Feel free to use this thread to ask small questions or share random language / linguistics trivia, if you don’t feel like creating a new thread just for that.
(Just to be clear: yes, if you want to create a new thread for your question/trivia, you can. I’m only trying to stimulate discussion in the comm.)
Yes. But only distantly though.
The Latin name Austria is literally “southernia”. It’s a mistranslation of Old High German Ōstarrīhhi “eastern realm”; auster/ōstar sound similar because they are cognates indeed, but they mean different directions. A more accurate Latinisation would be probably Orientia; from oriens “east”.
In the meantime Australia was the result of some XVII century Latin, ⟨terra australis incognita⟩ “unknown southern land”.