[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

I was wrong, but while I was there in the 70s
the people I knew wanted to be called Persians
instead of Iranians.

"History is a mirror of the past
And a lesson for the present."
(A Persian Proverb)

The country has always been known to its own people as Iran (land of the Aryans), although for centuries it was referred to as Persia (Pars or Fars, a province in southern Iran) by the Europeans, mainly due to the writings of Greek historians. In 1935 the Government specified that it should be called Iran; however, in 1949 they allowed both names to be used.

[freedom44]

Iranians are ethnically mostly Persian. That's why they refer to themselves as 'Persians'. Not because of nationality, but because of ethnicity and heritage. Most people get that confused and feel like Iranians are referring to their 'nationality'.

Sometimes people ever get aggressive about why Iranians refer to themselves as Persians, but they don't understand it's because THEY'RE ethnically Persians. Nationality and ethnicity are two totally different things.

It's similar to how Arabs are called Arabs--it's their ethnicity, not their nationality.