Origin of name
Originally, the word "Africa" the inhabitants of ancient Carthage called the people who lived near the city. This name usually refers to the Phoenician afar, which means "dust." After the conquest of Carthage, the Romans named the province of Africa (Latin Africa). Later became known as Africa and all the known regions of the continent, and then the continent itself. Another theory says that the name of the people "Africa" comes from the Berber ifri, «cave", referring to the cave inhabitants. The later on this site Ifriqiya Muslim province also retained the root of its name. According to the historian and archaeologist I. Efremov, the word "Africa" comes from the ancient language of the Ta-Kem (Egipet. "Afros" - foamy country. This is due to collision of several types of flows that make up the foam on the approach to the continent in the Mediterranean Sea.
There are other versions of the origin of the toponym.
Josephus, a Jewish historian of the I century, argued that it is named after the grandson of Abraham Epher (Gen. 25:4), whose descendants had invaded Libya.
The Latin word aprica, meaning "sunny", mentioned in the "Principia" Isidore of Seville, Volume XIV, Section 5.2 (VI century).
The version of the origin of the name from the Greek word αφρίκη, that oznachachaet "without cold", proposed by historian Leo Africanus. He suggested that the word φρίκη («cold" and "horror") interconnection with the negative prefix α-, denotes the country where there is neither cold, nor fear.
Gerald Massey, Egyptologist and poet, a self-taught, in 1881, advanced version of the origin of the word from the Egyptian af-rui-ka, «to turn his face to the mouth of Ra. Ka - is double the energy of every person, and "hole Ka" means the womb or birthplace. Africa, therefore, for the Egyptians means "homeland."