Turkey pre 1923

[camioneur]

Before Turkey became what it is today in 1923 what was it called?

[camioneur]

by the way, I know about the Ottoman Empire, but what was the country called?

[jno]

I'm pretty sure it was Turkey long before that in English, though their own name for it is Turkiye, I think.

[camioneur]

thanks for that, I had assumed that in 1923 it had taken it's name from Ataturk, it's first president

[jno]

it was the other way round: parliament named him Ataturk, which means 'father of the Turks'. He was the only one allowed this surname. He was just Mustafa when he was born.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustafa_Kemal_Ata t%C3%BCrk%27s_personal_life#Name

The country's name came from a Latin word for the region, I think, but I don't know exactly when.

[Clanad]

Before Turkey (and other names, actually) the peninsula was first (apparently) called Anatolia... Anatolia was occupied in about 1900 B.C. by the Indo-European Hittites and successive occupations after the Hittite civilization collapsed in 1200 B.C. It's original name was "...from Gk. anatole "the east," originally "sunrise" (which happens in the east), lit. "a rising above (the horizon)," from anatellein "to rise," from ana "up" + tellein "to accomplish, perform." (Source: Online Etymology)

[mallam]

The country's name did come from a Latin (and/or Greek) name for the region, jno. Which of course in turn came from the name of the people, who were apparently a tribe of Huns, but that name was post-Classical, and nobody knows where the name from the ultimately came from. It may even have been Chinese.

[Octavius]

Going back to around 2500BC, it is thought to have been Hatti The Land of the Hattites, not to be confused with the later Hittites.

Prior to 1923 - whilst the land was populated by Turks, it was referred to as the Ottoman State, made up of small principalities such as the Anatolian Beyliks or Turkmen Beyliks.

S�leyman the Magnificent united the present territories of Turkey in the 1530s. But generally speaking, it has nearly always been since 3000BC or so, Anatolia. As contained in the poem by Suleimen himself to his favourite harem girl:

�..My springtime, my merry faced love, my daytime, my sweetheart, laughing leaf�
My plants, my sweet, my rose, the one only who does not distress me in this world�
My Istanbul, my Caraman, the earth of my Anatolia
My Badakhshan, my Baghdad and Khorasan
My woman of the beautiful hair, my love of the slanted brow, my love of eyes full of mischief�