Hint
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Answer
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The first local commoner or ruler the Spanish met named Birú
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Peru
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Italian for "made of silver"
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Argentina
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An Amerindian tribe called Surinen
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Suriname
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From the native St Lawrence Iroquoian word for "village"
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Canada
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Either from Taino for "big upper middle land" or Spanish for "low tide"
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The Bahamas
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The native Taino name "land of high mountains" of Hispaniola
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Haiti
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The native Taino name "land of wood and water"
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Jamaica
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From another name for the Aztecs
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Mexico
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From Nahuatl (Aztec language) for "place of many trees"
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Guatemala
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Many possible Nahuatl words, eg. "the Anahuac reached this far"
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Nicaragua
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Many possible native meanings, eg. "abundance of fish"
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Panama
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Originally from Mayan belix for "muddy-watered" for a river
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Belize
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Latin for "Sunday"
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Dominica
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The Spanish city Granada
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Grenada
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Spanish for "rich coast"
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Costa Rica
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Spanish for "the savior"
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El Salvador
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Saint Dominic (medieval Spanish priest, founded an order of monks)
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Dominican Republic
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Spanish for "depths"
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Honduras
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Spanish for "ancient" and "bearded"
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Antigua and Barbuda
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Spanish for the "bearded ones"
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Barbados
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Spanish for "Trinity" and "tobacco"
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Trinidad and Tobago
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English shortening of San Cristobal + Spanish for "(our lady of the) snows"
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Saint Kitts and Nevis
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The martyr Saint Lucy of Syracuse
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Saint Lucia
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The Spanish deacon Saint Vincent of Saragossa + the city Granada
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Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
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Latin for "southern"
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Australia
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Greek for "small islands"
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Micronesia
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Named after the Dutch province Zeeland
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New Zealand
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Native name of uncertain origin + named after the coast of West Africa
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Papua New Guinea
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The Biblical King Solomon
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Solomon Islands
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Native pronunciation of "Gilbert" (after British sea captain Thomas Gilbert)
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Kiribati
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British sea captain John Marshall
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Marshall Islands (not native name)
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Tongan pronunciation of the island name "Viti (Levu)"
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Fiji
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Possibly native for "I go to the beach"
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Nauru
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Possibly native for "village"
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Palau
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South
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Tonga
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Eight standing together (meaning eight inhabited islands)
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Tuvalu
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Native word for "land" or "home" with "stand" (meaning independent)
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Vanuatu
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"Large houses of stone" after a ruined city from the Middle Ages
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Zimbabwe
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Named after the Zambezi River
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Zambia
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From the name "vast place" (named for a desert)
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Namibia
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King Mswati II (d. 1868)
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Swaziland (eSwatini)
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Combination of Tanganyika (sail in the wilderness) + Zanzibar (black shore)
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Tanzania
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From an ancient Berber tribe (the Greeks called the continent by the name)
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Libya
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Probably from Tuareg "Egerew n-Igerewen" ("river of rivers")
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Niger + Nigeria
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Possibly from the word "hippo" which became "place where the king lives"
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Mali
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Arabic for "black"
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Sudan
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Arabic for "the islands" (named for a city on the coast)
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Algeria (al-Jazair)
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Arabic for "the West"
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Morocco (al-Maghrib)
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Arab trader and ruler Mussa Bin Bique (alternatively Ben Mbiki), ca. 1500
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Mozambique
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From the Arabic word "qamar" meaning "moon"
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Comoros
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Spanish for "lioness mountains"
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Sierra Leone
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Land of the Tswana ethnic group
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Botswana
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Land of the people who speak Sotho
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Lesotho
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Jean Moreau de Séchelles, the French minister of finance from 1754-56
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Seychelles
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Maurice of Nassau/Orange, Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, 1585-1625
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Mauritius
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Wolof for "our boat", named for a river
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Senegal
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From Kambra, the original Mandinka name for the major river
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The Gambia
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Named after the Buganda kingdom
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Uganda
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From the title "ngola" used by rulers of Ndongo
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Angola
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Portuguese for "green cape"
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Cape Verde
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Portuguese for "Saint Thomas and the prince"
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São Tomé and Príncipe
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Portuguese for "shrimp"
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Cameroon
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From the Portuguese for "cloak" for the shape of the estuary
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Gabon
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Name the Portuguese used for West Africa of older uncertain origin
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Guinea
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"Warrior king", a title given to kings of the empire of the same name
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Ghana
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Two words of different languages meaning "honest" + "fatherland"
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Burkina Faso
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"God's resting place" named for a mountain
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Kenya
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Corrupted form of "Ubinu", the capital of an empire in Nigeria
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Benin
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Land where lagoons lie
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Togo
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"Lake", named after its largest lake
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Chad
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Semitic for "frontier" (while the Greek comes from the temple of Ptah)
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Egypt (Masr)
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Greek for "red", as in the Red Sea
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Eritrea
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Greek for "burnt face"
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Ethiopia
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Latin for "freedom"
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Liberia
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Latin for the Berber people they called Mauri (from Greek for "black")
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Mauritania
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Gets its name from medieval Europeans confusing it with Mogadishu
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Madagascar
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