SCANDINAVIA - 

Latin import of Germanic Scadinavia; proto-Grmnc. skadinaujo = Scadia Island*[skadin = {uncertain} + aujo = on the water (PIE🔍 akwā = water)] - referring to the peninsula that includes modern Norway, Sweden & Finland (+ Denmark on the more southern continent.)    

  Possibly means dangerous island (Germanic stem skaðan = danger / damage) thought to refer to the treacherous sandbanks surrounding Scania**

      OR  shadow island (proto-Germanic skaðwa = shadow); & may relate to Norse mythology goddess Skaði (some theorize she was a personification of the region & associated with the underworld)***

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   NORDIC Countries, on the other hand, include Scandinavia plus+  Iceland, Faroe Islands & Greenland

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  * The present peninsula may have been an island when the word was formed; the Baltic Sea coast changed dramatically at the end of the last Ice Age.

  ** Scania / Skåne is the southern most part of modern Sweden (Old English; Scedenig + Old Norse; Skaney = south end of Sweden.) Skanör (in Scania,) with its long Falsterbo reef, has the same stem; skan + ör = sandbanks.

   *** Others believe the word is from pre-Germanic Mesolithic people inhabiting the region leaving the roots unknowable