Three years of the BLink quiz. It’s been a fascinating and memorable journey and I hope you have enjoyed pitting your wits against these quizzes as much as I have setting them.

In the name of countries

1 Easy one to start with. Which country was named by explorer Sebastian Cabot after the ‘silvery river’ that ran through it?

2 What connects the countries of India, Congo, Nigeria, Uruguay, Jordan and Zambia? The list is not exhaustive.

3 If Norway gets its name from being a northern kingdom, which European country’s name is derived frombeing the ‘Ostmark’, or eastern border of Emperor Charlemagne’s Frankish kingdom?

4 The Phoenicians probably saw rabbits here and thought they were hyraxes, a variety of large mouse, and named the place ‘I Shapan-im,’ literally ‘island of the hyrax’. They were wrong about the island part as well! Just identify this European country named after the Roman version of the Phoenician name.

5 Which small country with a big cricket reputation gets its name either froma variety of ‘bearded’ fig tree or the long beards of its indigenous people?

6 This African nation was originally called Upper Volta. But when Thomas Sankara took over in a coup in 1983, he decided to name it ‘the land of honest men’ in the local language. Name the country.

7 Still in Africa. Few countries are named after animals, but which African nation is named after the plentiful shrimp in the Wouri river?

8 A British captain first sighted these islands in 1788, and promptly named them after himself. The natives of this remote chain of islands had trouble pronouncing ‘Gilbert’, the captain’s name, and the current name of this country is the local corruption of ‘Gilbert’. Which country, approximately halfway between Hawaii and Papua New Guinea?

9 This country in the southern hemisphere was named after a province in the Netherlands, which meant ‘Sea Land’. The name was further anglicised by Captain James Cook, though explorer Abel Tasman had a completely different version. The country?

10 This country literally means ‘honey’ in Greek. It is one of the only nations to win a medal for bravery during World War II, which it displays proudly on its national flag.

Answers

1. Argentina; the river was the Rio de la Plata

2. Countries named after rivers — India after Indus. Interestingly Nigeria and Niger are both named after the river Niger and the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo are named after the mighty Congo

3. Austria. It was originally the buffer state against the Avars

4. Spain, from the Roman Hispania

5. Barbados, from the Portuguese barbata; the home of Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Frank Worrell and so many more legends

6. Burkina Faso

7. Cameroon, from the Portuguese Rio de Camaroes, literally ‘shrimp river’

8. Kiribati

9. New Zealand, named after Zeeland in the Netherlands

10. Malta, from the Greek ‘melita’

Joy Bhattacharjyais a quizmaster and Project Director, FIFA U-17 World Cup @joybhattacharj

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