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The city of 'Istanbul' has been known through the ages under a large number of different names. Besides its modern Turkish name, the most notable are 'Byzantium', 'Constantinople' and 'Stamboul', but there are also others. Each of them is associated with different phases of its history and with different languages. This page gives a survey of the history of these names and their use in various modern languages.
Names in historical sequence
Byzantium
'Byzantion' (Βυζάντιον), Latinized as 'Byzantium', was the first known name of the city. It was founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and, according to legend, named after their king Byzas, originally
★ Βύζαντς, probably an Illyrian name.[1]
Much later, the name ''Byzantium'' became common in the West to refer to the Eastern Roman Empire, the ''"Byzantine" Empire'', whose capital the city had been. This usage was introduced only in 1555 by the German historian Hieronymus Wolf, a century after the empire had ceased to exist. During the time of the empire itself, the name of Byzantium was only used rarely.
Augusta Antonina
'Augusta Antonina' was a name given to the city during a brief period in the 3rd century AD. It was conferred to it by the Roman emperor Septimius Severus (193-211) in honour of his son Antonius, the later emperor Caracalla.[2]
New Rome
When Roman emperor Constantine the Great made the city the new eastern capital of the Roman Empire on May 11, 330, he conferred on it the name ''Nova Roma'' 'New Rome'. He also undertook a major construction project, essentially rebuilding the city. Other names of this period included 'the New, second Rome', ''Alma Roma'' , , 'Eastern Rome', ''Roma Constantinopolitana''.[3]
The term "New Rome" lent itself to East-Western polemics, especially in the context of the Great Schism, when it was used by Greek writers to stress the rivalry with (the original) Rome. ''New Rome'' is also still part of the official title of the Patriarch of Constantinople.
Constantinople
'Constantinople' ("City of Constantine") was the name by which the city became soon more widely known instead of ''Nova Roma'', in honour of its eponymic founder. The Greek form is ''Kōnstantinoupolis'' (Κωνσταντινούπολις); the Latin form is ''Constantinopolis''. It is first attested in official use under emperor Theodosius II (408-450). It remained the principal official name of the city throughout the Byzantine period, and the most common name used for it in the West until the early 20th century.
Some Byzantine writers would vary the use of the names Byzantium and Constantinople depending on religious historical context; ''Byzantium'' was associated with the city's pagan roots, while ''Constantinople'' was associated with Christianity.
Other Byzantine names
Besides ''Constantinople'', the Byzantines referred to the city with a large range of honorary appellations, such as the "Queen of Cities" (). In popular speech, however, the most common way of referring to it came to be simply 'The City' (Greek: ''hē Polis'', , Modern Greek: ''i Poli'', η Πόλη). This usage, still current today in colloquial Greek, also became the source of the later Turkish name, ''Istanbul'' (see below).
Kostantiniyye
'Kostantiniyye' (Arabic القسطنطينية, , Ottoman Turkish قسطنطينيه Kostantiniyye) is the name by which the city came to be known in the Islamic world. It is an Arabic calqued form of ''Constantinople'', with an Arabic ending meaning 'place of' instead of the Greek element ''-polis''. After the Ottoman conquest of 1453, it was used as the most formal official name in Ottoman Turkish, and remained in use throughout most of the time up to the fall of the empire in 1923. However, during some periods Ottoman authorities favoured other names (see below).
Istanbul
The modern Turkish name 'İstanbul' ( or colloquial ) is attested (in a range of different variants) since the 10th century, at first in Armenian and Arabic and then in Turkish sources. It derives from the Greek phrase "εις την Πόλιν" or "στην Πόλη" [(i)stimboli(n)], both meaning "in the city" or "to the city".[4] It is thus based on the common Greek usage of referring to Constantinople simply as ''The City'' (see above). The incorporation of parts of articles and other particles into Greek placenames was common even before the Ottoman period, Navarino for earlier Avarino,[5] Satines for Athines, ''etc.''[6] Similar examples of modern Turkish placenames derived from Greek in this fashion are İzmit, earlier ''İznikmit,'' from Greek Nicomedia, İznik from Greek ''Nicaea'' ([iz nikea]), Samsun (''s'Amison'' = "se + Amisos"), and ''İstanköy'' for the Greek island Kos (from ''is tin Ko''). The occurrence of the initial ''i-'' in these names may partly reflect the old Greek form with ''is-'', or it may partly be an effect of secondary epenthesis, resulting from the phonotactic structure of Turkish.
''İstanbul'' was the common name for the city in normal speech in Turkish even since before the conquest of 1453, but in official use by the Ottoman authorities, other names such as ''Kostantiniyye'' were preferred in certain contexts. Thus, ''Kostantiniyye'' was used on coinage up to the late 17th and then again in the 19th century. The Ottoman chancelery 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''[7] In 19th century Turkish bookprinting it was also used in the impressum of books, in analogy to the foreign use of ''Constantinople''. At the same time, however, ''İstanbul'' too was part of official language, for instance as part of the titles of the highest Ottoman military commander ''(İstanbul ağası)'' and the highest civil magistrate ''(İstanbul efendisi)'' of the city.[8] ''İstanbul'' and several other variant forms of the same name were also widely used in Ottoman literature and poetry.
After the creation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, the various alternative names besides ''İstanbul'' became obsolete in the Turkish language. With the Turkish Postal Service Law of March 28, 1930, the Turkish authorities officially requested foreigners to cease referring to the city with their traditional non-Turkish names (such as Constantinople, Tsarigrad, etc.) and to adopt Istanbul as the sole name also in their own languages.[9] Letters or packages sent to "Constantinople" instead of "Istanbul" were no longer delivered by Turkey's PTT, which contributed to the eventual worldwide adoption of the new name. Similarly, letters or packages that were sent to "Smyrna" instead of Izmir, "Angora" instead of Ankara, "Trebizond" instead of Trabzon, and other ancient city names were no longer delivered; a measure which forced the quick worldwide recognition of the modern Turkish names of every prominent city in the country.
Stamboul
'Stamboul' or 'Stambul' is a variant form of ''İstanbul''. 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 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.[10] (This latter form lives on in modern Armenian.)
''Stamboul'' was used in Western languages as an equivalent of ''İstanbul'', until the time it was replaced by the official new usage of the Turkish form in the 20th century. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, English-speaking sources often used ''Constantinople'' to refer to the metropolis as a whole, but ''Stamboul'' to refer to the central parts located on the historic peninsula between the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus.[11]
Islambol
'Islambol' or 'Islambul', literally ''full of Islam'', was a folk-etymological adaptation of ''Istanbul'' created after the Ottoman conquest of 1453 to express the city's new role as the capital of the Islamic Ottoman empire. It is first attested shortly after the conquest, and its invention was ascribed by some contemporary writers to Sultan Mehmed II himself. Some Ottoman sources of the 17th century, most notably Evliya Çelebi, describe it as the common Turkish name of the time. Between the late 17th and late 18th centuries, it was also in official use. The first use of the word "Islambol" on coinage took place in 1703 (1115AH) during the reign of Sultan Ahmed III. The term ''Kostantiniyye'' still appears, however, into the nineteenth century.
Other Ottoman names
Like the Byzantines, the Ottomans used to refer to the city by a range of other honorary appellations. Among them are ''Dersaadet'' (در سعادت 'Gate of Felicity'), ''Derâliye'' (در عاليه) or ''Bâb-ı Âlî'' باب عالی 'The Sublime Porte', or ''Pâyitaht'' (پایتخت, 'The Seat of the Throne'). The 'Gate of Felicity' and the 'Sublime Porte' were literally places within the Ottoman Sultans' Topkapı Palace, and were used metonymically to refer to the authorities located there, and hence for the Ottoman government as a whole. This usage is mirrored in the use of ''Sublime Porte'' or simple ''The Porte'' in Western diplomacy before the 20th century.
Historical names in other languages
Many peoples neighboring on the Byzantine Empire used names expressing concepts like "The Great City", "City of the Emperors", "Capital of the Romans" or similar.
Slavic
East and South Slavic languages referred to the city as Tsarigrad or ''Carigrad,'' 'City of the Caesar (Emperor)', from the Slavonic words ''tsar'' ('Caesar') and ''grad'' ('city'). Cyrillic:Цариград. This was presumably a calque on a Greek phrase such as Βασιλέως Πόλις ''(Basileus Polis),'' 'the city of the emperor [king]'. The term is still occasionally used in Bulgarian, whereas it has become archaic in Russian. In Czech language (West Slavic) this Slavic name is used in the form ''Cařihrad'' (used in 19th century, now only occasionally). It was also borrowed from the Slavic languages into Romanian in the form ''Ţarigrad''.
Germanic
The medieval Vikings, who had contacts with the Byzantine empire through their expansion through eastern Europe (Varangians) used the Old Norse name 'Miklagarðr' (from ''mikill'' 'big' and ''garðr'' 'city'). This name lives on in the modern Icelandic name ''Mikligarður'' and Faroese ''Miklagarður''.
Persian and Arabic
Besides ''Kustantiniyyah'', Persian, Arabic and other languages of the Islamic world used names based on the title ''Cesar'' ('Emperor'), as in Persian ''Kayser-i Zemin'', or on the ethnic name ''Rum'' ('Romans'), as in Arabic ''Rūmiyyat al-kubra'' ('Great City of the Romans') or Persian ''Taxt-e Rum'' ('Throne of the Romans').10
Hebrew
In Hebrew, the city was sometimes referred to as "Kushta" קושתא, probably an alteration of Kostantiniyye.
Modern languages
Most modern Western languages have adopted the name ''Istanbul'' for the modern city during the 20th century, following the current usage in the Turkish Republic. However, many languages also preserve other, traditional names. Greeks continue to call the city Constantinople (Κωνσταντινούπολη ''Konstantinupoli'' in Modern Greek) or simply "The City" (η Πόλη ''i Poli''). Languages that use forms based on ''Stamboul'' include Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, Albanian, and Kurdish. Armenian uses ''Bolis'', based on the Greek ''Poli(s)'' 'City'. Icelandic preserves the old Norse name ''Mikligarður''.
See also
★ ''Istanbul (Not Constantinople)''
Bibliography
★ Demetrius John Georgacas, "The Names of Constantinople", ''Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association'' '78':347-367 (1947) at JSTOR
Notes
1. Georgacas, p. 352ff
2. Necdet Sakaoğlu (1993/94a): "İstanbul'un adları" ["The names of Istanbul"]. In: 'Dünden bugüne İstanbul ansiklopedisi', ed. Türkiye Kültür Bakanlığı, Istanbul.
3. Georgacas, p. 354
4. An alternative derivation, directly from ''Constantinople'', was entertained as an hypothesis by some researchers in the 19th century but is today regarded as obsolete; see Sakaoğlu (1993/94a: 254) for references. ''cf.'' also ''Stimboli''/''Polis'', medieval names for ancient Lappa, Crete; modern Argyroupoli (Rethymno).
5. detailed history
6. Edward G. Bourne, "The Derivation of Stamboul", ''American journal of philology'' '8':1:78 (1887) at JSTOR
7. Necdet Sakaoğlu (1993/94b): "Kostantiniyye". In: 'Dünden bugüne İstanbul ansiklopedisi', ed. Türkiye Kültür Bakanlığı, Istanbul.
8. A.C. Barbier de Meynard (1881): ''Dictionnaire Turc-Français.'' Paris: Ernest Leroux.
9. Stanford and Ezel Shaw (1977): History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vol II, p. 386; Robinson (1965), The First Turkish Republic, p. 298
10. "Istanbul", in ''Encyclopedia of Islam''.
11. H. G. Dwight (1915): ''Constantinople Old and New.'' New York: Scribner's.
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