NICOLA Sturgeon has said she wishes she could change her party’s name because of the “hugely problematic” connotations of the word nationalism around the world.

The First Minister said that if she could go back in time to when the SNP was founded in 1934 she would choose a different name.

Appearing at the Edinburgh Book Festival, she said: “I wouldn’t choose the name it’s got just now. I would call it something other than the Scottish National Party.”

However she said it would be “far too complicated” to change it now.

READ MORE: Spending row MP Jardine claims she is victim of SNP "smear"

Ms Sturgeon, who has been SNP leader almost three years, had been asked about “ugly, destructive, violent and divisive” forms of nationalism seen in other countries.

Hosting a discussion on women in public life, Turkish author Elif Shafak said nationalism in her own country and the Middle East made her doubt it could ever be “benign”.

This week has also seen a furore in America over President Trump’s failure to unequivocally condemn white nationalists after the terror attack that killed one woman in Charlottesville.

Ms Sturgeon said: “The word is difficult. I was chatting to Elif earlier on and saying that, if I could turn the clock back, what, 90 years, to the establishment of my party, and choose its name all over again, I wouldn’t choose the name it’s got just now.

“I would call it something other than the Scottish National Party.”

She said supporters of Scottish independence “could not be further removed from some of what you would would recognise as nationalism in other parts of the world”.

READ MORE: Spending row MP Jardine claims she is victim of SNP "smear"

She said: “It doesn’t matter where you come from, if Scotland is your home and you live here and you feel you have a stake in the country, you are Scottish and you as much as say over the future over the future of the country as I do. That is a civic, open, inclusive view of the world that is so far removed from you would rightly fear.

“One of the great motivators for those of us who support Scottish independence is wanting to have a bigger voice in the world.

"It’s about being outward looking and internationalist, not inward looking and insular.

“The word is hugely problematic sometimes for those of us who... Scottish Independence is about self-government. It’s about running your own affairs and making your own mark in the world. So, yes, words do matter.

“But I think we can’t change the connotations that the word has in other parts of the world.

“What we have to do is just demonstrate through words of our own, through deeds, through actions, through how we carry ourselves, that we stand for something completely different to all of that.”

Labour's Jackie Baillie MSP said: "Nationalism is by its very nature divisive.

"The SNP by definition wants to create borders between the working classes of Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales.

"Such small-mindedness repeats the mistakes of the past - it doesn't answer the questions of the future."

READ MORE: Spending row MP Jardine claims she is victim of SNP "smear"

A spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives said: "The SNP's problem with nationalism isn't the name, it's the whole attitude of the party.

"Coming up with a more cuddly name wouldn't change a jot.

"At heart, it would still be a movement seeking to break up Britain at all costs, and Nicola Sturgeon knows it."