What was the significance of changing the name of “Persia” to “Iran”?

Question

As best as I understand it, the founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979 was when Persia became Iran. What was the motivation for changing the name?

Answer 1

This seemed to have come from Persia's freedom from the Qajars and some nationalism on the part of Germany during WWII influencing the Shah's decisions. So it was originally changed in 1935 and not 1979, unless you are only referring to the Islamic Republic addition, which was done at the Ayatollah's will, more than likely. The name of the country in Persian apparently was Iran so this was a natural choice for their own name.

You can find more here: Iran Heritage site on changing name to Iran

In 1935 the Persian government requested countries with which it had diplomatic relations to call Persia Iran, which is the name of the country in Persian. This was a grievous error based on a misdirected sense of nationalism. The suggestion for the change is said to have come from the Persian ambassador to Germany, who came under the influence of the Nazis. At the time Germany was in the grip of racial fever and cultivated good relations with nations of Aryan blood. It is said that some German friends of the ambassador persuaded him that, as with the advent of Reza Shah Persia had turned a new leaf in its history and had freed itself from the pernicious influences of Britain and Russia, whose interventions in Persian affairs had practically crippled the country under the Qajars, it was only fitting that the country be called by its own name, Iran. This would not only signal a new beginning and bring home to the world the new era in Persian history, but would also signify the Aryan race of its population, as Iran is a cognate of Aryan and derived from it

Answer 2

Iran or Aryana were old names of at least 12 Middles Eastern countries. It was actually the name of a continent called (Iranian Plateau). The Shah changed the name of Persia, which was a small part of the Iranian Plateau, to Iran to deprive all other countries such as Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikstan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Bahrain, Gerogia, parts of Paksistan, Abkhazia and Ossetians from their cultural, academic and historical achievements. With taking the common name of all these countries, Iran claims that all scholars who are known as Iranian belong to what is NOW Iran.

Answer 3

Some of the reasons behind this academic theft was that Persia was invaded by numerous internal and external powers in its history. Once it got aligned to the West both with Germany and the USA, it used academia to forge history. Persia was rich and had become a big power in the middle east before the Islamic Revolution. Powerful tyrants become arrogant like Saddam and Ghaddafi belived they had extraordianry God gifted power. As Persia was always the guest house of empires, it just found the best chance to hire Jewish and American academics to write fabricated hisotry and change it to Persia's advantage. See Nasser Purpirar's Youtube clips revealing the lies of Persia's history. Persia if as claimed consisted of many countries, its land was always annexed by Britain, Russia, India, Afghanistan and even weaker countries. Calling Persia Iran means ignoring all the brave people from many neighbouring countries for the entire history of their existence. Mark Haqani

Answer 4

It is not true. The name Iran is old enough and comes from Ayran which means the land of Aryans but Reza shah suspected westerners' motives in using the name Persia instead of Iran and tried to change the name to Iran again. Reza shah had extreme nationalist ideas and Nazi regime cheated him and abused these feelings in the second world war. Westerners insisted in using this name to humiliate Reza shah as he was almost their puppet and they couldn't tolerate his new nationalist ideas and attempts for independence so blamed him for having near relationships with Nazi regime and wanted to remind him their own roles in increasing his power to be the king of Persia! As an Iranian none of them makes sense to me. I mean westerners' attempts and Nazi plans to abuse of naming an old big land according to their own benefits. To make it more clear for you as an Iranian, my nation and I use both names without any special purpose. My nation and I do not use Persia to say our land was a part of west colonies as it was not. Also we do not call our land Iran to say we are the best nation in the world as Aryan is only a name of a race in genes of many different nations from India to the Europe equal to the other races. Surely this name doesn't have any relation to Nazi's bullshits. I think one of oldest civilizations in the world doesn't need such ridiculous tricks. I only want to correct some your mistakes about it as it is a site for expert answers to expert questions about history and needs more researches and attention before asking a question or trying to answer it.

Answer 5

"Persia" is a reference to Farsi, the main language spoken in Iran, while Iran is a reference to the (Aryan) PEOPLE of Iran.

Persia is a province of Iran, which is the "proper" name for the country. Westerners referred to the country as Persia until the Shah formally requested in 1935 that the name "Iran" be used.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070121195724AAyHgzL

Calling Iran "Persia" is like referring to the Netherlands as "Holland" (one of its seven provinces).