"Celt" Conjecture

[Rumo]

David wrote,

For example, many native Americans of a certain heritage answer to "Cherokee" today, even though their own name for themselves is entirely other: ???, pronounced "Tsalagi"

And they, along with the Lakota, Apache, etc., all collectively group themselves as "Native Americans."

Sure beats calling them/us "Indians," which also reflects how visitors/invaders occasionally are way off base on the ethnology. :?

Good examples both of them.

"Native Americans" is actually as post-conquest as it may be. American < America named after an European explorer and "Native" suggesting the presence of some conquerors/colonists which make the locals identify themselves as "Native".

Since the Mediterranean cultures had had contact with the Celts for over five centuries by then, it's possible that many Celts had adopted the foreigners' name, even if they retained they own tribal identity in conversation among themselves.

This may be, but I'd rather expect this identity shift to happen after Roman conquest. But isn't curious that while we have Dacian auxiliaries which are of "natione Dacus", there're no Roman soldiers from a Celtic "nation" (at least not to my knowledge). I guess the difference is because Dacia was a pre-Roman polity, as well, but there was no Celtia. Why all people in Gaul would have a common name for themselves, if they did not have anything in common? It makes sense for outsiders to give them names, and so they did.