Is there an etymological relation between Albania the country and St Albans, the city in Hertfordshire, England? [closed]

Is there an etymological relation? (some more words to keep validator happy)

Solution 1:

St. Albans was originally a Celtic settlement called Verulamium. Wikipedia states

The etymology is uncertain: perhaps the name means "settlement above the marsh", or "[settlement of] Uerulamos [Broad-Hand]" in Brittonic. ... An alternative etymology may be guessed via back construction from modern Welsh, as bank of the (River) Ver, where Ver could mean short, or be a contracted form of Veru, or Berw, meaning a foaming or bubbling river (cf Berwyn).

However, St Albans itself is centred around the cathedral, which is about 1 kilometre to the east. The cathedral was a shrine to St Alban built in the 8th century.

It was only at this time that the settlement of Verulamium moved east in order to centre on the commerce around the cathedral and St Albans' shrine and become St Albans town.

St Alban (or "Alban" as he then was) was allegedly a man born in the area and who supposedly died as a martyr in about the 3rd or 4th century.

The story of Alban is considered fictitious and has many anachronisms and discrepancies with what is known of the time.

Alban was a common enough name, and simply meant "white".

(I am typing this from St Albans...)

On the subject of Albania:

OED:

The original name of the country (as used by its inhabitants) is not recorded, but may be reflected by the following names in neighbouring languages: Old Armenian Ałowank​‘ , Parthian ’rd’n , Middle Persian ’ld’n. A form of this name was probably borrowed in to Hellenistic Greek as Ἀλβανία and from there into classical Latin, where it was perhaps influenced by association with classical Latin albus white (see album n.2) or the related alba dawn (see alba n.2).

Albanian was first recorded in English as a Latin term in the translation of Paulus Orosius's Seven Books of History Against the Pagans some time in the 5th century:

eOE tr. Orosius Hist. (BL Add.) (1980) i. i. 12 Ac þa lond on easthealfe Danais þe þær nihst sindon, Albani hi sint genemde in Latina [L. regio proxima Albania..nominatur].

However, the name of the country did not enter the language until

a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add. 27944) (1975) II. xv. vii. 728 Albania is a prouynce of þe more Asia.

Because of the broken timeline, the conclusion must be that there is no real connection between the two (despite the local Rugby Club being called "Old Albanians").