Why do we (Anglophones) use the native language name for some countries (Costa Rica, not Rich Coast), but not for others (Germany, not Deutschland)?
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A general rule is that the longer the area has been known to Europeans, the more well-known it is, and the closer it is to England, the more likely there has been a name for it in English for a long time. Names that have been in English for a long time are likely to have changed differently from the name back home.
France is an exception because so many of our placenames came through French.
Common nouns and adjectives are an exception. Common nouns are almost always translated and adjectives are changed to fit into an English pattern.
“The” + singular placename usually signals a region rather than a state, so it’s often removed in English even if the original has it. Al-`Iraq, but Iraq.
Periodic waves of advocacy for replacing traditional placenames with more classical forms or what the ruling state calls it, like the current wave, keep the system irregular.
And then there’s Germany. I don’t know why “Germany” instead of “Allemany” or “Teutony”. “Dutchland” by that point would have been too confusing because “Dutch” had narrowed to mean “of the Netherlands”, the continental Germanic-speaking state closest to England.
Also, “Porto Rico” was common at least into the 1920s.
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