"self-important petty official," 1856, from the name of the fussy, pompous, stupid beadle in Dickens' "Oliver Twist." Related: Bumbledom.
native name for "Lapp," preferred by modern scholars, 1797, from the Lapp self-designation; it is of uncertain origin.
port city in U.S. state of Georgia, from savana, the name applied to the Native Americans in that part of the coast by early European explorers, perhaps from a self-designation of the Shawnee Indians, or from the topographical term (see savannah).
name of a group of Siouxan tribes originally from Missouri, 1690s, via French, from their self-designation Wazhazhe. The ornamental tree osage orange (Toxylon pomiferum), is attested by that name by 1817; it was originally found in and around their country.
1829 (n.), "member of a Slavic race living mostly in the Carpathians, north of Hungary and east of Moravia; 1887 as an adjective, from French Slovak, from the people's own self-designation(compare Slovak and Czech Slovak, plural Slovaci; Polish Słowak; Russian Slovak; German Slowake). Related: Slovakian; Slovakish.
of or pertaining to the great inland sea of central Asia, 1580s, from Latin Caspius, from Greek Kaspios, named for native people who lived on its shores (but who were said to be originally from the Caucasus), Latin Caspii, from a native self-designation, perhaps literally "white." Middle English had Caspy, Capsi.
Siberian Mongolian people, 1580s, from Russian samoyed (11c.), traditionally literally "self-eaters," i.e. "cannibals" (the first element cognate with same, the second with eat), but this might be Russian folk etymology of a native name:
The common Russian etymology of the name Samoyed, meaning "self-eater," deepened the Russians' already exotic image of far-northerners. The most probable linguistic origin of Samoyed, however, is from the Saami — saam-edne, "land of the people" [Andrei V. Golovnev and Gail Osherenko, "Siberian Survival: The Nenets and Their Story," Cornell University, 1999]
Which would make the name a variant of Suomi "Finn." The native name is Nenets. As a language name by 1829. As the name of a type of dog (once used as a working dog in the Arctic) it is attested from 1889 (Samoyed dog).
used allusively from 1985, in reference to John Rambo, hero of Canadian-American author David Morrell's novel "First Blood" (1972), popularized as portrayed by Sylvester Stallone in the Hollywood movie version (1982), a U.S. Vietnam veteran, "macho and self-sufficient, and bent on violent retribution" [OED]. The family name is an old one in New Jersey and Pennsylvania (where Morrell supposedly first heard it), originally Swedish, sometimes said to represent Swedish place name Ramberget, or to be from French Huguenots who took refuge in Sweden.
country name, from Persian Iran, from Middle Persian Ērān "(land) of the Iranians," genitive plural of ēr- "an Iranian," from Old Iranian *arya- (Old Persian ariya-, Avestan airya-) "Iranian", from Indo-Iranian *arya- or *ārya-, a self-designation, perhaps meaning "compatriot" (see Aryan).
In English it began to be used 1760s, by orientalists and linguists (Alexander Dow, William Jones), in historical contexts, and usually with a footnote identifying it with modern Persia; as recently as 1903 "Century Dictionary" defined it as "the ancient name of the region lying between Kurdistan and India." In 1935 the government of Reza Shah Pahlavi requested governments with which it had diplomatic relations to call his country Iran, after the indigenous name, rather than the Greek-derived Persia.
