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by faho 1474 days ago
And in english it's "Ivory Coast", in german it's "Elfenbeinküste".

None of those is an official name tho, they are quite insistent that's exclusively the french one:

>Therefore, in April 1986, the government declared that Côte d'Ivoire (or, more fully, République de Côte d'Ivoire) would be its formal name for the purposes of diplomatic protocol, and has since officially refused to recognize any translations from French to other languages in its international dealings.

(from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory_Coast#Etymology)

1 comments

At least the coast-kuste and elefant hints are there. Other names are a complete mystery

Pobřeží slonoviny

Pantai Gading

Norsunluurannikko

Norsunluurannikko = elephants bone coast in finnish, likely direct translation from swedish or german.
Funny to note is that this sometimes goes wrong, i.e., in Dutch we have a Witte Neushoorn (White Rhino, or, White Nosehorn if you will), however, this Rhino is not white but it has a wide mouth and English people call (or called) it Wide Rhino... Somewhere someone misunderstood and now we have a White Rhino that is grey.
What names are "a complete mystery"? They're all literally the same name in different languages -- at least the ones you've listed.