Why are citizens of Holland or the Netherlands called the Dutch?

Question

What is the origin of all three names?

Answer 1

The Netherlands literally means "low countries". The name Holland ultimately stems from "holt land" which means "wooded land". A popular, but incorrect, fake etymology holds that it is derived from "hol land" ("hollow land"), inspired by the low-lying geography of the region. In most languages, the name for the country literally means 'low lands' or is a transliteration of 'Nederland' or 'Holland'.

The English word "Dutch" is a cognate to the Dutch word dietsch and the German word Deutsch. All these words have the same etymological origin. Both these terms derive from what in Common West Germanic was known as theodisca, which meant "(language) of the (common) people".

In an archaic sense,Dutch means people and things from the Low Countries or Northern Germany (sometimes referring to the whole of Germany or even the whole of Europe that speaks a West Germanic language) .

Netherlands being a main part of "Low Countries" had therefore its citizens called Dutch based on previous explanations of origin of the words.

Answer 2

Well, people from Holland are called Dutch by English speaking people only. In German and French and even in Russian they are called

- German: Holländer, Niederländer
- French: les Hollandais
- Russisn: gollantskij

As you can see all these words are derived from the Dutch word Holland.
Strictly spoken even Holland is wrong. Holland was the name of the county Holland until 1795. But as the economic and cultural centre of The Netherlands was situated in the old county of Holland, this last name stood for the whole of The Netherlands. Moreover the name "The Netherlands" also applies for Belgium historically. Originally there were 17 counties united as the Low Countries, in French Les Pays Bas. History divided them into two groups which became Belgium and Netherlands.
Now about Dutch. This word is the English counterpart of the Dutch words "Diets" and "Duits". In Dutch "Duits" means "German", where the Germans call themselves "Deutsche". Around 1290 in the northern and eastern part of the Netherlands the word was: "duutsc" and as the Frisian people (living in the North) spoke a language much more alike English, the English adapted "dutch" from Frisian "duutsc". Later "duutsc" became the Dutch word for our eastern neighbors: Duits (German).
I know that one can find a lot of expressions in an English dictionary related to habits which are supposed to be typically Dutch. But here as in so many cases the pot calls the kettle black.

Answer 3

Some of the info regarding the history of the Netherlands/Holland is incorrect...

Right now officially the Netherlands is called "the kingdom of the Netherlands". Before it became the Kingdom of the Netherlands (in 1813) it had several other names... (It also used to include Belgium and Luxemburg, but they separated in 1831...) One of those names was The Republic of the United Provinces... These United provinces included Holland, Utrecht, Brabant etc.. etc.. Holland being the dominant province of these United Provinces the name Holland became synonymous for the Netherlands... Holland is now separated into North Holland (Amsterdam, Haarlem, Zaandam, Hoorn) and South Holland (The Hague, Rotterdam, Leiden) and both are provinces of The Netherlands...

Answer 4

Dutch is the English cognate of the word Deutsch. In the old days, Dutch used to be an adjective to describe anything West-Germanic in general... (note: the Pensylvania Dutch dialect is not a dialect of Nederlands but of German) but over time, its meaning has narrowed to "anything pertaining to The Netherlands". The original word, though, Deutsch, means "anything pertaining to Germany"... Germany's name in German is Deutschland and in Dutch is Duitsland.

The Netherlands... in Dutch the name is Nederland, "neder" meaning low. The phrase "nederhartig" in Dutch literally means "low-hearted", meaning humble. The Netherlands is called Nederland because the land there is flat--no hills, no mountains whatsoever--and they don't go much higher than sea level.

Holland is the name of two provinces in the central-western area of The Netherlands, Noord-Holland (capital: Haarlem) and Zuid-Holland (capital: The Hague). The name originally came from the phrase "holt land" meaning "wooded land", but there is a common misconception that it came from "hol land", meaning "hollow land".

Answer 5

@ modernmerlin2006: hahaha I'm not sure that your translation of "de pot verwijt de ketel dat hij zwart is" is a good one. I like it 'though :-p. ("the pot calls the kettle black".)

To answer your question: Those stupid Brits didn't understand us. No I'm just kidding, it will probably be some form of wrong communication. But if you want, maybe you can clarify it and just refer to us with Netherlandians, or something like that. I think I would like to hear that rather than being Dutch.
Holland means a land that is hollow. They say that it is wrong to call the Netherlands like this, because it only refers to one of the ancient provinces. I guess that's true, because after uniting some provinces our country was called "De Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden" or the republic of the seven united Netherlands. After that more provinces joined or were taken over.

Answer 6

Because that is the language they speak..like the Brits being called English. Germany, German--- France- French, Belgian- Flemmish.. Italy-Italian..etc.. It only really works for the home countries that then went out and conquered other nations.. you never here Mexicans referred to as Spanish for instance.