Name of Switzerland

The name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer,[1] in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, one of the Waldstätten cantons which formed the nucleus of the Old Swiss Confederacy.

The Swiss themselves began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for "Confederates", Eidgenossen ("oath-fellows"), used since the 14th century.

The Swiss chroniclers of the 15th and 16th centuries present a legendary eponymous founder, one Suit (Swit, Schwyt, Switer), leader of a population migrating from Sweden due to a famine.

using the three alternative names alongside one another in the title of his work) criticized the use of "Schweiz" for the Confederacy as confusing, arguing it should properly only be used to refer to the territory of Schwyz.

In the Holy Roman Empire, emperor Charles IV outlawed any such conjurationes, confederationes, and conspirationes in his Golden Bull of 1356.

Albrecht von Bonstetten (1479) called the Swiss Confederacy Superioris Germaniae Confoederatio, i.e. "Confederation of Upper Germany".

[3] The Old Swiss Confederacy of the early modern period was often called Helvetia or Republica Helvetiorum ("Republic of the Helvetians") in learned humanist Latin.