Who was Africa name afther?

Answer 1

There are many etymological hypotheses given for what the name 'Africa' means and where it originated from.

Just two of these include that Afri was the name of Semitic people who lived in North Africa in what was then Carthage and is now Tunisia. These peoples' name was associated with afar, which means dust. Another hypothesis is that the word Africa stems from a Berber word ifri, which means cave. Under Roman rule Carthage became the capital of Africa Province, which included parts of modern Libya. The Latin suffix "ica" can sometimes be used to denote a land.

Another interesting hypothesis is that the Greek word aphrike, meaning 'without cold', has resulted in the name Africa. This word was created by historian Leo Africanus, who suggested to combine the Greek word phrike, which means cold and Horror, with the prefix a, which would result in Aphrike, which means Land without cold and horror.