Benin

Revision History

loadingDate    Editor    Name ID    Change Summary
5/29/2020, 9:30 PM Mike C benin added (from user-submitted name 261281)
5/3/2020, 3:36 PM Lucille 261281 Added the usage of Greek.
4/19/2020, 11:38 AM HL 261281
4/19/2020, 11:37 AM HL 261281
4/18/2020, 10:18 PM HL 261281
4/18/2020, 9:03 PM Lucille 261281
9/14/2017, 12:31 PM Sofia 261281
4/24/2017, 11:46 PM anonymous

Type Settlement, Body of Water & Country
Usage English, Italian, German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Estonian, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Slovene, Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Romanian, Indonesian, Malay
Scripts Бенин(Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Macedonian) Бенін(Ukrainian)
Pronounced Pron. beh-NIN(English) beh-NEEN(English, Italian, German, Dutch) byi-NYEEN(Russian) BEH-nyeen(Polish) BEH-nin(Czech) BEH-neen(Hungarian)

Meaning & History

From Portuguese Benim, derived from Itsekiri Ubinu, the name of the capital city of the historical Benin Kingdom (present-day Benin City in Nigeria). Allegedly it was initially named Ile-Ibinu meaning "land of anger" because of disputes between different factions. The Bight of Benin (a large bay) was named after the Benin Kingdom, and the modern country of Benin, west of Nigeria, was named after the bay in 1975 (formerly named Dahomey).