ROU - Etymology

Etymology

The name România derives from of the Latin romanus, meaning "citizen of Rome". The first known use of the appellation was by 16th-century Italian humanists travelling in Transylvania, Moldavia and Wallachia.

The oldest surviving document written in Romanian, a 1521 letter known as the "Letter of Neacșu from Câmpulung", is also notable for including the first documented occurrence of the country's name: Wallachia is mentioned as Țeara Rumânească ("The Romanian Land", țeara from the Latin terra, "land"; current spelling: Țara Românească).

Two spelling forms: român and rumân were used interchangeably until sociolinguistic developments in the late 17th century led to semantic differentiation of the two forms: rumân came to mean "bondsman", while român retained the ethnolinguistic meaning. After the abolition of serfdom in 1746, the word 'rumân gradually fell out of use and the spelling stabilised to the form român. Tudor Vladimirescu, a revolutionary leader of the early 19th century, used the term Rumânia to refer exclusively to the principality of Wallachia.

The use of the name România to refer to the common homeland of all Romanians--its modern-day meaning--is first documented in the early 19th century. The name has been officially in use since 11 December 1861. English-language sources still used the terms Rumania or Roumania, derived from the French spelling Roumanie, as recently as World War II, but the name has since been replaced with the official spelling Romania.