internationalisation - What do you put in a country list for countries with more than one common name?

I'm from England, which means in drop-down lists I have to search for United Kingdom, then England, then Great Britain... it's generally the UK, but it does vary from site to site. What is the best practice for cases like this where there are multiple ways to refer to a country?

Edit: I should clarify what the problem is, here. When presented with a big list, I have to go hunting. The problem isn't that I'm confused about which to pick out of say, England and UK, the problem is being presented with a long list I have to search and have no idea which one to look for. It's very frustrating when a list doesn't have whichever one I look for first... or second... so I have to look in three different places to find my country.

I'm sure there are other examples out there of similar situations, this isn't specific to the UK I'm sure.

Answer

For the hunting down the list you can check out the answers from Adding USA at the top of dropdown list of countries. OK practice or not?. For example:

• automatically copy popular countries to the top of the list


• detect the user's location and select that or add it to the top


• allow for plain text typing and auto complete countries that match

Also, if you have more space on the page, have a look at the answers from Choose Your Country: Best Usability approach. Depending on your usage you can display a big list with flag icons, grouped by continent, or use a map.

Further you can include a little note below some countries in the list, like this:

(where the note is inside the option, so when selecting, you select both the name and the note.)