The Etymology of China
The English name China entered the language in the 1550s through Portuguese traders, who picked it uβββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββp via Persian ΔΔ«n and ultimately, most scholars argue, from the Qin (秦) dynasty that first unified the country in 221 BC. Sanskrit CΔ«na is attested in texts from around 150 BC, suggesting the name had already travelled the Silk Road centuries before Europeans encountered it. The derivation is widely accepted but not unanimous β some scholars propose alternative roots in the Jin state or in Sanskrit names for distant southern peoples. Around 1630 English began calling fine porcelain "china-ware" and then simply china, since almost all of it was imported from there. By the eighteenth century china had become a generic English word for any porcelain crockery, regardless of origin β a rare case of a country-name becoming a common noun for the goods it once monopolised.