1919 Arameans (Syria) Mar 17, 2020

In the case of Switzerland, or (Confederatio) Helvetica the adoption for some purposes of the classical name is voluntary—done here for linguistic neutrality—but usually this is not so. Lots of places were exonymously named by the Greeks or Romans (including Greece) with those names sticking. This happened more in the past of course, and in the case of Syria, the current inhabitants have basically moved on as even though Arabic is closer related to the earlier Aramaic, the current official name is Sūrīyah (سوريا). However, in ancient times, it was 'Aram' or other slight variants—at least in certain places—for thousands of years.

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