. Though they didn't call themselves 'Celts' - this was a name given to them many centuries later. In fact, the Romans called 'Celts' 'Britons'.
Caledonia (/ˌkælɪˈdoʊniə/; Latin: Calēdonia [kaleːˈdonia]) was the Latin name used by the Roman Empire to refer to the forested region in the central and western Scottish Highlands, particularly stretching through parts of what are now Lochaber, Badenoch, Strathspey, and possibly as far south as Rannoch Moor, known as ...
Great Ireland (Old Norse: Írland hit mikla or Írland it mikla), also known as White Men's Land (Hvítramannaland) or Land of the White People, and in Latin similarly as Hibernia Major and Albania, was a land said by various Norsemen to be located near Vinland.
The name Albion was used by Isidore of Charax (1st century BC – 1st century AD) and subsequently by many classical writers. By the 1st century AD, the name refers unequivocally to Great Britain.
Etymology. The word ultimately derives from the Persian word viletī, (from a regional Hindustani language with the use of b replacing v) meaning 'foreign', which more specifically came to mean 'European', and 'British; English' during the time of the British Raj.
However great their internal arguments and dissensions, they were aware of an essential unity. To the Anglo-Saxons, they were the Wallas, 'foreigners', a name which leads directly to present-day Welsh.
"Caer' means 'fortress", in this case either the Roman fort of Segontium, which lies on the outskirts of the modern town, or the Norman castle erected near the mouth of the Afon Seiont. "Arfon" means "opposite Môn (Anglesey)", and the full name therefore means "the fortress in the land opposite Anglesey".
