Moldova is the Romanian name of a medieval Principality (Moldavia) which included territories in Eastern Romania, the Republic of Moldova and parts of Southern Ukraine.
Origins of the name
The principality was probably named after its earliest capital, "Târgul Moldovei" (nowadays Baia, Suceava County), a market town on the banks of the Moldova River. Naming a market town after the river located nearby was a common practice all across the territories inhabited by Romanians: Târgu Jiu, Cetatea Dâmboviţei (now Bucharest), Târgu Mureş, Târgul Siretului, Curtea de Argeş, etc. There is an account of Dragoş's naming the country after hunting an aurochs. After the chase, his exhausted hound Molda is said to have drowned in a river that was given the name "Moldova" (see "Moldova River"). The story is disputed and it still does not explain the origin of the word itself.
Etymology
An explanation was proposed by the Romanian historian Bogdan Petriceicu-Hasdeu, who connected the name of the river Moldova with Mulde, a river in Saxony, and Moldau, the German name of the river Vltava in the Czech Republic, and argues that all derive from the Gothic word for "dust" - Mulda. It is notable that this would not be the only river in Romania that got its name in connection to the word, as Prahova could be derived from the Slavic equivalent, Prah. The Romanian linguist Iorgu Iordan proposed that the word be seen as a derivative of Molid (spruce), but the disappearance of the "i" would be hard to explain within the frame of Romanian phonetics.
Other names
Other early names of the principality were Maurovlachia - "Black Wallachia" (with the meaning of "Northern Wallachia" according to cardinal direction color) or Moldovlachia in Byzantine sources, especially when referring to the subordonate Moldavian Metropolitanate under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. Also, the name "Bogdania" was occasionally used during the rule of Bogdan I of Moldavia, this being kept for a longer time in Ottoman sources as Bogdan Iflak - "Bogdan's Wallachia" and Kara-Bogdan - "Black Bogdania".
