The word ‘Scandinavia’ first occurs in the Naturalis historia of Pliny the Elder (d. AD 79), in the form of Scadinavia or Scatinavia. In later manuscripts of this work an n was added in the first syllable and the name became Scandinavia, as it still is. Pliny used the name to denote what he believed to be a large island in the Baltic. As the basis for his original Latin version of the name, a Germanic form *Skapin-aujō or *Skaðin-aujō has been reconstructed. The last part of this compound, meaning ‘land on the water’ or ‘island’, causes no difficulty, but the interpretation of the first element is disputed. Half a score of conjectures have been suggested. One of the more plausible ones, accepted by some of the leading scholars in the field, is that the first part is derived from the Germanic stem of *skaðan – ‘danger, damage’. Scandinavia would then originally mean ‘the dangerous land on the water’ or ‘the dangerous island’.

Pliny also refers to a group of islands in the north called Scandiae. In the following century they reappear in the geographical writings of Ptolemy. He places the four islands of Skandiai east of Jylland (Jutland) and singles out the largest and most easterly as the proper Skandia. This is clearly Skåne (Scania), the southernmost region of present-day Sweden, and the territory north of it; the other three and smaller Skandiai would be Danish islands. It appears, then, that Pliny’s Scadinavia was also one of the islands which he called Scandiae.