Stupid Country Names

I don't know whether to rant or rave about stupid country names. On one hand, they're really annoying because they're so generic that they tell you absolutely nothing about the country in question. On the other hand, since I am wary of nationalism, it is kind of good that these countries are generic, since it means that they value humanity above their own ethnicity.

Some examples of annoying names:

The United Kingdom. Or the UK. I know it's familiar to most of us, but think about how annoying it is. How many of the world's countries were created by Uniting various Kingdoms? Why should the obscure countries of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, and Cornwall somehow be the world's only United Kingdom. Frankly it's stupid. On the other hand, I'm glad they're working together despite their differences. I'm glad they're not "The British Empire" anymore, or worse, they could have been "The English Empire," or they could all be collectively known as "England."

The United States of America. Slightly better than the UK, because the US at least contains the word America in it, which is somewhat geographically descriptive, just barely. However, they're not the only country in America, and they're also not the only country made up of a series of United States in America. There's nothing original about the name. Might as well have called it "Land". When I was a little kid, I actually resented the fact that, on my world globe, the United States were all colored different colors, while Canada was a uniform pink. Today though, I think I'd prefer if the United States were all different colors. Then at least, it wouldn't be an amorphous blob of generic nothing somewhere south of Canada. At least I'd be able to put a name and a face to a couple of the states. While we're at it, we could color each of Canada's provinces a different color too, but I don't think Canadians would like that so much.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo, versus the Republic of the Congo. The Congo is a big place. I've never been there, but you know that if you have two largish states claiming the same name, there's something wrong. Come on, Congo people. You have to have more place names than that. If you can't come up with a different name for at least one of you, could the international community just call you Congo One and Congo Two?

Central African Republic and South Africa. These are not terrible names, since they at least get the continent in there, but they fail on the level of where they are located in the continent. There are half a dozen states in southern Africa. Why is South Africa the only one called that?

While it was in existence, the USSR had a crappy name too. Thank God it's gone now.