When did Persia become Iran? (Short Animated Documentary)

Answer: 1935.

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Sources:
‘The Naming of Names’ by Geoffrey Lewis in The British Society for Middle Eastern Studies.

Iranian Studies in the United Kingdom in the Twentieth Century by Mansour Bonakdarian

English in Post-Revolutionary Iran by Maryam Borjian

[soralb]

Interestingly, in Persian we often call the whole of the UK " Engelestan" which means England. So, the naming mixup is mutual.

[Whatamievingdoing]

Iran: say ir
Uk: ir
Iran: say an
UK: an
Iran: say Iran
Uk: Persia

[high.visceral]

To be fair Persia is a really good name, my Grandma was Iranian and as a kid when I first learned that Iran used to be Persia I spent like a week telling my friends about my heritage

[cyrus]

Iran has always been Iran. During the Sassanid dynasty, Iran was called Eranshahr. Eran or Iran is the name used for our country for at least 2000 years. Ferdowsi is a very famous poet which writes a a book called Shahnameh 1000 years ago. In this he refers to Iran as a country than Iranians would sacrifice their life for to protect. Greeks did not understand the concept of country or nation ad the lived in city states. As they knew Parsa one if the 4 capitals of Iran they called us Persians and the name stuck. But we always called our country Iran.

[darksuperganon]

"Attached only to an empire"


And rugs, don't forget the sweet rugs.

[LedosKell]

Persia: Call us Iran
USA & Germany: Sure thing, my friend.
UK: *angry tea noises*

[foggyforest]

England:we won't call you Iran
Iran:fine so we won't also call you England

[vahidmirkhani]

Fun fact:
Though "Iran" and "Iraq" are similar in English, their counterparts in their actual alphabets vary tremendously:
Iran = ایران
Iraq = عراق
Iran means the land of the noble (Arya meaning noble) and as mentioned in the clip, has been used for literally thousands of years.

Iraq's name's origin has been appointed to either an extremely ancient city "Uruk" in the "cradle of civilization", Mesopotamia, which was inhabited in 5 to 6 thousands of years ago, ....
.... OR it has been appointed to a Middle Persian word "Eh-raag" (pronounced as 'a rug'), meaning "low-lands" as Iran was mountainous and those lands were lower and between the rivers.

Either way, now you know how different those two words are. (^_^)



P.S. for those who claim that the alphabet we (Iranians) have right now are NOT ours and was forced, I have to admit that they are correct. But the Iraqis are using the alphabets that aren't theirs either.
The fact is that we burrowed our alphabets from Sumerians (now, Iraq) to begin with!!
Yes, I said it.
Cuneiform, or خط-میخی wasn't originally Iranian either. So please calm down, breath, and google this stuff and learn more. There's an ancient Persian proverb that has been used for millions of years: check yo' sewoff, befo yoo rekk yo' sewoff. 😌

[agungwidi]

"Prince of Iran" doesn't sound good for a game

[studiollama]

Some Iranian dude bouta get all up in my face about this, but Persia sounds way cooler than Iran

[afdalridwan]

0:38 Oh Wait, that Failed art guy appeard in this episode again, he is so popular!

[rossplendent]

"When did Persia become Iran?" It has literally always been Iran to the people who live there.

[x-ray-oh]

Thank you for not calling it ""iRan", as if it's an apple product

[JonatasAdoM]

I'm here imagining the Romans calling countries for their capital names now.

[bhka]

For those who think that Iranian and Persian also have the same meaning: no, they don’t.

The people who lived in the empire never called it Persia because it wasn’t mostly Persian. You also had other peoples like the Medes, Parthians, Bactrians, Sogdians, Khwarezmians, etc. who were Iranic, but not Persian. Today the term Iranian is used for the nationality. That means that every citizen of Iran is Iranian. Then you have the term Iranic which is referred to ethnicities that speak Iranian languages, such as Kurds, Persians, Lurs, Talysh, Pashtuns, Pamiris, Tajiks, Gilaks and many others.

[ScizzorSaurusX]

Just found this channel fairly recently but I love the content, educational and to the point.
Perfection

[SweetOne]

The Greeks mistook Airyana for Persia and the Persians mistook Greece for Ionia. Today in Iran, Greece is referred to as “yoonān”

[kouroshmarx]

You're one of the few who understood that Reza Shah didn't rename the country but told the others they should call it another way. Thank you for that. ❤

[kraut]

Whole wide region referred by a smaller part is a common theme. Ancient India for the neighbors in the west such as Persians or Greeks was identified by Sindhu/Indus river or Sindh region, now in Pakistan. For eastern asia India was sometimes called Kalinga which was just one kingdom of many on India’s eastern coast.

[VladTaushanov]

Please, please do an episode on Bulgaria. Any topic would be interesting, but here are a couple of suggestions:
- the relationship between Bulgaria and North Macedonia
- the origins of the Bulgarian nation (good luck researching that one!)