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Old Thursday, August 17th, 2006
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Default Re: Origin of Baltic country names

In latvian language Estonia is Igaunija. The name comes from the name of finnic tribe ugaunians, which lived in southern part of Estonia and were neighbours of baltic tribes.
In latvian language Lithuania is Lietuva. But it is relatively new word. Historically latvians called this country as Leišzeme, Leišmale. Also historical word of lithuanians is leiši (nowdays latvians usually are caling them lietuvieši - newer variant). So I guess the word Lithuania comes from ancient baltic word leitis or something like that.
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