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Comment by smcl | Hacker News Reader

I think they'd continue to refer to it as such but to me it feels a little odd. The "United Kingdom" was originally a union of the kingdoms of Scotland and England, the latter having already conquered and absorbed Wales. Losing one former-kingdom of that union and maintaining you're the "United Kingdom" feels a bit dishonest, a little bit "Democratic People's Republic ..." :)

"The Kingdom of England and Wales" makes more sense but "KEW" and "EW" sound odd as acronyms, and will just lead to most of the world referring to the place as "England" (as many in the USA currently do tbh). That is, if they decide to keep the monarchy...

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I think it would become simply "Britain", seeing as "Britannia" originally referred to the Roman colonies of England and Wales.

"Great Britain" is the whole island (including Scotland).

"United Kingdom" would require continued Union with either Scotland or Northern Ireland.

TRIVIA CORNER:

In Irish Gaelic the island of Great Britain is Breatain Mhór [Big Britain] and Breatain Bheag [Little Britain] is the name for Wales. Obviously coming from the historical fact [much trumpeted by the Welsh] that they were the original Brits, driven into the mountainous west by the Saxon invaders. England in Irish is Sasana [obviously referring to Saxons] thus making an Englishman a Sasanach

NOTE: These terms are similar in Scottish Gallic too. Hence the widely known Scots usage of Sasanach as a derogatory term for an English person which, in reality, means calling them a 'Saxon'.

If we're digging up weird etymological trivia, I will contribute the fact that the old Celtic word Īweriū (from which we get the name Éire) was interpreted by the ancient Greeks as Iouerníā, leading to Tacitus calling the island Hibernia (influenced by the Latin word hībernus, thinking that it meant "land of winter").

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibernia

I really appreciate these little tangents, got a good couple of “TIL”s from this thread

The predecessor to the UK before Ireland was the Kingdom of Great Britain, so would be correct to go back to afterwards

Of course to save money (and face) it probably wouldn't

"Britain" or "Kingdom of Britain" is a good idea, I hadn't considered that

United Kingdom came from the GB+Ireland, not England & Scotland

England + Scotland were the Kingdom of Great Britain

Ah good point, but the scenario in question involved both Ireland and Scotland leaving so "Great Britain" doesn't fit either.

If both leave, then the predecessor to the Kingdom of Great Britain was the Kingdom of England

Wales was already part of England, as principality / having been conquered

Though "United Kingdom of England" could argue that they kept the Irish crown :)

I feel like "Kingdom of England" would be off the table - you probably wouldn't want to antagonise the Welsh immediately after they just watched NI and Scotland split off :)

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