Names of Istanbul
Zsolt suggested it was etymologically identitical to the Greek name for the Ligures and derived from the Anatolian ethnonym Ligyes,[2] a tribe that was part of Xerxes' army[3] and appeared to have been neighbors to the Paphlagonians.
[4] Janis believed it may have been the name of a Thracian settlement situated on the site of the later city near the point of the peninsula (Sarayburnu).
[6]: 352ff Ancient Greek legend refers to a legendary king of that name as the leader of the Megarean colonists and eponymous founder of the city.
Byzántioi (Ancient Greek: Βυζάντιος, Βυζάντιοι, Latin: Byzantius) referred to Byzantion's inhabitants and Byzántios (Ancient Greek: Βυζάντιος, Latin: Byzantius) was an adjective, also used as an ethnonym for the people of the city and as a family name.
[10] Later, the name Byzantium became common in the West to refer to the Eastern Roman Empire, whose capital was Constantinople.
[11] The city was called Augusta Antonina (Greek: Αυγούστα Αντωνινή) for a brief period in the 3rd century AD.
[16] Kōnstantinoúpolis (Κωνσταντινούπολις), Constantinopolis in Latin and Constantinople in English, was the name by which the city became soon more widely known, in honor of Constantine the Great who established it as his capital.
[17] According to Eldem Edhem, who wrote an encyclopedia entry on Istanbul for Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire, "many" Turkish members of the public as well as Turkish historians often perceive the use of Constantinople for the Ottoman city, despite being historically accurate, as being "politically incorrect".
Some sources have speculated that it comes from the Medieval Greek phrase "εἰς τὴν πόλιν", meaning "to the city", reinterpreted as a single word, but a 2015 review of the literature found a more likely explanation to be that: "The form of the etymon is the colloquial Middle Greek phrase στην Πόλι(ν), not the puristic literary ancestor of this.
[21][a] The incorporation of parts of articles and other particles into Greek place names was common even before the Ottoman period: Navarino for earlier Avarino,[22] Satines for Athines, etc.
The occurrence of the initial i- in these names, including Istanbul's, is largely secondary epenthesis to break up syllabic consonant clusters, prohibited by the phonotactic structure of Turkish, as seen in Turkish istasyon from French station or ızgara from the Greek schára.
The Ottoman chancery and courts used Kostantiniyye as part of intricate formulae in expressing the place of origin of formal documents, such as be-Makam-ı Darü's-Saltanat-ı Kostantiniyyetü'l-Mahrusâtü'l-Mahmiyye.
[12] T. R. Ybarra of The New York Times wrote in 1929 that "'Istambul' (our usual form for the word is 'Stamboul') has always been the Turkish name for the whole of Constantinople".
"[28] In 1929 Lloyd's agents were informed that telegrams now must be addressed to "Istanbul" or "Stamboul", but The Times stated that mail could still be delivered to "Constantinople".
Like Istanbul itself, forms without the initial i- are attested from early on in the Middle Ages, first in Arabic sources of the 10th century[34] and Armenian ones of the 12th.
Some early sources also attest to an even shorter form Bulin, based on the Greek word Poli(n) alone without the preceding article.
It was first attested shortly after the conquest, and its invention was ascribed by some contemporary writers to sultan Mehmed II himself.
[12] Some Ottoman sources of the 17th century, most notably Evliya Çelebi, describe it as the common Turkish name of the time.
Modern historians also refer to government by these terms, similar to the popular usage of Whitehall in Britain.
The medieval Vikings, who had contacts with the Byzantine Empire through their expansion through eastern Europe (Varangians), used the Old Norse name Mikligarðr (from mikill 'big' and garðr 'wall' or 'stronghold') as seen in the Icelandic sagas.
It was also borrowed from the Slavic languages into Romanian in the form Țarigrad,[43] though Constantinopol remained the far more widely preferred term.
[35] The city is referred to as Kostandina or Kostantina (an alteration of Kostantiniyye) and more often as its short form Kushta (קושטה) or Kostán in most Judaeo-Spanish publications during the Ottoman period.
[44][45] Kosta was the name for the entire province of Istanbul, while the word Estambol was used for the area of the old city and Pera.
The word Estambol has widened in meaning to include exclusively the entire European side of Istanbul.
Anatol, from Anatolia and Asya, meaning Asia are common words to denote the Asian side of Istanbul.
