how did europe get its first name?

Answer 1

The Greeks; In Greek mythology, Europa was a Phoenician princess who was abducted by Zeus in bull form and taken to the island of Crete, where she gave birth to Minos. For Homer, Europe (Greek: Εὐρώπη Eurṓpē; see also List of traditional Greek place names) was a mythological queen of Crete, not a geographical designation. Later Europa stood for mainland Greece, and by 500 BC its meaning had been extended to lands to the north.

The Greek term Europe is derived from Greek words meaning broad (eurys) and face (ops) – broad having been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion; see Prithvi (Plataia). A minority, however, suggest this Greek popular etymology is really based on a Semitic word such as the Akkadian erebu meaning "sunset". From the Middle Eastern vantagepoint, the sun does set over Europe, the lands to the west. Likewise, Asia is sometimes thought to have derived from a Semitic word such as the Akkadian asu, meaning "sunrise", and is the land to the east from a Middle Eastern perspective.

The majority of major world languages use words derived from "Europa" to refer to the continent – e.g. Chinese uses the word Ōuzhōu , which is an abbreviation of the transliterated name Ōuluóbā zhōu

hope that helps (and yes, it is copied of wikipedia)

Answer 2

Old civilisations of south western Asia gave Europe it's name. It is believed that the people who named Europe are Asyrics, who ruled Little Asia during XII century b.c. They called their kingdom and maybe the whole peninsula, where they lived at, ASU, which meant east or the Sun. Europe and other teritories, that were placed west of their kingdom in Anadolia, they called EREB, which means dark or west. Ancient Greeks were in touch with Asyrics, so they had taken asyrics' words and adjusted them to greek. Ancient Greeks, used this new name (Europa) as a name of the whole continent. Some time later this greek word Europa developed int Europe, and we still use this word as a name of our continent. Here is where the "story" ends.

Answer 3

It is a Continent, as far as I remember this is just the English name of the Continent and it is the most used and known name, since time im-memorial.

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Answer 4

I think "prof. Jack's" answer is the best answer to your question. I just have to note that the word in greek is not Europa.
The word is Evropi
(E is pronounced as in the word "enter" and
i as in the word "in")