Mediterranean

[Trelawney]

Where Did the Word Mediterranean Come from? and whats it mean?

[Loosehead]

Medi - Middle Terra - Earth. Sea in the middle of the Earth.

[Clanad]

The term Mediterranean derives from the Latin mediterraneus, 'inland' (medius, 'middle' + terra, 'land, earth'), in Greek "mesogeios".

The Mediterranean Sea has been known by a number of alternative names throughout human history. It was, for example, commonly called Mare Nostrum (Latin, Our Sea) by the Romans. In the Bible, it is referred to as the Great Sea or the Western Sea. In modern Hebrew, it is called "ha-Yam ha-Tichon" (הים התיכון), "the middle sea", a literal adaptation of the German equivalent Mittelmeer. In Turkish, it is Akdeniz.

Presently, "The Med" is a common English language contraction for the Mediterranean Sea and its surrounding regions when employed in informal speech.

(From our friends at Wikipedia)

[Octavius]

The Latin word mediterraneus, means �medi� (middle) and �terra� (earth).

For several centuries the Mediterranean was a "Roman Lake," surrounded on all sides by the empire. 

[Sequin]

The Romans called it Mare Nostrum - Our Sea

[Octavius]

I didn't say they called it the Roman Lake, in fact, to the ancient Greeks and more especially to the Romans, for whom the Mediterranean was at the heart of their empire, it became "Mare Internum", the "Interior Sea" and later the Italians named it "Mare Nostrum".

Our Sea.
The name "Mediterranean" which means "in the middle of the land", does not appear to have come into general use until the beginning of the Christian era.
The name describes this almost-landlocked sea, while it also gives some prominence to the "terra", the land that surrounds it.

[Aschenbach]

 It's interesting that China in Chinese also tranlates the same as Mediterranean. 'Zhong' 中 means middle and 'guo' 国 land So the Romans werent the only ones who thought they were the centre of the world!