Quote Originally Posted by Lofman
Actually they aren't.

Some elective monarchies not called republics:
Sweden
Hungary
Bohemia
German Kingdom

Elective monarchies called republics:
None that I actually can think of.
You forgot Denmark. I can think of three.

The Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth (where the king was elected by the nobles)
Venice (doge is a derivative of dux, IE duke, and he was elected for life)
Novgorod (the leaders were called kniaz, which means prince)

So why is it that Bohemia is called a kingdom and Poland-Lithuania is called a republic? They were both ruled by kings who were elected by the nobles from their numbers to rule for their life time?