Replies

Not quite accurate. The indigenous term for the land and people points back to the Indo-European Avestan root word "airya" which yields both "Aryan" and "Iran". In other words they are synonymous, and go back thousands of years before Hitler and his mad fictitious race theories.

However, Iranians will and do call themselves "Persians" when they want to set themselves apart from the most recent Iranian developments, since "Iranian" now makes people think of the current Middle Eastern conflicts. But "Persia" is not the indigenous term: it derives from Greek.

Iran- Online Etymology Dictionary

country name, from Persian Iran, from Middle Persian Ērān "(land) of the Iranians," genitive plural of ēr- "an Iranian," from Old Iranian *arya- (Old Persian ariya-, Avestan airya-) "Iranian", from Indo-Iranian *arya- or *ārya-, a self-designation, perhaps meaning "compatriot" (see Aryan).

In English it began to be used 1760s, by orientalists and linguists (Alexander Dow, William Jones), in historical contexts, and usually with a footnote identifying it with modern Persia; as recently as 1903 "Century Dictionary" defined it as "the ancient name of the region lying between Kurdistan and India." In 1935 the government of Reza Shah Pahlavi requested governments with which it had diplomatic relations to call his country Iran, after the indigenous name, rather than the Greek-derived Persia. Related entries & more