There are many widely varying names of Germany in different languages, more so than for any other European nation. For example:the German language endonym is Deutschland, from the Old High German diutisc the French exonym is Allemagne, from the name of the Alamanni tribe In Italian it is Germania, from the Latin Germania, although the German people are called tedeschi in Polish it is Niemcy, from the Proto-Slavic nemets, referring to strangers, incomprehensible to Slavic speakers the Finnish call the country Saksa, from the name of the Saxon tribe.

Germania, also called Magna Germania, Germania Libera, or Germanic Barbaricum to distinguish it from the Roman province of the same name, was a historical region in north-central Europe during the Roman era, which was associated by Roman authors with the Germanic people. The region stretched roughly from the Middle and Lower Rhine in the west to the Vistula in the east. It also extended at some point as far south as the Upper and Middle Danube and Pannonia, and to the known parts of southern Scandinavia in the north. Archaeologically, these people correspond roughly to the Roman Iron Age of those regions. While dominated by Germanic people, Magna Germania was also inhabited by a few other Indo-European people.