I think it is correct that before the 19th century Hindus used to call their religion Dharma only This situation came into being because being the oldest religion there was a time when there was no need to distinguish it from any other religion However this word has now become a generic term in Hindi and numerous other languages And the name Hinduism was not invented by any German or Brit It was first coined by Raja Ram Mohan Roy Raja Ram Mohan Roy had used the spelling Hindooism someone else tweaked the spelling only by taking away two oo s and inserting only one u in its place