name of Armenia

The name ''Armenia'' enters English via Latin, from Ancient Greek .

The Armenian endonym for the Armenian people and country is ''hayer'' and ''Hayastan'', respectively. The exact etymologies of the names of Armenia are unknown, and there are various speculative attempts to connect them to older toponyms or ethnonyms.

Armenia/Armenians

''Armenia'' and ''Armenians'' are the most common names used internationally to refer to the country Armenia and the Armenian people. Armenians themselves do not use it while speaking Armenian, making it an exonym.

Etymology

Multiple theories and speculations exist about the origin of the name ''Armenia'', but no consensus has been reached by historians and linguists. Armenologist Nicholas Adontz has rejected some of the speculations in his 1946 book.'

The earliest unambiguous and universally accepted attestation of the name dates to the 6th century BC, from the trilingual Behistun Inscription, where the names ''Armina'' (in Old Persian), ''Harminuya'' (in Elamite), and ''Urashtu'' (in Babylonian) and their equivalent demonyms are used in reference to Armenia and people from Armenia. In Greek, (meaning ''Armenians'') is attested from about the same time, perhaps the earliest reference being a fragment attributed to Hecataeus of Miletus (c. 476 BC).

From Indo-European ''*ar-''

Some authors have connected ''Armenia'' to the Indo-European root ''*ar-'' meaning "to assemble".

From ''Armani'' and/or ''Armânum''

Early 20th century Armenologists have suggested that Old Persian 𐎠𐎼𐎷𐎡𐎴 ''a-r-mi-i-n(a)'' and the Greek ''Armenoi'' are continuations of an Assyrian toponym ''Armânum'' or ''Armanî''. There are certain Bronze Age records identified with the toponym in both Mesopotamian and Egyptian sources. The earliest is from an inscription which mentions '' Armânum'' together with '' Ibla'' as territories conquered by Naram-Sin of Akkad in c. 2250 BC identified with an Akkadian colony in the Diarbekr region. Many historians, such as Wayne Horowitz, identify ''Armanî'' which was conquered by Naram-Sin of Akkad, with the Syrian city of Aleppo.

''Armenia'' has also been claimed as a variant of ''Urmani'' (or ''Urmenu''), attested epigraphically in an inscription of Menuas of Urartu.

It is possible that the name ''Armenia'' originates in ''Armini'', Urartian for "inhabitant of Arme" or "Armean country." The Arme tribe of Urartian texts may have been the Urumu, who in the 12th century BC attempted to invade Assyria from the north with their allies the Mushki and the Kaskians. The Urumu apparently settled in the vicinity of Sason, lending their name to the regions of Arme and the nearby lands of Urme and Inner Urumu.

From ''Har-Minni''

Alternatively, ''Armenia'' is interpreted by some as ''^ḪARMinni'', that is, "the mountainous region of the Minni". ''Minni'' (מנּי) is also a Biblical name of the region, appearing in the Bible () alongside Ararat and Ashchenaz, probably the same as the ''Minnai'' of Assyrian inscriptions, corresponding to the Mannai. The Elamite name for Armenia was inscribed as ''har-mi-nu-ya''.

From ''Erimena''

The name ''Erimena'' appears in Urartian inscriptions as the father of king Rusa III, which can be interpreted to mean "Rusa, son of the Armenian".

''Armen'' tribe hypothesis

There have been further speculations as to the existence of a Bronze Age tribe of the ''Armens'' (''Armans'', ''Armani''; Armenian: , ), either identical to or forming a subset of the Hayasa-Azzi.Elisabeth Bauer. ''Armenia: Past and Present'' (1981), p. 49 In this case, ''Armenia'' would be an ethnonym rather than a toponym. Attestations of such a tribe have never been found.

From ''Aram'' and/or ''Arame''

Armenian tradition has an eponymous ancestor, Aram, a lineal descendant of Hayk (), son of Harma and father of Ara the Beautiful (according to classical Armenian historian Moses of Chorene).''History of Armenia'' by Father Michael Chamich from B.C. 2247 to the Year of Christ 1780, or 1229 of the Armenian era, Bishop's College Press, Calcutta, 1827, page 19: " ramwas the first to raise the Armenian name to any degree of renown; so that contemporary nations ... called them the Aramians, or followers of Aram, a name which has been corrupted into Armenians; and the country they inhabited, by universal consent, took the name of Armenia." A much older Aram, the son of Shem, is also mentioned from the Book of Genesis, Historian Flavius Josephus, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, as being the sovereign over "all the land of Mesopotamia between the Tigris and the Euphrates to the north of the Chaldees to the border of the mountains of Asshur and the land of 'Arara." '' Aram'' is sometimes equated with Arame of Urartu, the earliest known king of Urartu. The endonym ''Hayk’'' (from Classical Armenian) in the same tradition is traced to Hayk himself.

The names ''Armen'' and ''Arman'', feminine ''Arminé'', are common given names by Armenians. ''Armin'' is also a Persian given name.

Hayastan/Hayk/Hayer

Armenian people use names derived from the stem ''hay-'' as their endonym. ''Hay'' (singular) and ''Hayer'' (plural) is used to refer to the Armenian people. ''Hayastan'' (H''ay'' + '' -a-'' + '' -stan'') is used to refer to their country, while ''Hayk'' was used historically and is still used today romantically.

Etymology

From ''Hatti''

According to Diakonoff, the ethnonym may derive from the unattested Proto-Armenian name ''*hatiyos or *hatyos → *hayo → hay,'' related to Urartian 𒆳𒄩𒀀𒋼 (''^KURḫa-a-te'', "the land of Hittites"), from Hittite 𒄩𒋾 (ḫa-ti /Proto-Indo-European_

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