capital of Bosnia, founded 15c. and named in Turkish as Bosna-Saray, "Palace on the (River) Bosna," from saray (see caravanserai); the modern name is a Slavic adjectival form of saray.

Venezuelan capital, founded 1567 by the Spaniards on the site of a razed village of the Caracas people, whose name is of unknown origin, and named for them.

from 330 C.E. to 1930 the name of what is now Istanbul and formerly was Byzantium, the city on the European side of the Bosphorus that served as the former capital of the Byzantine and Ottoman empires, from Greek Konstantinou polis "Constantine's city," named for Roman emperor Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus (see Constantine), who transferred the Roman capital there.

capital of France, from Gallo-Latin Lutetia Parisorum (in Late Latin also Parisii), name of a fortified town of the Gaulish tribe of the Parisii, who had a capital there; literally "Parisian swamps" (see Lutetian).

The tribal name is of unknown origin, but it is traditionally derived from a Celtic par "boat" (perhaps related to Greek baris; see barge (n.)), hence the ship on the city's coat of arms.

former name of Jakarta, capital of Indonesia, when it was the Dutch East Indies, a colony of the Netherlands; from Batavia, an ancient name for a region of Holland at the mouth of the Rhine, from Latin Batavi, a people who dwelt between the Rhine and the Waal on the island of Betawe. Related: Batavian.

Hungarian capital, formed 1872 from merger of two cities on opposite shores of the Danube, Buda (probably from a word originally meaning "water") + Pest, a Hungarian word meaning "furnace, oven, cove," also in Slavic (compare Russian pech'). Ofen, literally "oven," was the old German name for the place.

city in north-central France, Roman Senones, the capital of the Gaulish people of the same name.

ancient Greek settlement in Thrace on the European side of the Bosphorus, said to be named for its 7c. B.C.E. founder, Byzas of Megara. A place of little consequence until 330 C.E., when Constantine the Great re-founded it and made it his capital (see Constantinople).

capital of Afghanistan, named for its river, which carries a name of unknown origin.

Russian capital, named for the Moskva River, the name of which is of unknown origin. Moscow mule vodka cocktail is attested from 1950.