Quote Originally Posted by SIGNIFER,LEGIOVIICLAUDIA
To Cronos:
why did the Wallachians and the Moldovans name themselves Romanians and their new state Romania?
As far as I know the Wallachians,north of the Danube never used the term Rom^an before the Union of Wallachia and Moldavia,because they had never been subjects of the Byzantine(Roman) Emperor.
Which are the real origins of the Wallachians and Moldovans?How did they get themselves up there?I personally do not believe in the Daco-Romanian continuity.(the province of Dacia was totally evacuated by the legendary pagan Roman Emperor Aurelianus).
Why did not the Wallachians name their state(Romania) Wallachomoldavia or MoldoWallachia?


The Romanian language is very close to Vulgar Latin but has a great slavic influence(this is natural).
It is as close as the Italian in vocabulary,but is closer to Vulgar Latin in grammar than Italian is
The Romanians allways called themselves Romani (= Romans, in Latin language) because. They were called by the other people around them Wallachians or Moldavians.

But the name ment different things at different times. In order to understand what I mean, I'll use first the example of the Turks. Initially they were calling themselves Turk. Then whe one of their states in Western Anatolia became an empire (the Ottoman) they changed the way to call themselves into Osmanli (Ottomans) and Turk started to mean peasant or not-so-educated person. Then it was a revival of the name and they started to call themselves Turks, like they do today.

Romanians probaly kept calling themselves Romani after Aurelian withdrew the army, administration and took away those inhabitants of Dacia who afforded to leave (the rich ones). Archeological evidence shows the places continued to be inhabited after the Aurelian retreat. Then the Goths and all the other nomadic peoples kept comming and they became the masters of the place. So Roman started to mean serf or low-ranked person. In 1320, when Wallachia was unified as a state, the ruling family (Basarab) was of Cuman origin and most of the nobility was probably Cuman and Slavic in origin, but long since assimilated into the Romanian population. We know that both because of the names and because of a funny situation with written documents: the offical ones were written in Slavonic while the private letters were written in Old Romanian (Romance language).

From the 14th to the 17th century most of the people were free men so Roman had the meaning of "serf", inherited form the "Barbarian Invasions" period. However after the middle of the 17th century most of the population was turned into serfs so if one would go around and ask "What are you?" the most likely answer would have been "I am Roman" :) :) :)

In the 19th century, when serfdom was abolished not only the majority of the population would be used to be called Romani, but the intelligentsia was also proud of the name, knowing where it was comming from (the same with the Tukish intelligentsia). Therefore the moment there was a good opportunity to change the official name of the country (the union between Wallachia and Moldova on January 24th 1856) the country was baptised Romania (the country of the Romani/Romans).