Czech Republic to be renamed Czechia to make it sound pleasing to the ears

The country that gave the world Kafka, sugar cubes and Pilsner Urquell beer is set to get rebranded. Officials at the Czech Republic's foreign ministry believe a new name is more 'practical' and 'flexible' when referring to the state.

Unlike most European countries, the Czech Republic has lacked a one-word version of its name in foreign languages.

Now, the country wants people to use the name Czechia in English, Tschechien in German or Tchequie in French when speaking about the state.

Much of the trouble comes from the fact there is no English translation of Cesko, the shortened Czech word for the country.

Lubomir Zaoralek, the Czech foreign minister, said: 'It’s not good when a country does not have any clearly defined symbols or cannot say clearly what its name is.

'We have a chance to tell the world that here in the Czech Republic we use the abbreviated name and, in our opinion, there is only one way to translate it,' he added.

Neighboring Slovakia is officially the Slovak Republic and similarly the Russian Federation is shortened to Russia in everyday conversation. 

President Miloš Zeman regularly uses the name to refer to his country and said on a trip to Israel in 2013: 'I use "Czechia" because it sounds nicer and it’s shorter than the cold "Czech Republic".'

A foreign ministry spokesperson, Michaela Lagronova, told MailOnline: 'What the Czech minister of foreign afffairs is planning to do is to put an end to distorting our country's name in English (and some other languages, too) where many people use incorrect "Czech", "Czecho", "Czechland" and other wrong terms.' 

It is also believed that some people still mistakenly use the term 'Czechoslovakia' to refer to the country.

That name was consigned to the dustbin of history more than two decades ago, when the country peacefully separated into the two new states of Slovakia and the Czech Republic at the beginning of 1993.

Czechoslovakia had been in existence since 1918 when it declared independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Leaders are meeting later to officially endorse the new name.

And to make it official, the Foreign Ministry will ask the United Nations to include the option in its databases.

Not everyone is happy with the plans though, critics have said the new name could be confused with the Russian republic of Chechnya - almost 2,000 miles to the east.

MailOnline