English speakers don't call anyone by their own name. "Japan" is another good example here.
Interestingly, the Japanese term for other countries/languages are frequently much closer than the English versions. So while English speakers call the Deutsch "German" and Deutschland "Germany", Japanese speakers call them "doitsu", which is just as close as you can transliterate "Deutsch" to the syllables allowed in Japanese. It's not a rule though: the proper term for the USA is "beikoku", which translates to "country of rice". (The colloquial term for USA however is "amerika", which is exactly what Americans call themselves colloquially.)
> The colloquial term for USA however is "amerika", which is exactly what Americans call themselves colloquially.
This reminds me of something I was thinking about recently.
I started noticing a few years ago, when I began listening to a lot of podcasts made in the UK, that there's a gap between how Americans colloquially refer to ourselves and how the rest of the world does. The upshot is that the term "America" is used much more liberally overseas. For example, journalists overseas will often use "America" and "American" even when referring to our institutions, cities/states, and leaders, whereas domestically we will switch to "the US" or "the United States" in those situations. Put another way, domestically we usually say "America" when referring to our national and cultural identity, but often (but not always) use The US or The United States when referring to our country. I'm an American, but I live in the United States. Anthony Blinken is the US Secretary of State (foreigners will say American Secretary of State). Britain's ally in WW2 was the United States, and they were glad when the Americans showed up to fight. Gavin Newsom is the governor of the US State of California. If I return from 6 months abroad, I might say "Gd bless America" after my first bite of real cheeseburger. We'll chant USA! USA! at the Olympics and make an impassioned argument that American cars are the finest in the world. And so on.
Japan is roughly as close to Nippon as doitsu is to Deutsch.
The Germans are somewhat extreme on the exonymic spectrum, there are something like six distinct terms used in Europe for them. I've never heard one complain about it.
"The English word for Japan came to the West from early trade routes. The early Mandarin Chinese or possibly Wu Chinese word for Japan was recorded by Marco Polo as Cipangu. The Malay and Indonesian words Jepang, Jipang, and Jepun were borrowed from non-Mandarin Chinese languages, and this Malay word was encountered by Portuguese traders in Malacca in the 16th century. It is thought the Portuguese traders were the first to bring the word to Europe. It was first recorded in English in 1577 spelled Giapan."
> Marco Polo called Japan 'Cipangu' around 1300, based on the Chinese name,[6] probably 日本國; 'sun source country' (compare modern Min Nan pronunciation ji̍t pún kok).
The pronunciation "Japan" is from Chinese (or, to be pedantic, some Chinese language) pronunciation of 日本, which is pronounced as Nippon in Japan. It happened because the Chinese character 日 ("sun") has widely different sounds in modern languages. Probably it had an unusual sound in the old time.
Yes, the name is a corruption of a Chinese name for Japan. So what's your point? Japanese is not the same language as Chinese; it isn't even related linguistically other than borrowing part of its writing system.
It's basically like making up a name for the UK based on a corruption of what the Romans called it 2000 years ago, and then trying to claim this is similar to what Britons call it today.
Interestingly, the Japanese term for other countries/languages are frequently much closer than the English versions. So while English speakers call the Deutsch "German" and Deutschland "Germany", Japanese speakers call them "doitsu", which is just as close as you can transliterate "Deutsch" to the syllables allowed in Japanese. It's not a rule though: the proper term for the USA is "beikoku", which translates to "country of rice". (The colloquial term for USA however is "amerika", which is exactly what Americans call themselves colloquially.)