603: greece Aug 2, 2016

Greeks call Greece Hellas or the Hellenic Republic, so why do we have a different name for the country than its own? It isn't as though we have no connection to the Greek words, 'Hellenic' is the name for the language family that is comprised of Ancient and Modern Greek, and a 'Hellene' is the name for a person of ancient Greece. The English word, much like many other place names that differ from the native one is from Latin. The Old English word 'Grēcas' was adopted for ‘the Greeks,’ when the Romans invaded, and brought their word, 'Graeci'. The Latin name was used because the Romans in fact referred to themselves as the Hellenes. 'Greek' then comes from 'Graikoi', which was the prehistoric name of the Hellenes according to Aristotle.