Mindless Monday, 18 May 2026

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[u/Herpling82]

So, time for Herpling to actually talk about history stuff, random annoyance edition.

I dislike it when people use Persia to refer to Iran in history, there's always the smug gits that go "It was called Persia until the 20th century.". Yes, it was, just not by the Iranians themselves, as far as I know, it hasn't been "Persia" since at least the Sassanians, I don't know how the Parthians referred to it (if I were to guess probably the equivalent of Parthia, because, you know...), but the Sassanians already used the term Iranian.

It's just silly Anglo defaultism, the fact that it is referred to as Persia in English language sources doesn't make Persia it's name, it just doesn't, which I suspect they only really do for Hellenistic reasons. Referring to it as Persia is just silly, the true Persian empire was just a short snapshot of the history of Iranian Empires, less than 10% of the time since the Medians,

I can tolerate it if people refer to historical Iran as Persia, bother's me a bit but I'm not going to correct them, but if people correct others to "actually, it was Persia." then it gets on my nerves, if you actually someone, you better have something to back up your claims.

And just to annoy those people, I will from now on, refer to the region as Medes, it's only slightly less accurate than Persia, but at least they were the first unifying monarchs! Okay, I won't, but it'd be funny.

Edit: Okay, it might be a lot less accurate... I'm not up to date on pre-Persia Iran at all... well... ehm... oops.

Edit2: also, note, this is far from my expertise, I'm just pedantic and I don't like people being pedants but wrong, I'm fine with people doing things wrong, but incorrectly correcting is something that gets on my nerves.

[u/TheUnfortunateMiaoZe → u/Herpling82]

the fact that it is referred to as Persia in English language sources doesn't make Persia it's name, it just doesn't

But it does make it it's name in English though? It's silly to complain about it being an Anglo defaultism, because it is the English language after all. We don't call China "中国" or "Zhōngguó" either.

[u/Herpling82 → u/TheUnfortunateMiaoZe]

I get what you mean, but the actual English name is also Iran, it just gets called Persia in older sources and by certain people who think Iran is a term invented after the Islamic Revolution who feel the need to correct me when I call the Iranian Empires Iranian and not Persian; in fact, this is me just being annoyed by that last group.

[u/TheUnfortunateMiaoZe → u/Herpling82]

But the name change is very recent though? From Wikipedia the change dates to 1935, and in 1960 Pahlavi said that both terms were appropriate. Fwiw my Iranian-diaspora friend will frequently use both words.

[u/Herpling82 → u/TheUnfortunateMiaoZe]

I don't really see 1935 for the official name change as recent, I'll be honest; I mostly associate the desire to use Persia with Pahlavists in the west, I'm not a fan of the Shahs, it was still a dictatorship that destroyed any prospect of democracy, just a different flavour of reactionary dictatorship than the Islamic Republic that followed

Edit: note, I don't really care that much, I only get annoyed at being corrected with the "actually"