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AUSTRALIAN ETYMOLOGY
When explorers first began to visit the Orient and its surrounding islands, Australia became a land of fascination. It was vast and untouched, unknown and misrepresented on most of the ancient maps of the area. It was believed to be the most vast and significant piece of land in the southern hemisphere. Because so little was known about it, explorers of the time opted to keep its name neutral and geographically relevant.
It was named “Terra Australis Incognita” which, in Latin, aptly means “unknown southern land”. The Dutch altered this to Australisch as well as to Hollandia Nova, which means New Holland, as they played a key role in the discovery and mapping out 
Terra Australis Incognita Matthew Flinders was the first person to sail all the way around the Australian coast, charting it as he went. This was a mammoth task and led to his global acclaim. Just before his death, Flinders wrote an account of his experiences called “A Voyage to Terra Australis” (1814). It was almost a decade prior to this that he was noted as pushing for a name change to “Australia”. Indeed, the introduction of his book bore the paragraph” Had I permitted myself any innovation upon the original term, it would have been to convert it into AUSTRALIA; as being more agreeable to the ear, and an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth." He also used the adjective “Australian” throughout his writings, lending more credence to the name as it currently stands.
This was, however, not the first time that this name had been used. As early as 1652, "A note of Australia del Espíritu Santo” was written by Master Hakluyt. Then, in 1693, ‘Australia’ was used in the English version of “Les Aventures de Jacques Sadeur dans la Découverte et le Voyage de la Terre Australe”. Again, in 1771, Alexander Dalrymple used this name in his book “An Historical Collection of Voyages and Discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean”. But, while these men (and others) used the name, it was Flinders who pioneered the movement towards officially recognising it as the name of this exciting new continent.
Over the years, this name eventually caught on. The Governor of New South Wales in Australia recommended that it be adopted formally, a suggestion that was finally accepted in 1824.
Today, this name is further adapted to Oz or Aus, as well as to “Down Under” (referring to its southerly positioning).
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