Romanians are a people living in Central and South-Eastern Europe speaking a Romance language. Their name ultimately is derived from the city of Rome and the Roman Empire and more specifically from "Romanus" (Roman citizen).

During the transition from Vulgar Latin to Romanian, there were some phonetical changes that modified "Romanus":

• ending "-s" disappeared (occurred in all Romance languages)
• ending "-u" disappeared (regular change; in Old Romanian was however still present)
• "a" → "â" (regular change; vowels before nasal consonants turned into "â"/"î")
• "o" → "u" (regular change; however, in some regions of Romania, the variant with "o" was kept)

The first document written in Romanian language is a 1521 letter which notifies the mayor of Braşov about the imminent attack of the Turks. This document is also notable for having the first occurrence of "Romanian", Wallachia being here named The Romanian Land - Ţeara Rumânească (Ţeara < Latin Terra = land). In the following centuries, Romanian documents use both forms: "Român" and "Rumân". During a process of semantic differentiation in the late Middle Ages, the form "rumân", presumably usual among lower classes, got the meaning of "bondsman", while the form "român" kept an ethno-linguistic meaning. After the abolition of the serfage by Prince Constantine Mavrocordato in 1746, the form "rumân" disappears and the spelling definitively stabilises to the form "român", "românesc". In his well known literary testament Ienăchiţă Văcărescu writes: "Urmaşilor mei Văcăreşti!/Las vouă moştenire:/Creşterea limbei româneşti/Ş-a patriei cinstire." In the "Istoria faptelor lui Mavroghene-Vodă şi a răzmeriţei din timpul lui pe la 1790" a Pitar Hristache writes: "Încep după-a mea ideie/Cu vreo câteva condeie/Povestea mavroghenească/Dela Ţara Românească The name "România" as common homeland of all Romanians is documented in the early 19th century. on the tombal stone of Gheorghe Lazăr in Avrig 1823 there is the inscription: "Precum Hristos pe Lazăr din morţi a înviat/Aşa tu România din somn ai deşteptat."

The etymology of "România" didn't follow the Romanian pattern of word formation for country names, which usually adds the suffix -ia to the ethnonym, like in "grec" -> "Grecia", "bulgar" -> "Bulgaria", "rus -> "Rusia", etc. Since it is a self-designation, the word "România" has an older history, coming from "românie" which in turn resulted as a derivation of the word "român" by adding the suffix -ie, like in ""moş -> moşie", "domn" -> "domnie" or "boier" -> "boierie" (lord -> lordship). Initially, "românie" may indeed have meant "Romanianship", being then used in the eve of the 19th century to designate the common homeland of Romanians.

There are other Romanic people in the Balkans that have an ethnonym derived from "Romanus", including Aromanians (armâni, arumâni or rămăni) and Istro-Romanians (rumâri). The Megleno-Romanians originally used the form rămâni, but it was lost by the 19th century and used the word Vlaşi borrowed from Bulgarian/Macedonian.

The word Romanus is also kept elsewhere in other parts of the Roman Empire: in the name of the region of Romagna, in Northern Italy and also in the name of the Romansh language of Switzerland. The name was also kept by non-Latin peoples, such as the Byzantines, who used to call themselves "Romioi" (Ρωμιοί).

In English, the name of the country was originally borrowed from French "Roumania" (<"Roumanie"), then evolved into "Rumania", but was eventually replaced after WWII by the name used officially: "Romania". With a few exceptions such as English and Hungarian ("Románia"), in most languages, the "u" from is still used (German and Swedish: Rumänien; Bulgarian: Румъния; Serbian: Румунија / Rumunija, Polish: Rumunia, etc).

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