[Jonny foreigner]

Doesn’t Osterreich mean “Eastern Nation”, implying the eastern portion of the German-speaking peoples? In fact, if memory serves me, it was renamed Ostmark (Eastern Province) in the days of the Anschluss.

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no im sorry has nothing to do with it. Österreich doesn´t mean Eastern nation. it´s true that “ost” translated into english means “east” and “reich” can be translated into “empire,kingdom...”) But this is just “ coincidence” that this fits somehow with the english language.
Has nothing to do with the name of the country. i have to admit i just tried to take a crash course on the internet because i was interessted too where the name Österreich does come from. this even totally confused me (because it´s more than 1000 years of history and the name has changed a lot during this time). and my english is just to limited to only try to explain it :-) but you are correct about the “anschluß” it was named “ostmark” (because austria did no longer official “exist” during this time) and this can be translated into eastern providence. but again has nothing to do with the real name Österreich.
greetings

[patton]

Ich glauga, am ende Karl Der Grosse, sie war am osten im Ersten Reich.

[longjack]

Österreich comes from the word Ostarrîchi. It would mean something similar to eastern territory.

That was the name given to that area of Bayern in 996. It comes from the latin Marchia Orientalis, (eastern mark). Ostarrîchi was the local vernacular and that term eventually was transformed into Österreich.

Also, mindestens seid Ihr Bayer und kein Piefke :>).

Wiki entries here and here.

[ccmay]

Österreich doesn´t mean Eastern nation. it´s true that “ost” translated into english means “east” and “reich” can be translated into “empire,kingdom...”) But this is just “ coincidence” that this fits somehow with the english language.

Wiktionary.de gives several theories, the first of which is that the name does indeed come from an archaic form of "eastern empire" :

Herkunft:
[1] um 996 n. Chr. als Ostarrîchi bezeichnet, was sich wahrscheinlich aus der damaligen Bezeichnung für Osten und dem Begriff für „eingegrenztes Gebiet“ (-rîchi) ableitet. Es gibt auch Theorien, dass sich der Name Österreichs von dem Namen Ostara, der germanischen Göttin des Frühlings und der Morgenröte (Osten) ableitet oder aber slawischen Ursprungs ostarik, ostrik - Spitzberg ist.