Editing Suriname (section)

== Etymology ==
The name ''Suriname'' may derive from an indigenous people called ''Surinen'', who inhabited the area at the time of European contact.<ref name=Britannica>"Suriname", ''The New Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica'', Volume 5. Edition 15, ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', 2002, p. 547</ref> The suffix -ame, common in Surinamese river and place names (see also the [[Coppename River]]), may come from ''aima'' or ''eima'', meaning river or creek mouth, in [[Lokono language|Lokono]], an [[Arawak language]] spoken in the country.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Patte|first=M.-F.|title=Arawak vs. Lokono|journal=In a Sea of Heteroglossia|date=2010|pages=1–10}}</ref>

The earliest European sources give variants of "Suriname" as the name of the [[Suriname River|river]] on which colonies were eventually founded. [[Lawrence Kemys]] wrote in his ''Relation of the Second Voyage to Guiana'' of passing a river called "''Shurinama''" as he travelled along the coast. In 1598, a fleet of three Dutch ships visiting the Wild Coast mention passing the river "''Surinamo''". In 1617, a Dutch notary spelled the name of the river on which a Dutch trading post had existed three years earlier as "''Surrenant''".<ref name="De Naam Suriname">{{cite journal|last=Oudschans Dentz|first=F.|title=De Naam Suriname|journal=De West-Indische Gids|volume=1st Jaarg|issue=Tweede Deel|pages=13–17|date=1919–1920|jstor=41847495|s2cid=194102071|doi=10.1163/22134360-90001870|doi-access=free | issn = 1382-2373}}</ref>

British settlers, who in 1630 founded the first European colony at Marshall's Creek along the Suriname River, spelled the name "''Surinam''"; this would long remain the standard spelling in English.<ref name="Marshall">{{cite book|last=Baynes|first=Thomas Spencer|title=Encyclopædia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and General Literature, Volume XI|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=paQMAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA253|edition=Ninth Edition—Popular Reprint|quote=In 1614, the states of Holland granted to any Dutch citizen a four years' monopoly of any harbour or place of commerce which he might discover in that region (Guiana). The first settlement, however, in Suriname (in 1630) was made by an Englishman, whose name is still preserved by Marshall's Creek.|year=1888}}</ref> The Dutch navigator [[David Pietersz. de Vries]] wrote of travelling up the "''Sername''" river in 1634 until he encountered the English colony there; the terminal vowel remained in future Dutch spellings and pronunciations. The river was called ''Soronama'' in a 1640 Spanish manuscript entitled "General Description of All His Majesty's Dominions in America". In 1653, instructions given to a British fleet sailing to meet [[Francis Willoughby, 5th Baron Willoughby of Parham|Lord Willoughby]] in [[Barbados]], which at the time was the seat of English colonial government in the region, again spelled the name of the colony ''Surinam''. A 1663 royal charter said the region around the river was "called Serrinam also Surrinam".<ref name="De Naam Suriname"/>

As a result of the ''Surrinam'' spelling, 19th-century British sources offered the folk etymology ''Surryham'', saying it was the name given to the Suriname River by Lord Willoughby in the 1660s in honour of the [[Thomas Howard, 5th Duke of Norfolk|Duke of Norfolk and Earl of Surrey]] when an English [[Surinam (English colony)|colony]] was established under a grant from King [[Charles II of England|Charles II]].<ref name="De Naam Suriname"/> This folk etymology can be found repeated in later English-language sources.<ref name="International Boundaries: A Case Study">{{cite journal|last=Menon|first=P.K.|title=International Boundaries: A Case Study of the Guyana-Surinam Boundary|journal=The International and Comparative Law Quarterly|volume=27|issue=4|pages=738–768|date=October 1978|jstor=758476|doi=10.1093/iclqaj/27.4.738}}</ref><ref name="United Services Magazine">{{cite book|last=Wilkie|first=Lieutenant-Colonel|title=The United Service Journal and Naval and Military Magazine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mFkcAQAAIAAJ&q=surinam+surryham&pg=PA205|year=1841|page=205|quote=Coming from the south we pass Surinam, the original name of which was Surryham, so called after Lord Surry, in the time of Charles II., and since corrupted to Surinam.}}</ref>

When the territory was taken over by the Dutch, it became part of a group of colonies known as [[Dutch colonisation of the Guianas|Dutch Guiana]]. The official spelling of the country's English name was changed from "Surinam" to "Suriname" in January 1978, but "Surinam" can still be found in English, such as [[Surinam Airways]] and the [[Surinam toad]]. The older English name is reflected in the English pronunciation, {{IPAc-en|ˈ|sj|ʊər|ᵻ|n|æ|m|,_|-|n|ɑː|m}}. In [[Dutch language|Dutch]], the official language of Suriname, the pronunciation is {{IPA|nl|ˌsyːriˈnaːmə|}}, with a [[schwa]] terminal vowel and the main stress on the third syllable.