1829: persia Dec 18, 2019

The name 'Persia' was given by the Greeks, and later the Romans, based off of one region of Cyrus the Great's empire, because all of the people whom the Greeks initially engaged diplomatically were from the region of Pars. This would have been outdated though, even for them, since these people had taken over other kingdoms, and the Iranians then called the area Iranishar. Before this still, the Greeks used words which would have meant 'median', as a reference to its location between Europe and East Asia.

Support Word Facts at patreon.com/wordfacts