The name is seemingly comparable to Austrasia, the early middle age term for the "eastern lands" of Francia, as known from the written records.
It has occasionally led to confusion, because, while it renders the Germanic word for "east" it is reminiscent of the native Latin term for "south", auster (see Name of Australia).
[6] Friedrich Heer, a 20th-century Austrian historian, stated in his book Der Kampf um die österreichische Identität (The Struggle Over Austrian Identity),[7] that the Germanic form Ostarrîchi was not a translation of the Latin word, but both resulted from a much older term originating in the Celtic languages of ancient Austria: more than 2,500 years ago, the major part of the actual country was called Norig by the Celtic Hallstatt culture of the land; according to Heer, no- or nor- meant "east" or "easterns", whereas -rig is related to the modern German Reich, meaning "realm".
[citation needed] The first written mention of the name Austria is found in the work Historia Langobardorum by Paolo Diacono and dates back to 796.
The name is first recorded as Austrie marchionibus (Margrave of Austria) on a deed issued by Conrad III to the Klosterneuburg Monastery in 1147.
[14] All Germanic languages other than English have a name for Austria corresponding to Österreich: Afrikaans Oostenryk, Danish Østrig, Dutch Oostenrijk, West Frisian Eastenryk, Icelandic Austurríki, Faroese Eysturríki , Norwegian Østerrike (Bokmål) or Austerrike (Nynorsk) and Swedish Österrike.
"Austria" or a phonetic derivative (such as Ausztria) was adopted in most other languages, including Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Maltese, Ukrainian, Russian, Serbian, Croatian, Polish, Slovene, Greek, Estonian, Turkish, and Albanian.
[17] It is worth noting that in his Geography the ancient writer Ptolemy mentions two tribes (of unknown ethnic affiliation) named Racatae and Racatriae which inhabit the areas around the Danube River "up to his bend", roughly corresponding to the region north of Vienna and southwestern Slovakia.
[18] Another possible explanation of Czech Rakousko and Slovak Rakúsko: The predecessor of Austria and Slovenia was Slovene principality Carantania.
The central part of Carantania (the territory of present-day southern Austria and north-eastern Slovenia) is named in Slovenian Koroška (or in the old version Korotan), in Slovak Korutánsko, in German Kärnten and in English Carinthia.
The Arabic appellation of Austria was first used during the Crusades and was borrowed from the Slavic name for "Germans", němьci whence Russian немцы (nemcy), Polish Niemcy, Croatian and Bosnian Njemačka, Serbian Немачка (Nemačka), Slovene Nemčija, Czech has Německo, Slovak Nemecko, etc..