English History - Pytheas and the Painted People c.325 BC

 It was Pytheas, a Greek navigator, who after seeing the Celtic inhabitants - in war paint with their faces and bodies painted with greeny-blue dye extracted from the woad plant - named the island 'Pretannike'.

The word derived from the Celtic word Pretani which meant painted or tatooed folk. Over the years it became Pretannia, then Britannia and now Britain.

Prior to this it was known by the Celtic name 'Albion' meaning white; probably refering to the English white chalk cliffs seen from the sea.