Names of Kosovo

Kosovo in English language sources is mostly referred to in this spelling. The Albanian spelling Kosova has lesser currency.

The alternative spelling of Kossovo was frequently used until the early 20th century and before that Cossovo, Italianisations of the name.

Kosovo
Kosovo (Косово, ) is believed to be the Serbian possessive adjective of kos (кос) "blackbird",  an ellipsis for Kosovo Polje "field of the blackbirds", in Greek is Κοσσυφοπέδιο (Kossyphopedio), the site of the 1389 Battle of Kosovo Field.

The root word kos- is widely used as a toponym in Slavic countries, and the name Kosovo is itself used in other Slavic countries, appearing in Belarus, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Russia (see Kosovo (disambiguation)).

Another theory points to a pre-Ottoman Turkish origin of the word Kosova. Indeed, Turkish nomadic tribes from the Black Sea region, such as the Kipchaks, the Cumans (giving their names to the Macedonian city of Kumanovo, meaning "field of the Cumans") and the Pechenegs, preceded the arrival of the Ottomans by centuries. Kos is a cognate of the Turkish word Kuş, which means “bird”. Ova in Turkish means “field” or “plain”. Hence Kosova begets the meaning of “field of the birds”. Toponyms with the -ova ending are very common throughout regions inhabited by Turks. Due to the arrival of these Turkish people in the Balkans centuries after the Slavic tribes it is highly possible that it was adopted and assimilated from Serbian into the Turkic languages.

Kosova is the Albanian name for the region. It is also occasionally spelled as Kosovë, without the Albanian enclitic definite article -a.

The use of these spelling variants is a highly sensitive political issue for both Serbs and Kosovo Albanians, who regard the use of the other side's name as being a denial of their own side's territorial rights.

Kosovo is not given the definite article ("the Kosovo") in English. Albanian usage varies (Kosova vs. Kosovë). The question does not arise in Slavic, which has no definite article. French has the definite article, le Kosovo. In German, no article, or the masculine or neuter articles, are variously used (Kosovo, der Kosovo, das Kosovo). In Portuguese, both forms are commonly used - the form without the article was the preferred form when the region first hit the news; nowadays, a trend has been observed both in Portugal and Brazil of using the definite masculine article "o Kosovo".

Metohija
Metohija (Метохија, alternatively spelled "Metohia") derives from the Greek word metochia (μετόχια), a term which denotes church-owned land. Historically, the estates of the Serbian Orthodox Church were located principally in this region. The name does not indicate a modern administrative district. Albanians tend not to use the name, regarding it as a statement of Serbian territorial ownership (which they reject for political reasons), and instead prefer to call it Rrafsh i Dukagjinit, the "Dukagjin plateau".

Dardania
Some Kosovan Albanians refer to Kosovo as Dardania, the name of the ancient Roman province (later absorbed into Moesia) which covered the territory of modern Kosovo and part of the Republic of Macedonia. The former Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova had been an enthusiastic backer of a "Dardanian" identity and its flag and presidential seal refer to this national identity. However, it is not recognised by any international power and the name "Kosova" remains more widely used among the Albanian population.