In Chinese, China is called "Chung Kuo" -- Chung is middle and Kuo is kingdom -- refleecting the common notion that they are the center of the universe.

Many early ("primitive") peoples call themselves "the people" in their own languages, reflecting the same notion that THEY are the human beings as differentiated from other animals and thinghs, noy that they are different from other peoples. When they met other tribes they recognized that they were people I'm sure, but not that they were THE people, so they had to have a diffeerent name, which probably was derived from how they heard the others saying their word for "the people".

I think that this is true of many of the First Nations (No, I'm not Canadian, but I think that's a much nicer PC term than Native Americans or Indians, certainly).

If Shakespeare got to name himself (since he spelled it as many different ways as possible), it'sas no surprise that countries, etc. should have such confused nemnclature.

But isn't it fun?