​​​The name Romania is derived from the Romanian Român, which in turn is derived from the Latin Romanus. Romanians believe that they are the descendants of ancient Romans who conquered southern Transylvania under the Emperor Trajan in 105 CE. The Romans withdrew under Aurelian in 271, but many Roman settlers had intermarried with the local Dacian people, creating a new nation. This Latin-speaking Daco-Roman culture survived both folk migrations of Slavic peoples as well as the invasions of neighbouring empires (especially the Ottomans)

The Roman heritage is at the core of Romanian cultural and national identity. Most prominently, the Romanian language is a Romance language descended from Latin, more closely related to French, Italian, and Spanish than to the Slavic languages that surround it.