The exonymArmenia is attested in the Old PersianBehistun inscription as Armina, and introduced into Greek by Herodotus as Ἀρμένιοι "Armenians", who in his review of the troops opposing the Greeks wrote that "the Armenians were armed like the Phrygians, being Phrygian colonists.".[5]ArmeniaἈρμενία as the name for the country of the Armenians is in use since Strabo. The ultimate origin of the exonym is also uncertain, but it may well be connected to an Assyrian toponym Armanî or Armânum, first recorded by Naram-Sin in the 23rd century BC as the name of an Akkadian colony in the Diyarbakır region.
The Republic of Azerbaijan gets its name from the Iranian region known as Azerbaijan. The name Azerbaijan is thought to be derived from Atropates,[7] the Satrap (governor) of Media in the Achaemenidempire, who ruled a region found in modern Iranian Azarbaijan called Atropatene.[8] Atropates name is believed to be derived from the Old Persian roots meaning "protected by fire."[9] The name is also mentioned in the Avestan Frawardin Yasht: âterepâtahe ashaonô fravashîm ýazamaide which translates literally to: We worship the Fravashi of the holy Atare-pata.[10]
There are two main theories for the etymology of the city's name. One is that it is derived from the Persian or Talysh word آهسته رو (Aste-ro or Aheste-ro), meaning "the place where the travel gets slower" (given the marshlands that surrounded the region before). [2]. The oldest theory comes from Vedic songs and writings which explains Astara as a place where the rays of lights shine from behind to light the pathways ahead.
The name Baku is widely believed to be derived from the old Persian names of the city Bad-kube, meaning "city where the wind blows", or Baghkuh, meaning "Mount of God". Arabic sources refer the city as Baku, Bakukh, Bakuya, and Bakuye, all of which seem to come from the original Persian name. Other theories suggest that the name dates back to Zoroastrianism and comes from the word Baga meaning "the god" in Avestan and Sanskrit.[11][12]
The name of the town derives from Old ArmenianPartaw (Պարտաւ),[13] itself from Iranian *pari-tāva- 'rampart', from *pari- 'around' and *tā̆v- 'to throw; to heap up'.[14]
The 5th century Armenian historian Moses of Chorene states that this name is from the Persian name Payda-gharan (پایداقاران), that its meaning is not clear, but that "-an" in the last section means "place of" in Persian.
The word "Karabakh" originated from Turkic and Persian, literally meaning "black garden."[15][16] The name first appears in Georgian and Persian sources in the 13th and 14th centuries.[16] The term Nagorno-Karabakh is a derivative that refers to the mountainous part of Karabakh (the Russian word нагорный – nagorny means "mountainous", "upland").
According to the Azerbaijan Development Gateway, the name of the town goes back to the ethnonym of the Sakas, who reached the territory of modern-day Azerbaijan in the 7th century B.C. and populated it for several centuries. In the medieval sources, the name of the town is found in various forms such as Sheke, Sheki, Shaka, Shakki, Shakne, Shaken, Shakkan, Shekin.
The name is derived from the Persian word for "Monday" (du two + shamba or shanbe day, lit. "day two") and refers to the fact that it was a popular Monday marketplace.
Persian پنجکند which means Five Cities. Its older name was Panj-deh (Five Villages). Kent or Kand is Iranian city or fortress. like Samarkand and Tashkand.
The name is believed to derive from the Persian Ashk-ābād meaning "the City of Arsaces." Another explanation is that the name comes from the Arabic عشق (ishq, meaning "love") and the Persian آباد (ābād meaning "cultivated place" or "city"), and hence loosely translates as "the city of love."
Derived from the Persian afrāsiyāb (Persian: افراسياب; Avestan: Fraŋrasyan; Pahlavi: Frāsiyāv, Frāsiyāk and Freangrāsyāk), the name of the mythical King and hero of Turan and an archenemy of Iran.
Encyclopædia Iranica mentions that the name Bukhara is possibly derived from the Soghdianβuxārak.[24] Another possible source of the name Bukhara may be from "a Turkic (Uighur) transfer of the Sanskrit word 'Vihara'"[25] (monastery), and may be linked to the pre-Islamic presence of Buddhism (especially strong at the time of the Kushan empire) originating from the Indian sub-continent, and to the presence of some Turkish rulers in the 6th Century.
In Sogdian, the native local Iranian language in pre-Islamic times, kanθ means town, which is derived from Old Persiankanda, meaning a town or a region. In this case, Khanda has been manipulated into "kent".
The name Samarkand is derived from Persian meaning "Stone Town".[26] In Greek it was known as Marakanda. In Sogdian, the native local Iranian language in pre-Islamic times, kanθ means town, which is derived from Old Persiankanda, meaning a town or a region.
In medieval times the town and the province were known as "Chach". Later, the town came to be known as Chachkand/Chashkand, meaning "Chach City." (Kand, qand, kent, kad, kath, kud—all meaning a city, are derived from the Old Iranian, kanda, meaning a town or a city.
In Sogdian, the native local Iranian language in pre-Islamic times, kanθ means town, which is derived from Old Persiankanda, meaning a town or a region.
From the Persian word زر افشان, meaning "the sprayer of Gold".
East Asia
China
The English name of China comes from the Qin dynasty, possibly in a Sanskrit form; the pronunciation "China" came to the western languages through the Persian word چین "Chin".
The first part of its name comes from the Persianbandar (بندر) and means "port" or "haven". It is also proudly referred to as the "port to Meccah", as Islam first arrived in Aceh and spread throughout Southeast Asia.
Bandar (in Persian بندر) is a Persian word meaning "port" and "haven". Etymologically it combines Persian بند Band (enclosed) and در dar (gate, door) meaning "an enclosed area" (i.e. protected from the sea). The word travelled with Persian sailors over a wide area leading to several coastal places in Iran and elsewhere having Bandar (haven) as part of their names.
The name Mordva is thought to originate from an Iranian (Scythian) word, mard, meaning "man". The Mordvin word mirde denoting a husband or spouse is traced to the same origin [obsolete source]. This word is also probably related to the final syllable of "Udmurt", and also in Komi: mort and perhaps even in Mari: marij.[27][anachronism]
The name Udmurt comes from odo-mort ('meadow people'), where the first part represents the Permic root od or odo ('meadow, glade, turf, greenery'). This is supported by a document dated 1557, in which the Udmurts[28] are referred to as lugovye lyudi ('meadow people'), alongside the traditional Russian name otyaki.[29]
The second part murt means 'person' (cf. Komimort, Marimari). It is probably an early borrowing from a Scythian language: mertä or martiya ('person, man'; Sanskrit: Manus or Manushya), which is thought to have been borrowed from the Indo-Aryan term maryá- ('man, mortal, one who is bound to die'. cf. Old Indicmárya ('young warrior') and marut ('chariot warrior'), both connected specifically with horses and chariots.[30] The Indo-EuropeanistsT. Gamkrelidze and V. Ivanov associate this word with horse-riding Altaic tribes in the Bronze Age.[31][32]
The name is a Persian word (دربند Darband) meaning "barred gate", which came into use in the end of the 5th or the beginning of the 6th century AD, when the city was refounded by Kavadh I of the Sassanid dynasty of Persia.
There are two opinions about the etymology of this name. In popular belief the derivation is from the name of the Persian God هرمزHormoz (a variant of Ahura Mazda). Compare the Pillars of Hercules at the entrance to the Mediterranean. Scholars, historians and linguists derive the name "Ormuz" from the local Persian word هورمغHur-mogh meaning datepalm. In the local dialects of Hurmoz and Minab this strait is still called Hurmogh and has the aforementioned meaning.
An Iranian etymology of the name (from the Persian word "ab" (water) and the root "pā" (guard, watch) thus "coastguard station"), was suggested by B. Farahvashi. Supporting evidence is the name "Apphana" which Ptolemy applies to an island off the mouth of the Tigris. The Persian version of the name had begun to come into general use before it was adopted by official decree in 1935.[40] The geographer Marcian also renders the name "Apphadana" in his writings.[41]
The word Ahvaz is a Persianized form of the local Arabic Ahwaz, which in turn itself is derived from a Persian word. The Dehkhoda Dictionary specifically defines the Arabic "Suq-al-Ahwaz" as "Market of the Khuzis", where "Suq" is Arabic for market, and "Ahwaz" is a plural (اسم جمع) of the form "af'āl" (افعال) of the word "Huz", or more precisely, the Arabic root "ha wa za" (ه و ز), which itself comes from the Persian Huz, from Achaemenid inscriptions from where the term first appears. Thus, "Ahwaz" in Arabic means "the Huz-i people", which refers to the non-Arabic original inhabitants of Khūzestān.
The city of Aligoodarz was once called Al-e Goodarz meaning "sons or tribe of Goodarz", a mythical Iranian hero from the Persian national epic Shahnameh.
The city's name is derived from the Persian word آهستهرو (Aste-ro or Aheste-ro), meaning "the place where the travel gets slower" (given the marshlands that surrounded the region before). [3].
Possibly derived from the Middle Persian word Erak, meaning "lowlands".[citation needed] The natives of the southwestern part of today's Iran called their land the "Persian Iraq" (Iraq Ajami) for many centuries.[citation needed] Before the constitution of the state of Iraq, the term "Arab Iraq" (Iraq Arabi) referred to the region around Baghdad and Basra.
Some believe that the name of the city as Persian roots, possibly from the Persian words do (two) and baradar brother), referring to Diera and Bur Dubai.[43][44]
The name India is derived from Indus, which is derived from the Old Persian word Hind. This is the name of the Indus River in Old Persian. The word Hindu also originates from the Old Persian, meaning people who live beyond the Indus River, and it originally referred to the people, not the religion.[46]
Furthermore, the name "Hindustan", a name for historical India, is Persian derived.
^"David D. Laitin and Said S. Samatar. <italic>Somalia: Nation in Search of a State</italic>. (Profiles/Nations of Contemporary Africa.) Boulder, Colo.: Westview or Gower, London. 1987. Pp. xvii, 198. $28.00". The American Historical Review. October 1989. doi:10.1086/ahr/94.4.1148. ISSN1937-5239.
^Christopher I. Beckwith. Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2009. Page 397.
^R. Matasović (2009): Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic, p. 257.
^T. Gamkrelidze & V. Ivanov (1995): Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans, p. 472-473.
^Balter, Michael (13 February 2015). "Mysterious Indo-European homeland may have been in the steppes of Ukraine and Russia". Science. doi:10.1126/science.aaa7858. Retrieved 17 February 2015.
^Hazim Šabanović (1959). Bosanski pašaluk: postanak i upravna podjela (in Serbo-Croatian). Naučno društvo NR Bosne i Hercegovine. pp. 28–37. UDC 94(497.6)"14/17". Retrieved 11 September 2012.
^Ovid (1893) [c. 8 a.d.]. Sidney George Owen (ed.). Ovid: Tristia Book III (2nd, rev. ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 60.
^Akbarzadeh, D.; A. Yahyanezhad (2006). The Behistun Inscriptions (Old Persian Texts) (in Persian). Khaneye-Farhikhtagan-e Honarhaye Sonati. p. 57. ISBN964-8499-05-5.
^"India", Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 2100a.d. Oxford University Press
