Originally Posted by KRosh

Etymology of Persia


Starting from c. 600 BC, the Greeks began to use the name Persis for Cyrus the Great's empire. Persis was taken from Old Persian Pars or Pārsa - the name of the people whom Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty first ruled (before he inherited or conquered other Persian Kingdoms) and amongst whom he is counted. This tribe gave its name to the region where they lived (the modern day province is called Fars/Pars) but the province in ancient times was very bigger than its current area. In Latin, the name for the whole empire was Persia.

In the later parts of the Bible, where this kingdom is frequently mentioned (Books of Esther, Daniel, Ezra and Nehemya) call is "Paras" (Hebrew פרס), or sometimes "Paras ve Madai" (פרס ומדי) i.e. "Persia and Media".

The name "Persia" since 6th century BC until 1935 was the "official" name of Iran in the Western world, but Persian people inside their country since the Sassanid period have called it "Iran" meaning "the land of Aryans", the older version of which had been "Aryānām" (the genitive plural of the word Aryan, a cognate form of which is seen in "Airyanem Vaejah" ) as seen in ancient Persian texts.

In 1935 Reza Shah asked foreign countries to use "Iran" in other languages as well. Some believe he made this decision to be more closer to Germany because "Iran" means "land of Aryans". Some other believed he changed "Persia" to "Iran" to present a new and modern face of the country in the world.

A few years later some Persian scholars protested the government that changing the name of the country in Western languages has separated Iran/Persia from its past and civilization for them. Thus in 1959 Mohammad Reza Shah announced both "Persia" and "Iran" can be used interchangeably.

Now both terms are common; "Persia" mostly for historical and cultural texts, "Iran" mostly for political texts.