Name of Iran


In the Western world, Persia was historically the common name for Iran. On the Nowruz of 1935, Reza Shah asked foreign delegates to use the Persian term Iran, the endonym of the country, in formal correspondence. Subsequently, the common adjective for citizens of Iran changed from Persian to Iranian. In 1959, the government of Mohammad Reza Shah, Reza Shah's son, announced that both "Persia" and "Iran" can be used interchangeably, in formal correspondence. However the issue is [|still debated].

Etymology of "Iran"

The name "Iran" is first attested in the Avesta as airyānąm.
The Modern Persian word Īrān derives immediately from Middle Persian Ērān, first attested in an inscription that accompanies the investiture relief of the first Sassanid king Ardashir I at Naqsh-e Rustam. In this inscription, the king's Middle Persian appellation is ardašīr šāhān šāh ērān while in the Parthian language inscription that accompanies the Middle Persian one the king is titled ardašīr šāhān šāh aryān both meaning king of kings of Iranians.
The gentilic ēr- and ary- in ērān and aryān derives from Old Iranian *arya-, meaning "Aryan", in the sense of "of the Iranians". This term is attested as an ethnic designator in Achaemenid inscriptions and in Zoroastrianism's Avesta tradition, and it seems "very likely" that in Ardashir's inscription ērān still retained this meaning, denoting the people rather than the empire.
Notwithstanding this inscriptional use of ērān to refer to the Iranian peoples, the use of ērān to refer to the empire is also attested by the early Sassanid period. Both ērān and anērān appear in 3rd century calendrical text written by Mani. In an inscription of Ardashir's son and immediate successor, Shapur I "apparently includes in Ērān regions such as Armenia and the Caucasus which were not inhabited predominantly by Iranians". In Kartir's inscriptions, the high priest includes the same regions in his list of provinces of the antonymic Anērān. Ērān also features in the names of the towns founded by Sassanid dynasts, for instance in Ērān-xwarrah-šābuhr "Glory of Ērān Shapur". It also appears in the titles of government officers, such as in Ērān-āmārgar "Accountant-General Ērān" or Ērān-dibirbed "Chief Scribe Ērān".

Etymology of "Persia"

The Greeks began to use adjectives such as , or in the fifth century BC to refer to Cyrus the Great's empire. Such words were taken from the Old Persian Pārsa – the name of the people from whom Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty stemmed and over whom he first ruled. Thus, the term Persian is an exonym and Iranians never historically referred to Iran by that exonym. The Pars tribe gave its name to the region where they lived but the province in ancient times was smaller than its current area. In Latin, the name for the whole empire was Persia, while the Iranians knew it as Iran or Iranshahr.
In the later parts of the Bible, where this kingdom is frequently mentioned, it is called Paras, or sometimes Paras u Madai, i.e. "Persia and Media". The Arabs used to likewise refer to Iran and the Persian Empire as Bilād Fāris, i.e. "Lands of Persia", which would become the popular name for the region in Muslim literature.
In Greek Mythology, Perseus is alleged to be the ancestors of all Persians, thus giving its name.

Two names in the West

The exonym Persia was the official name of Iran in the Western world before March 1935, but the Iranian people inside their country since the time of Zoroaster, or even before, have called their country Arya, Iran, Iranshahr, Iranzamin, Aryānām or its equivalents. The term Arya has been used by the Iranian people, as well as by the rulers and emperors of Iran, from the time of the Avesta. Evidently from the time of the Sassanids Iranians have called it Iran, meaning the "Land of the Aryans" and Iranshahr. In Middle Persian sources, the name Arya and Iran is used for the pre-Sassanid Iranian empires as well as the Sassanid empire. As an example, the use of the name "Iran" for Achaemenids in the Middle Persian book of Arda Viraf refers to the invasion of Iran by Alexander the Great in 330 BC. The Proto-Iranian term for Iran is reconstructed as *Aryānām ; the Avestan equivalent is Airyanem. The internal preference for "Iran" was noted in some Western reference books but for international purposes, Persia was the norm.
In the mid 1930s, the ruler of the country, Reza Shah Pahlavi, moved towards formalising the name Iran instead of Persia for all purposes. In the British House of Commons the move was reported upon by the United Kingdom Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs as follows:
The decree of Reza Shah Pahlavi affecting nomenclature duly took effect on 21 March 1935.
To avoid confusion between the two neighboring countries of Iran and Iraq, which were both involved in WWII and occupied by the Allies, Winston Churchill requested from the Iranian government during the Teheran Conference for the old and distinct name "Persia to be used by the United Nations for the duration of the common War". His request was approved immediately by the Iranian Foreign Ministry. The Americans, however, continued using Iran as they then had little involvement in Iraq to cause any such confusion.
In the summer of 1959, following concerns that the native name had, as one politician put it, "turned a known into an unknown", a committee was formed, led by noted scholar Ehsan Yarshater, to consider the issue again. They recommended a reversal of the 1935 decision, and Mohammad Reza Shah approved this. However, the implementation of the proposal was weak, simply allowing Persia and Iran to be used interchangeably. Today, both terms are common; Persia mostly in historical and cultural contexts, "Iran" mostly in political contexts.
In recent years most exhibitions of Persian history, culture and art in the world have used the exonym Persia. In 2006, the largest collection of historical maps of Iran, entitled Historical Maps of Persia, was published in the Netherlands.

Recent debate

In the 1980s, Professor Ehsan Yarshater started to publish articles on this matter in Rahavard Quarterly, Pars Monthly, Iranian Studies Journal, etc. After him, a few Iranian scholars and researchers such as Prof. Kazem Abhary, and Prof. Jalal Matini followed the issue. Several times since then, Iranian magazines and Web sites have published articles from those who agree or disagree with usage of Persia and Persian in English.
There are many Iranians in the West who prefer Persia and Persian as the English names for the country and nationality, similar to the usage of La Perse/persan in French. According to Hooman Majd, the popularity of the term Persia among the Persian diaspora stems from the fact that Persia' connotes a glorious past they would like to be identified with, while 'Iran' since 1979 revolution... says nothing to the world but Islamic fundamentalism."

Official names

Since 1 April 1979, the official name of the Iranian state is Jomhuri-ye Eslāmi-ye Irān, translated to the Islamic Republic of Iran in English.
Other official names were Dowlat-e Aliyye-ye Irân meaning the Sublime State of Persia and Kešvare Šâhanšâhiye Irân meaning Imperial State of Persia and the Imperial State of Iran after 1935.