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Greenland. -m

The guy that came up with the name "Iceland" was a viking named Flóki or Hrafna-Flóki.

He is said to have been the first viking to find Iceland (not the first, the Irish were first but they were in the way so they were "removed").

He hated the place, thought it was cold and miserable, named it "Iceland" and left.

The first viking to actually settle here was Ingólfur Arnarson who named Reykjavik from the smoke and steam he saw rising from the hot springs as he arrived.

Of course, the place "Thule" mentioned in many old texts might be a reference to Iceland. We have a beer named after it.

You could take some of the traditional names for Iceland.

In domestic literature throughout the ages Iceland has also been called "Frón" or "Ísafold" (meaning "ice" and "frozen ground" respectively, I really think you don't appreciate how cold us natives think this place is).

If Iceland is beautiful, and I suspect it is, then you need to keep the name forbidding and frightening to discourage stampeding tourists. H.S. Thompson professed that if Aspen had been renamed "Fat City," as per his suggestion, it would become much more habitable.

I think Iceland knows what it's doing. I might even push it up a notch and call it "Land of the Petulant Lawyers" just to discourage anyone from even getting off the plane when they come through.

I have long wanted to go to Iceland. At least I did before I learned about the country's stance on whaling. I am not a fervent animal rights activist, but I do feel that industrial whaling is unconscionable. So I would call Iceland: Whaling-for-no-good-reason-land or something like that.

How about "six sheep per human inhabitant?"

Of course I defer to the Icelanders on this question, but I always rather liked the story I heard: that original settlers liked Iceland and didnt want it overrun with immigrants, and so gave it an unattractive name ... meanwhile, naming the much more forbidding land to the west "Greenland." Marketing genius.

What is your source for that naming story?

I lived in Iceland for a few years as a child, and I was told was that the naming of Iceland and Greenland were essentially branding techniques to help convince the Vikings to keep going. They had just crossed the north Atlantic in brutally cold weather, and wanted off that boat. "This is Iceland, buddy, you really want to get over to Greenland before the winter storms really start in."

In fact, Iceland gets hit by the gulf stream and is much warmer than it should be for that latitude, while Greenland is covered by glaciers and is much colder.

How about... Niceland?

Land of the Northern Lights.

Land of the Midnight Sun.

Land where there's a beautiful woman behind each and every tree.

(Paul, who lived in Iceland for 6 years.)

Joe and Howard, I what you have got there is a very popular story that while being quite catchy and easy to remember isn't necessarily true. Baldur has the story right. Early settler Hrafna-Flóki hit on a particularly harsh winter and sulky summer following it, decided he hated the place with passion and named it Iceland to warn others who were to follow.

It proved to be a memorable name, so it stuck.

Niceland is nice.

However, tourism is absolutely booming in Iceland, so I guess the name isn't scaring too many people off. ;-)

P.S. SamW, you are entitled to your subjective opinion on whaling, but I recommend everybody else read this nice article, Why I had whale steak for dinner today, for a slightly different point of view.

I think that if you're lucky enough to go to Iceland, you should enjoy it as it is, without succumbing to the need to rename it or otherwise make it 'better'.

I have also heard that the name was chosen to deter other Scandi invaders, in contrast to Greenland.

But before you start rebranding the island, I suggest you come to our Christmas party this week and listen to our Nicelandic team member regale you with tales of rotting shark chunks placed in coat pockets (you know, for a laugh ;-).

PS: just saw you at le Web but didn't say hello ... so : hello!

I can see that some myths are being thrown around about the original naming of Iceland and Greenland. As a person with an insanely fierce passion for the history, I can tell you that the name Iceland was given the land by Vikings who had fled from King Harald Harfagri of Norway. King Harald became the first King to be sole King of all of Norway and he didn’t become that by playing Mr. Nice guy - instead he pretty much killed anyone who stood in his way. (All that for a woman’s love ehh) Before he went out to conquer all of Norway, the country was divided into lots of small kingdoms and as King Haralds power grew, many kings and their followers fled in an attempt to not only survive but spare their families and friends from certain death as well. Many of those who fled settled in Scotland, Denmark and Ireland but some went further away towards the unknown and came upon Iceland. From fear of King Harald sending men after them, they decided to name the land Iceland in the hope that it would sound so unappealing that nobody would want to go there. Needless to say - it worked too as nobody ever attempted to wage war on the land and its people.

Greenland on the other hand was names so for the complete opposite reasons. I’m sure many of you know about Lucky Leif Eriksson - the first white man to actually "discover" America (a mere 500 years prior to Columbus). His father, Erik the Red was sentenced to a few years outlawry due to that one of his slaves had killed a slave of his neighbor. He set sails and settled in Greenland for a while but whilst there, he missed his friends so he named the land Greenland in order to try to get other people to want to set sails and join him. That worked too as for a short while; there was actually quite a large settlement there. It was whilst living in outlawry that Leif set sails and found "Vinland the good" and it was during that same period that the first "non native" child, Snorri Thorfinnsson was born in Vinland.

As a side note, there was indeed a Norwegian man who had been to Iceland prior to this. (Hence why some of the Vikings settled there, they knew the land existed beforehand). He named the country "Smjorland" - which means "Butterland" because when he came there, the snow was melting from the trees (there were trees there in those days) like butter in the sun as we say up north. :-)

Lavaland... like the lamps, only darker.

Okay, I just read the good Doctor Searls and see that he laid first claim to Lavaland. Snooze/lose = moi. I see that Ms. Olafsdottir mentions Smjorland... I vote for S'moreland, land of marshmallows, graham crackers, and chocolate bars.

How about "eldfjalldottir," daughter of volcano?