TIL Saint Lucia is the only country named after a woman.

I love Superstore. I'd absolutely DESTROY Justine!!!! Let her parents know they aren't getting the deposit back on this one!

The names Ireland and Éire both derive from Old Irish Ériu, which in turn comes from Proto-Celtic ɸīweriyū meaning "fertile soil". The Classical Latin name for the island of Ireland, Ivernia, also comes from this same root

Not sure why you're mentioning Ireland, did you think it was named after Kathy Ireland?

Lucy of Syracuse is a woman who, by all accounts, did physically exist. Maybe that's the difference?

All that needs to happen now is for the countries of Europe to unify and St. Lucia loses this incredibly important title!

That is incorrect.

Wiki and OED: "Hellenic" originates from the Ancient Greek Hellēnikós, derived from Hellēn, referring to the Greek-speaking people and their culture. It is rooted in the mythological figure Hellen, the son of Deucalion and progenitor of the Greek race, rather than the female Helen of Troy. The term signifies belonging to Greece, originating from Hellas (Greece).

Then why isn't it called Saint Me?

It is an adjective! República Argentina means silver republic

I think that the "female names end in a vowel, male names in a consonant" thing might not be the norm in non-English languages.

searches

https://ans-names.pitt.edu/ans/article/download/2485/2408

The relationship between names, phonology, and gender has been reliably demonstrated in studies focused on English names (Mutsukawa 2014; Cassidy et al. 1999). For example, in an analysis of male (n = 267) and female (n = 222) students, Slater and Feinman (1985) identified several phonological gender differences including: (i) more phonemes, more syllables, and a higher ratio of open syllables in female names in comparison to male names; (ii) a strong stress on the first syllable of both female and male names; (iii) a greater likelihood of female names ending in a vowel in comparison to male names; (iv) male names having a larger percentage of voiced beginnings when names begin with consonants; and (v) male names having a higher percentage of endings with high central unrounded vowels when names end in vowels, in comparison to female names.

A few studies have examined phonology, gender, and names in languages other than English. In a series of studies, Mutsukawa (2014) observed that first syllables in Japanese names illustrate gender difference. For example, the letter “a” in the first position is found in female names whereas the letters, “k” and “s” are more common in the name-initial position among males.

The historical analysis indicated that female names ended more frequently with the letters “a”,“e”, “i”" in comparison to male names both in Korea and the U.S.A. As illustrated in Figure 2(a), through each decade under review, female names were more likely to end in the letters “a”,“e”, or “i”. This finding is consistent with observations documented by Barry and Harper (2000).

Hmm. So maybe it does affect some languages outside of English if Korean sees a similar phenomenon, but it doesn't sound like it's a universal, if Japanese uses different conventions.

Chad, duh

Phillipines, Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Colombia, Georgia, El Salvador, Swaziland, Peru, Saint Vincent, San Marino, United States of America, etc. There are 22 countries named after men.

Columbia.

Philistan. Named after Phil.

For the sake of completeness, YSK there are only two countries in the world that are named after the families that rule them. They have a common border and are both kingdoms: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

I thought it was named after de nephew.