(June 26, 2016 at 2:11 pm)Tiberius Wrote: I always thought it was weird that the UK is referred to as just the "UK". I mean, that's basically a description of the type of union and government, it says absolutely nothing about the country itself.
If they were another "United Kingdom" in the world, it would be pretty ambiguous.
That's an example of naming rights. For instance, England is the only country that doesn't put its name on postage stamps. That's because it invented them. So when it united several areas under its king it called itself the "United Kingdom" and no other country can use that name even if it had a king and similar areas under his control.