545: albany and scotland Jun 5, 2016

'Albany' is a city in many places, there are 22 (once 23) in the United States alone, and 10 more worldwide, named after the Duke of Albany in Scotland. The word comes from 'Alba' which is the Gaelic word for Scotland. The word 'Scotland' itself came through Old English plural 'Scottas' from Latin, 'Scottus' though no one is quite sure why. It is pretty clear that after the naming of Germany, Wales, Scotland and a few other places fairly arbitrarily that the Romans preferred their own names to those native to Northern Europe.