The name Macedonia (, "") comes from the ethnonym Μακεδόνες ("Makedónes"), which itself is derived from the ancient Greek adjective μακεδνός ("makednós"), meaning "tall, slim", also the name of a people related to the Dorians (Herodotus), and possibly descriptive of Ancient Macedonians. It is most likely cognate with the adjective μακρός ("makros"), meaning "long" or "tall" in Ancient Greek. The name is believed to have originally meant either "highlanders", "the tall ones", or "high grown men". Linguist Robert S. P. Beekes claims that both terms are of Pre-Greek substrate origin and cannot be explained in terms of Indo-European morphology, however De Decker argues that the arguments are insufficient.
Etymology
Macedonia (ancient kingdom)
Macedonia (ancient kingdom) | Etymology
The name Macedonia comes from the ethnonym Μακεδόνες , which itself is derived from the ancient Greek adjective μακεδνός, meaning "tall, slim", also the name of a people related to the Dorians, and possibly descriptive of Ancient Macedonians It is derived from the ancient Greek meaning "tall, slim". It is derived from the ancient Greek adjective μακεδνός ("makednós"), meaning "tall, slim". The name Macedonia (, "") comes from the ethnonym Μακεδόνες ("Makedónes"), which itself is derived from the ancient Greek adjective μακεδνός ("makednós"), meaning "tall, slim", also the name of a people related to the Dorians (Herodotus)
who was the king of macedonia who built an empire that stretched to india
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Alexander the Great
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where is the above ancient kingdom located?
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On the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece, and later the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece.
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what is the origin of its name?
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The name Macedonia (, "") comes from the ethnonym Μακεδόνες ("Makedónes"), which itself is derived from the ancient Greek adjective μακεδνός ("makednós"), meaning "tall, slim", also the name of a people related to the Dorians (Herodotus), and possibly descriptive of Ancient Macedonians. It is most likely cognate with the adjective μακρός ("makros"), meaning "long" or "tall" in Ancient Greek. The name is believed to have originally meant either "highlanders", "the tall ones", or "high grown men". Linguist Robert S. P. Beekes claims that both terms are of Pre-Greek substrate origin and cannot be explained in terms of Indo-European morphology, however De Decker argues that the arguments are insufficient.
Macedonia (ancient kingdom) | Etymology
The state's name derives from the Greek word ("Makedonía"), a kingdom (later, region) named after the ancient Macedonians. Their name, ("Makedónes"), ultimately derives from the ancient Greek adjective μακεδνός ("makednós"), meaning 'tall' or 'taper', which shares the same root as the adjective ("makrós", 'long, tall, high') in ancient Greek. The name is believed to have originally meant either 'highlanders' or 'the tall ones', possibly descriptive of the people. According to linguist Robert S. P. Beekes, both terms are of Pre-Greek substrate origin and cannot be explained in terms of Indo-European morphology; however, linguist Filip De Decker argues the arguments are insufficient.
North Macedonia | Names and etymology
The name "Macedonia" derives from the Greek ("Makedonía"), a kingdom (later, region) named after the ancient Macedonians, from the Greek ("Makedones"), "Macedonians", explained as having originally meant either "the tall ones" or "highlanders". The word ("Makednon") is first attested in Herodotus as the name which the Greek ethnos was called (which was later called Dorian) when it settled around Pindus mountain range. "Makednon" is related to the Ancient Greek adjective ("makednós"), meaning "tall, slim", attested in Homer and Hesychius of Alexandria in its feminine form "μακεδνή" ("makednē"), meaning "long, tall". It cognates with the words ("makros", "long, large") and ("mēkos", "length"), both deriving from the Indo-European root "*mak-", meaning "long' or "slender".
Macedonia (terminology) | Etymology
The name "Macedonia" derives from the (""), a kingdom (later, region) named after the ancient Macedonians, who were the descendants of a Bronze-Age Greek tribe. Their name, (), is cognate to the Ancient Greek adjective (), meaning 'tall, slim'. It is traditionally derived from the Indo-European root , meaning 'long' or 'slender'. Linguist Robert S. P. Beekes supports the idea that both terms are of Pre-Greek substrate origin and cannot be explained in terms of Indo-European morphology. However, Beekes' views are not mainstream and De Decker argues that his arguments are insufficient. The region has historically also been known as in Bulgarian and the local South Slavic dialects, in Turkish, and in Aromanian or Vlach.
Macedonia (Greece) | Etymology
The national name derives from the Greek term "Makedonía", related to the name of the region, named after the ancient Macedonians and their kingdom. It originates from the ancient Greek adjective makednos, meaning "tall", which shares its roots with the adjective "makrós", meaning the same. The name is originally believed to have meant either "highlanders" or "the tall ones", possibly descriptive of these ancient people. With the conquest of the Balkans by the Ottomans in the late 14th century, the name of Macedonia disappeared as a geographical designation for several centuries. The name was revived just during the early 19th century, after the foundation of the modern Greek state with its Western Europe-derived obsession with Ancient Greece.
Macedonians (ethnic group) | Ethnonym
Municipality's name has derived from the ancient Kingdom of Macedonia, of the same name.
Macedônia | Etymology
The name Macedonia (, ') comes from the ancient Greek word ('). It is commonly explained as having originally meant "a tall one" or "highlander", possibly descriptive of the people. The shorter English name variant "Macedon" developed in Middle English, based on a borrowing from the French form of the name, "Macédoine".
Macedonians (Greeks) | Name
Macedonia or "Macedon", the ancient kingdom, was located on the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece, and later became the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece. It was centered on the fertile plains west of the Gulf of Salonica (today north-western Greece); the first Macedonian state emerged in the 8th or early 7th century BC. Its extent beyond the center varied; some Macedonian kings could not hold their capital; Philip II expanded his power until it reached from Epirus, across Thrace to Gallipoli, and from Thermopylae to the Danube. His son Alexander the Great conquered most of the land in southwestern Asia stretching from what is currently Turkey in the west to parts of India in the east.
Macedonia (terminology) | Ancient Macedonia
The ethnonym Μακεδόνες ("Makedónes") stems from the ancient Greek adjective μακεδνός ("makednós"), meaning "tall, slim", also the name of a people related to the Dorians (Herodotus). It is most likely cognate with the adjective μακρός ("makros"), meaning "long" or "tall" in Ancient Greek. The name is believed to have originally meant either "highlanders", "the tall ones", or "high grown men".
Ancient Macedonians | Etymology
Macedonia (; , '), also called Macedon (), was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece, and later the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece. The kingdom was founded and initially ruled by the royal Argead dynasty, which was followed by the Antipatrid and Antigonid dynasties. Home to the ancient Macedonians, the earliest kingdom was centered on the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, and bordered by Epirus to the west, Paeonia to the north, Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south. Before the 4th century BC, Macedonia was a small kingdom outside of the area dominated by the great city-states of Athens, Sparta and Thebes, and briefly subordinate to Achaemenid Persia.
Macedonia (ancient kingdom) | Introduction
Both proper nouns "Makedṓn" and "Makednós" are morphologically derived from the Ancient Greek adjective "makednós" meaning "tall, slim", and are related to the term Macedonia.
Macedonia (region) | Etymology
The definition of Macedonia has changed several times throughout history. Prior to its expansion under Alexander the Great, the ancient kingdom of Macedonia, to which the modern region owes its name, lay entirely within the central and western parts of the current Greek province of Macedonia and consisted of 17 provinces/districts or eparchies (Ancient Greek: επαρχία). Expansion of Kingdom of Macedon:
Macedonia (region) | Ancient times
The name of the region of Macedonia (, "Makedonia") derives from the tribal name of the ancient Macedonians (, "Makedónes"). According to the Greek historian Herodotus, the "Makednoi" () were a Dorian tribe that stayed behind during the great southward migration of the Dorian Greeks (Histories 1.56.1). The word "Makednos" is cognate with the Doric Greek word "Μάκος" "Μakos" (Attic form Μήκος – "mékos"), which is Greek for "length". The ancient Macedonians took this name either because they were physically tall, or because they settled in the mountains. The latter definition would translate "Macedonian" as "Highlander". Most academics take the view that the ancient Macedonians probably spoke either a language that was a member of the North-Western Greek dialect group (related to Doric and Aeolic), or a language very closely related to Greek which would form a Graeco-Macedonian or Hellenic branch; others such as Eugene Borza reach the conclusion that there is insufficient evidence on which to base a conclusion as to whether the original language of the Macedonians was a form of Greek or not, but that the Macedonians were most likely of proto-Greek stock.
Demographic history of Macedonia | Ancient Macedonians
According to Herodotus, the history of Macedonia began with the Makednoi tribe, among the first to use the name, migrating to the region from Histiaeotis in the south. There they lived near Thracian tribes such as the Bryges who would later leave Macedonia for Asia Minor and become known as Phrygians. "Macedonia" was named after the Makednoi. Accounts of other toponyms such as Emathia are attested to have been in use before that. Herodotus claims that a branch of the Macedonians invaded Southern Greece towards the end of the second millennium B.C. Upon reaching the Peloponnese the invaders were renamed Dorians, triggering the accounts of the Dorian invasion.
Macedonia (Greece) | Ancient history
Linguist Robert S. P. Beekes claims that both terms are of Pre-Greek substrate origin and cannot be explained in terms of Indo-European morphology, however De Decker argues the arguments are insufficient.
Macedonia (terminology) | Etymology
The English name "Greece" and the similar adaptations in other languages derive from the Latin name "Graecia" (Greek: ), literally meaning 'the land of the Greeks', which was used by Ancient Romans to denote the area of modern-day Greece. Similarly, the Latin name of the nation was "Graeci", which is the origin of the English name "Greeks". Those names, in turn, trace their origin from "Graecus", the Latin adaptation of the Greek name Γραικός (pl. ), which means 'Greek', but its etymology remains uncertain. It is unclear why the Romans called the country "Graecia" and its people "Graeci", but the Greeks called their land "Hellas" and themselves "Hellenes".
Name of Greece | Origin
In antiquity, the territory of the present-day Republic of North Macedonia equated approximately to the kingdom of Paeonia, which lay immediately north of ancient Macedonia. The western and central parts of modern Greek region of Macedonia approximately corresponds to that of ancient Macedonia, while the Bulgarian part and the eastern part of the Greek area, are mostly in Ancient Thrace. After the Romans conquered Greece in 168 BC they established a large administrative district in northern Greece which added Paeonia and eastern parts of Ancient Thrace to other territories outside the original ancient Macedonia. It used the name 'Macedonia' to describe the whole of this new province.
Macedonia naming dispute | Background
In the early 19th century, the name of Macedonia was almost unknown in the modern-day area. It was revived only in middle of the century, with the rise of nationalism in the Ottoman Empire. In the early 20th century the region was already a national cause, contested among Bulgarian, Greek and Serbian nationalists. During the interwar period the use of the name "Macedonia" was prohibited in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, due to the implemented policy of Serbianisation of the local Slavic-speakers. The name "Macedonia" was adopted officially for the first time at the end of the Second World War by the new Socialist Republic of Macedonia, which became one of the six constituent countries of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
North Macedonia | Names and etymology
Greeks of the Classical period generally accepted the origin story provided by Herodotus, or another involving lineage from Zeus, chief god of the Greek pantheon, lending credence to the idea that the Macedonian ruling house possessed the divine right of kings. Herodotus wrote that Alexander I of Macedon () convinced the "Hellanodikai" authorities of the Ancient Olympic Games that his Argive lineage could be traced back to Temenus, and thus his perceived Greek identity permitted him to enter the Olympic competitions. Very little is known about the first five kings of Macedonia (or the first eight kings depending on which royal chronology is accepted).
History of Macedonia (ancient kingdom) | Early history and legend
With the conquest of the Balkans by the Ottomans in the late 14th century, the name of Macedonia disappeared for several centuries and was rarely displayed on geographic maps. It was rediscovered during the Renaissance by western researchers, who introduced ancient Greek geographical names in their work, although used in a rather loose manner. The modern region was not labeled "Macedonia" by the Ottomans. The name "Macedonia" gained popularity parallel to the ascendance of rival nationalism. The central and northern areas of modern Macedonia were often called "Bulgaria" or "Lower Moesia" during Ottoman rule. The name "Macedonia" was revived to mean a separate geographical region on the Balkans, this occurring in the early 19th century, after the foundation of the modern Greek state, with its Western Europe-derived obsession with the Ancient world.
Macedonian nationalism | Early and middle 19th century
The kingdom of Macedonia was an ancient state in what is now the Macedonian region of northern Greece, founded in the mid-7th century BC during the period of Archaic Greece and lasting until the mid-2nd century BC. Led first by the Argead dynasty of kings, Macedonia became a vassal state of the Achaemenid Empire of ancient Persia during the reigns of Amyntas I of Macedon () and his son Alexander I of Macedon (). The period of Achaemenid Macedonia came to an end in roughly 479 BC with the ultimate Greek victory against the second Persian invasion of Greece led by Xerxes I and the withdrawal of Persian forces from the European mainland.
History of Macedonia (ancient kingdom) | Introduction
The controversy over whether the Macedonians were originally Greek or not is caused mainly by contradictory ancient accounts, but also due to the peculiar features of a few Macedonian words, though most words are consistent with Greek (see "Ancient Macedonian language"). Some scholars view the Pella katadesmos, written in a form of Doric Greek, as the first discovered Macedonian text. The vast majority of Macedonian names on inscriptions and coinage are Greek and conform to the Doric Greek dialect morphology. In any case, the Macedonians are universally considered as Hellenes after the reign of Alexander the Great. Before the reign of Alexander I, father of Perdiccas II, the ancient Macedonians lived mostly on lands adjacent to the Haliakmon, in the far south of the modern Greek province of Macedonia.
Demographic history of Macedonia | Ancient Macedonians
Hecataeus and Strabo identified these mountain Macedonia kingdoms as of Epirote stock. Three of the most important Hellenistic dynasties originated from Upper Macedonia: the Lagids from Eordaea, the Seleucids from Orestis and the Antigonids from Elimiotis.
Upper Macedonia | Introduction
With the gradual conquest of southeastern Europe by the Ottomans in the late 14th century, the name of Macedonia disappeared as an administrative designation for several centuries and was rarely displayed on maps. The name was again revived to mean a distinct geographical region in the 19th century, defining the region bounded by Mount Olympus, the Pindus range, mounts Shar and Osogovo, the western Rhodopes, the lower course of the river Mesta (Greek Nestos) and the Aegean Sea, developing roughly the same borders that it has today.
Macedonia (region) | Ottoman era
This was a term, which the inhabitants of the region accepted with relief. [Because] Slavomacedonians = Slavs+Macedoninas. The first section of the term determined their origin and classified them in the great family of the Slavic peoples.” The name "Aegean Macedonia" contains on the one hand a reference to a geographical area which, since Homeric times, is historically associated with the Greeks (the Aegean), but, as expressed above, there is also the experience that it is used by irredentist organizations in the Republic of North Macedonia and beyond who support a United Macedonia, contrary to the desires of the people living in the area.
Aegean Macedonia | Post-WWII
Macedonia forms part of Greece's national frontier with three countries: Bulgaria to the northeast, North Macedonia to the north, and Albania to the northwest. Macedonia incorporates most of the territories of ancient Macedon, a kingdom ruled by the Argeads, whose most celebrated members were Alexander the Great and his father Philip II. The name "Macedonia" was later applied to a number of widely-differing administrative areas in the Roman and Byzantine empires, resulting in modern geographical Macedonia. Even prior to the establishment of the modern Greek state in 1830 Macedonia was identified as a Greek province, albeit without clearly defined geographical borders.
Macedonia (Greece) | Introduction
The Classical Greek historians Herodotus and Thucydides reported the legend that the Macedonian kings of the Argead dynasty were descendants of Temenus, king of Argos, and could therefore claim the mythical Heracles as one of their ancestors as well as a direct lineage from Zeus, chief god of the Greek pantheon. Contradictory legends state that either Perdiccas I of Macedon or Caranus of Macedon were the founders of the Argead dynasty, with either five or eight kings before AmyntasI. The assertion that the Argeads descended from Temenus was accepted by the "Hellanodikai" authorities of the Ancient Olympic Games, permitting Alexander I of Macedon () to enter the competitions owing to his perceived Greek heritage.
Macedonia (ancient kingdom) | Early history and legend
Authors and scholars in the Republic of Macedonia criticise Greece for claiming sole ownership of the ancient kingdom, the former arguing that historical sources indicate a significant political and cultural distance between ancient Greeks and Macedonians. By contrast, Greek and international authors and scholars use other data to suggest that ancient Macedonians spoke Greek and identified as Greeks. The ethnic Macedonian claim to continuity with ancient Macedonia is based on the indigenous population having mixed with the Slavic newcomers after their arrival in the 6th and 7th century, and retaining the Macedonian name and Macedonian traditions and culture. The name "Macedonia" continued in use as a geographical and political term throughout the Ancient, Roman, Medieval and Modern eras.
Macedonia naming dispute | Historical perspective
The name is derived from the Ancient Greek name meaning "Macedonian", "Makednos" (Μακεδνός). Whereas in Greek the municipality is usually referred to as "Dimos Makednon" (Δήμος Μακεδνών), using the genitive plural form of the ancient name, "Makednoi" is the nominative plural form ("Macedonians"). In English, the names Makednon, Makednoi, Makednos and Makednes are occasionally used.
Makednoi | Name
Attic Greek, a form of the Greek language, eventually supplanted the ancient Macedonian entirely in Macedonia from the 5th Century BC, and it became extinct during the first few centuries AD. Attic Greek evolved into Koine Greek, then into Byzantine Greek and later into modern Greek.
Macedonia naming dispute | Macedonian (ancient)
According to this hypothesis, Hatzopoulos concludes that the Macedonian dialect of the historical period, which is attested in inscriptions, is a sort of koine resulting from the interaction and the influences of various elements, the most important of which are the North-Achaean substratum, the Northwest Greek idiom of the Argead Macedonians, and finally the Thracian and Phrygian adstrata. In Macedonian onomastics, most personal names are recognizably Greek (e.g. Alexandros, Philippos, Dionysios, Apollonios, Demetrios), with some dating back to Homeric (e.g. Ptolemaeos) or Mycenean times, though non-Greek names (e.g. "Bithys") are occasionally found here. Macedonian toponyms and hydronyms are mostly of Greek origin (e.g.
Ancient Macedonians | Language
By 500 BCE, the ancient kingdom of Macedon was centered somewhere between the southern slopes of Lower Olympus and the lowest reach of the Haliakmon River. Since 512/511 BCE, the kingdom of Macedonia was subject to the Persians, but after the battle of Plataia it regained its independence. Under Philip II and Alexander the Great, the kingdom of Macedonia forcefully expanded, placing the whole of the region of Macedonia under their rule. Alexander's conquests produced a lasting extension of Hellenistic culture and thought across the ancient Near East, but his empire broke up on his death. His generals divided the empire between them, founding their own states and dynasties.
Macedonia (region) | Ancient Macedonia (500 to 146 BCE)
Most of the modern region of Macedonia became in the 9th century a Bulgarian province known as Kutmichevitsa. Its southern parts corresponded to new Byzantine provinces of Thessalonica and Strymon. The area of North Macedonia was incorporated again into the Byzantine Empire in the early 11th century as a new province called Bulgaria. As result for nearly thousand years the name of Macedonia had different meanings for Western Europeans and for the Balkan people. For the Westerners it denoted the territory of the Ancient Macedonia, but for the Balkan Christians, when rarely used, it covered the territories of the former Byzantine theme of Macedonia, situated between modern Turkish Edirne and the river Nestos, in present-day Thrace.
Macedonia naming dispute | Background
Little is known about the kingdom before the reign of AlexanderI's father Amyntas I of Macedon () during the Archaic period. The kingdom of Macedonia was situated along the Haliacmon and Axius rivers in Lower Macedonia, north of Mount Olympus. Historian Robert Malcolm Errington suggests that one of the earliest Argead kings established Aigai (modern Vergina) as their capital in the mid-7th centuryBC. Before the 4th centuryBC, the kingdom covered a region corresponding roughly to the western and central parts of the region of Macedonia in modern Greece. It gradually expanded into the region of Upper Macedonia, inhabited by the Greek Lyncestae and Elimiotae tribes, and into regions of Emathia, Eordaia, Bottiaea, Mygdonia, Crestonia, and Almopia, which were inhabited by various peoples such as Thracians and Phrygians.
Macedonia (ancient kingdom) | Early history and legend
However, his conclusions were disproven by later researchers, especially by Ferdinand Sommer. In the classical period, the generic term for Greeks was "Hellenes", echoing the Hesiodic foundation story in which Hellen was the founder of the Greek race. However, in the "Iliad", "Hellenes" is restricted to those inhabitants of "Hellas", a region in Thessaly. There were therefore at least two different traditions concerning the origins of the Greeks, and for this reason, a direct connection between the historic Achaeans and Mycenaean-era Greeks is difficult to establish on the basis of name alone. For instance, the historic Lacedaemonians used that name, but claimed no connection to the Lacedaemonians mentioned in the "Iliad"; the use of the same name does not therefore automatically imply direct descent.
Achaeans (tribe) | Origins
The original name of the city was . It was named after the princess Thessalonike of Macedon, the half sister of Alexander the Great, whose name means "Thessalian victory", from Thessalos, and 'victory' (Nike), honoring the Macedonian victory at the Battle of Crocus Field (353/352 BC). Minor variants are also found, including , , , and . The name is first attested in Greek in the Chronicle of the Morea (14th century), and is common in folk songs, but it must have originated earlier, as al-Idrisi called it "Salunik" already in the 12th century. It is the basis for the city's name in other languages: ("Solun") in Old Church Slavonic, () in Ladino, () in Hebrew, ("Selânik") in Ottoman Turkish and in modern Turkish, in Italian, "Solun" or in the local and neighboring South Slavic languages, ("Saloníki") in Russian, and "Sãrunã" in Aromanian.
Thessaloniki | Names and etymology
The area that is today Greece was inhabited by various peoples throughout history, and the country's toponyms reflect their diversity of origins. The hellenization of toponyms in Greece started soon after Greek independence. Many placenames in Greece of non-Greek origin were replaced by ancient names that were supposed to have some connection to the area. For example, the ancient name of Piraeus was revived in the 19th century, after it had been called Drakos in Greek, Porto Leone in Venetian, and Aslan Limanı in Turkish for centuries, after the Piraeus Lion which stood there. In 1909, the existence of large numbers of non Greek place names were a nuisance to the government.
Geographical name changes in Greece | History
M. Hatzopoulos summarizes the Macedonian anthroponymy (that is names borne by people from Macedonia before the expansion beyond the Axios or people undoubtedly hailing from this area after the expansion) as follows: Common in the creation of ethnics is the use of -έστης, -εστός especially when derived from sigmatic nouns (ὄρος > Ὀρέστης but also Δῖον > Διασταί).
Ancient Macedonian language | Anthroponymy
The term is ultimately derived from the Proto-Indo-European root "", "to grow old".
Greece | Name
The name Korybantes is of uncertain etymology. Edzard Johan Furnée and R. S. P. Beekes have suggested a Pre-Greek origin. Others refer the name to *κορυβή ("korybé"), the Macedonian version of κορυφή ("koryphé") "crown, top, mountain peak", explaining their association with mountains, particularly Olympus.
Korybantes | Etymology
Several speculations have been made. William Smith notes in his "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography" that foreigners frequently refer to people by a different name (an exonym) from their native one (an endonym).
Name of Greece | Origin
Sitalces eventually retreated from Macedonia, perhaps due to logistical concerns: a shortage of provisions and harsh winter conditions.
History of Macedonia (ancient kingdom) | Involvement in the Classical Greek world
In classical times, the region of Macedonia comprised parts of what at the time was known as Macedonia, Illyria and Thrace. Among others, in its lands were located the kingdoms of Paeonia, Dardania, Macedonia and Pelagonia, historical tribes like the Agrianes, and colonies of southern Greek city states. Prior to the Macedonian ascendancy, parts of southern Macedonia were populated by the Bryges, while western, (i. e., Upper) Macedonia, was inhabited by Macedonian and Illyrian tribes. Whilst numerous wars are later recorded between the Illyrian and Macedonian Kingdoms, the Bryges might have co-existed peacefully with the Macedonians. In the time of Classical Greece, Paionia, whose exact boundaries are obscure, originally included the whole Axius River valley and the surrounding areas, in what is now the northern part of the Greek region of Macedonia, most of the Republic of North Macedonia, and a small part of western Bulgaria.
Macedonia (region) | Ancient Macedonia (500 to 146 BCE)
The native name of the country in Modern Greek is ("", pronounced ). The corresponding form in Ancient Greek and conservative formal Modern Greek (Katharevousa) is (, classical: , modern: ). This is the source of the English alternate name "Hellas", which is mostly found in archaic or poetic contexts today. The Greek adjectival form (, ) is sometimes also translated as "Hellenic" and is often rendered in this way in the formal names of Greek institutions, as in the official name of the Greek state, the "Hellenic Republic" (, ). The English names "Greece" and "Greek" are derived, via the Latin ' and ', from the name of the Graeci (, ; , ), who were among the first ancient Greek tribes to settle Magna Graecia in southern Italy.
Greece | Name
The name of Greece differs in Greek compared with the names used for the country in other languages and cultures, just like the names of the Greeks. The ancient and modern name of the country is "Hellas" or "Hellada" (; in polytonic: ), and its official name is the Hellenic Republic, "Helliniki Dimokratia" (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία ). In English, however, the country is usually called Greece, which comes from the Latin "Graecia" (as used by the Romans) and literally means 'the land of the Greeks'.
Name of Greece | Introduction
"Macedonia" or "Macedon" (from , "") was an ancient Greek kingdom and region, centered in the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, bordered by Epirus to the west, Paionia to the north, Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south. Early geographers put river Strimon as the eastern border of Macedonia with Thrace. However, as kingdom of Macedon was expanding and was pushing east the Thracian tribes, river Nestos was regarded as the eastern border of the region and Sintice, Odomantis and Edonis were included in it.
Regions of ancient Greece | Macedonia
The city was named after the region of Macedonia, in Ancient Greece.
Macedonia, Iowa | History
However, while Alexander's conquests are of major historical importance as having launched the Hellenistic Age, Macedon as a state had no significant territorial gains due to them. Alexander's kingdom fell apart after his death in 323 BC; several of his Successors attempted to form a kingdom for themselves in Macedonia; the kingdom formed by Antigonus Gonatas contained all the land Philip II had started with and controlled much of what is now modern Greece; it lasted until the Romans divided it into four republics in 168 BC.
Macedonia (terminology) | Ancient Macedonia
The word "macedonia" was popularised in the middle of the 18th century to refer to mixed fruit salad. This probably alludes to the diverse origin of the people of Alexander's Macedonian Empire, but that is "not fully established". It is sometimes said that it refers to the ethnic mixture in 19th century Ottoman Macedonia, but this is not possible, since it is first attested in 1740. Starting later in the 18th century, "macedoine" could mean any medley of unrelated things, not necessarily edible.
Macedonia (food) | Etymology
Likewise, the term "Macedonian", while referring here to Greek dialects, also ended up meaning the Koine Greek in classical sources , whereas diverse major Ancient Greek dialects were natively spoken in the later/expanded Macedonian Kingdom, and even though the Koine dialect was mostly based on Attic Greek that was natively spoken around Athens. Notably, during of the reign of Constantine the Great, who is regarded as the first Byzantine Emperor, the Diocese of Macedonia was established, comprising principally the area that is modern Greece, with Thessalonica as its capital.
Names of the Greeks | Macedonians (Μακεδόνες)
During the first half of the second millennium, the concept of Macedonia on the Balkans was associated by the Byzantines with their Macedonian province, centered around Edirne in modern-day Turkey. After the conquest of the Balkans by the Ottomans in the late 14th and early 15th century, the Greek name "Macedonia" disappeared as a geographical designation for several centuries. The background of the modern designation "Macedonian" can be found in the 19th century, as well as the myth of "ancient Macedonian descent" among the Orthodox Slavs in the area, adopted mainly due to Greek cultural inputs. However Greek education was not the only engine for such ideas.
Macedonian nationalism | The designation "Macedonian"
For this reason the regions of Edonis, Sintice, Odomantis and Pieris, conquered by Philip II, were termed in Latin "Macedonia Adjecta" (Επίκτητος Μακεδονία).
Lower Macedonia | Introduction
Till 1912, the area had a very heterogeneous population consisting of Slavic, Turkish, Greek, Jews and Wallachian people. Most of the geographical names were of non Greek origin, the Greek government planned to change this. Between 1913 and 1928 the Slavic names of hundreds of villages and towns were Hellenized by a Committee for the Changing of Names, which was charged by the Greek government with ""the elimination of all the names which pollute and disfigure the beautiful appearance of our fatherland"". Between 1912 (Balkan Wars) and 1928 (after the Population exchange between Greece and Turkey), the non Greek inhabitants were largely gone and instead of them Greek refugees from the Ottoman Empire settled in the area thereby changing its demography.
Geographical name changes in Greece | Greek region of Macedonia
The dispute arose from the ambiguity in nomenclature between the Republic of Macedonia, the adjacent Greek region of Macedonia and the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. Citing historical and irredentist concerns, Greece opposed the use of the name "Macedonia" without a geographical qualifier such as "Northern Macedonia" for use "by all ... and for all purposes". As over 2 million ethnic Greeks identify themselves as Macedonians, and view themselves as unrelated to ethnic Macedonians, Greece further objected to the use of the term "Macedonian" for the neighboring country's largest ethnic group and language. North Macedonia was accused by Greece of appropriating symbols and figures that are historically considered part of Greek culture such as the Vergina Sun and Alexander the Great, and of promoting the irredentist concept of a United Macedonia, which involves territorial claims on Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, and Serbia.
Macedonia naming dispute | Introduction
The region that today forms the country of North Macedonia has been inhabited since Paleolithic times. It occupies most of the ancient kingdom of Paionia and part of the territory of what was in antiquity Upper Macedonia (which coincides with some parts of today's southern Republic of North Macedonia), the region which became part of the kingdom of Macedon in the early 4th century BC. It was settled by the Paionians and Dardani, peoples of mixed Thraco-Illyrian origin. The Paionians founded several princedoms which coalesced into a kingdom centred in the central and upper reaches of the Vardar and Struma rivers until they were finally conquered by Philip II, father of Alexander the Great, in 358 BC.
History of the Macedonians (ethnic group) | Ancient period
The modern English noun "Greek" (Old English "Grecas" or "Crecas") is derived from the Latin "Graeci", which in turn originates from Ancient Greek ("Graikós"). It seems that the word is related with the Greek word "geron" "old man" (from the PIE base "*ǵerh-" "to grow old") via Proto-Greek "*gera-" "old age", also related to Mycenean Greek "kera" /geras/, "gift of honour". The Germanic languages borrowed the name with an initial "k" sound, which was probably their initial sound closest to the Latin "g" (Gothic "Kreks"). Aristotle used the term "Graikos" together with "Hellenes" and claimed that it was the name originally used by the Illyrians for the Dorians in Epirus from "Graii" native name of the people of Epirus.
Names of the Greeks | Greeks (Γραικοί)
The kingdom was situated in the fertile alluvial plain, watered by the rivers Haliacmon and Axius, called Lower Macedonia, north of Mount Olympus. Around the time of Alexander I, the Argead Macedonians started to expand into Upper Macedonia, lands inhabited by independent Greek tribes like the Lyncestae and the Elimiotae, and to the west, beyond the Axius river, into the Emathia, Eordaia, Bottiaea, Mygdonia, Crestonia and Almopia; regions settled by, among others, many Thracian tribes. To the north of Macedonia lay various non-Greek peoples such as the Paeonians due north, the Thracians to the northeast, and the Illyrians, with whom the Macedonians were frequently in conflict, to the northwest.
History of Macedonia (ancient kingdom) | Early history and legend
Macedonians (, , ) is the term by which ethnic Greeks originating from the region are known. Macedonians came to be of particular importance prior to the Balkan Wars, during the Macedonian Struggle, when they were a minority population inside the multiethnic Ottoman Macedonia. The Macedonians now have a strong regional identity, manifested both in Greece and by emigrant groups in the Greek diaspora. This sense of identity has been highlighted in the context of the Macedonia naming dispute in the aftermath of the break-up of Yugoslavia, in which Greece objected to its northern neighbour calling itself the "Republic of Macedonia".
Macedonia (Greece) | Regional identity
Ever since the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991, the use of the name "Macedonia" had been disputed between the southeastern European countries of Greece and the Republic of Macedonia (which is now North Macedonia). The dispute arose from the ambiguity in nomenclature between the former Yugoslav state, the adjacent Greek region of Macedonia, and the ancient kingdom of Macedon. Citing historical and irredentist concerns, Greece opposed the use of the name "Macedonia" by the Republic of Macedonia without a geographical qualifier like "Northern" or "Upper" for use "by all ... and for all purposes". As approximately 2 million ethnic Greeks identify themselves as Macedonians who typically view themselves as being unrelated to the ethnic Macedonians, Greece further objected to the use of the term "Macedonian" for the neighboring country's largest ethnic group and its language.
Prespa agreement | Background
"See List of ancient Macedonians."
List of Macedonians (Greek) | <a href="Macedon">Ancient</a>
Macedonian became extinct in either the Hellenistic or the Roman period, and entirely replaced by Koine Greek.
Macedonia (ancient kingdom) | Language and dialects
The name of the city comes from the Macedonian word "Прилеп" (meaning "sticky") and it showcases how the buildings were first built there, being near one another next to the Marko's Towers. In other languages is:
Prilep | Name
According to Margalit Finkelberg, the name Ἀχαιοί/Ἀχαιϝοί is derived from Hittite "Aḫḫiyawā". However, Robert S. P. Beekes doubted the validity of this derivation and suggested a Pre-Greek proto-form "*Akaya-". The etymology of "Danaoi" is uncertain; according to Beekes, "the name is certainly Pre-Greek".
Achaeans (Homer) | Etymology
The village was named after the kingdom of Macedonia.
Macedonia, Illinois | History
Important cities such as Pella, Pydna, and Amphipolis were involved in power struggles for control of the territory. New cities were founded, such as Thessalonica by the usurper Cassander (named after his wife Thessalonike of Macedon). Macedonia's decline began with the Macedonian Wars and the rise of Rome as the leading Mediterranean power. At the end of the Third Macedonian War in 168BC, the Macedonian monarchy was abolished and replaced by Roman client states. A short-lived revival of the monarchy during the Fourth Macedonian War in 150–148BC ended with the establishment of the Roman province of Macedonia.
Macedonia (ancient kingdom) | Introduction
The name comes from the multitude of furnaces that existed here in the past. According to a myth, Hercules caught the Erymanthian Boar in the area called "Kaprivaina".
Kamenianoi | History
Many settlements in Macedonia region in Northern Greece had Greek and non-Greek forms. Most of those names were in use during the multinational environment of the Ottoman Empire. Some of the forms were identifiable of Greek origin, others of Serbian Slavic, yet others of Turkish or more obscure origins. Following the First World War and the Graeco-Turkish War which followed, an exchange of population took place between Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Turkey. The villages of the exchanged populations (Bulgarians and Muslims) in Greece were resettled with Greeks from Asia Minor and local Macedonian Greeks. Since the Greek state became ethnic the Greek government renamed many places with revived ancient names, local Greek-language names, or translations of the non-Greek names.: The multi ethnic names were officially removed and the former multiethnic composition of the region was almost denied.
List of former toponyms in Drama Prefecture | Introduction
The Roman province of Macedonia was officially established in 146 BC. By the 4th century AD the Paionians had become fully Hellenized or Romanized and had lost their ethnic identity. During most of Late Antiquity and the early Middles ages, Macedonia (as a region) had been a province of the Byzantine Empire. In the 6th century AD, the part which today forms the Greek region of Macedonia was known as Macedonia Prima (first Macedonia), and contained the Empire's second largest city, Thessaloniki. The rest of the modern region (today's Republic of North Macedonia and Western Bulgaria) was known as Macedonia Salutaris.
History of the Macedonians (ethnic group) | Ancient period
Although the citadel was built by Greeks, the name "Mukanai" is thought not to be Greek but rather one of the many pre-Greek place names inherited by the immigrant Greeks. Legend has it that the name was connected to the Greek word "mycēs" (μύκης, "mushroom"). Thus, Pausanias ascribes the name to the legendary founder Perseus, who was said to have named it either after the cap ("mykēs") of the sheath of his sword, or after a mushroom he had plucked on the site. The earliest written form of the name is "" (Μυκήνη), which is found in Homer. The reconstructed Mycenaean Greek name of the site is 𐀘𐀏𐀙𐀂 (mu-ka-nai), which has the form of a plural like "Athḗnai".
Mycenae | Etymology
Both proper nouns "Makedṓn" and "Makednós" are morphologically derived from the Ancient Greek adjective "makednós" meaning "tall, slim", and are related to the term Macedonia. The adjective is traditionally derived from the Indo-European root "*mak-" or "*meh2k-", meaning "long, slender", cognate with poetic Greek "makednós" or "mēkedanós" "long, tall", Doric "mãkos" and Attic "mẽkos" "length", Makistos, the mythological eponym of a town in Elis and an epithet of Heracles, Avestan "masah" "length", Hittite "mak-l-ant" "thin", Latin "macer" "meagre" and Proto-Germanic "*magraz" "lean, meager". The same root and meaning has been duly assigned to the tribal name of the Macedonians, which is commonly explained as having originally meant "the tall ones" or "highlanders" in Greek.
Makedon (mythology) | Etymology
The earliest known government of ancient Macedonia was that of its monarchy, lasting until 167BC when it was abolished by the Romans. The Macedonian hereditary monarchy existed since at least the time of Archaic Greece, with Homeric aristocratic roots in Mycenaean Greece. Thucydides wrote that in previous ages, Macedonia was divided into small tribal regions, each having its own petty king, the tribes of Lower Macedonia eventually coalescing under one great king who exercised power as an overlord over the lesser kings of Upper Macedonia. The direct line of father-to-son succession was broken after the assassination of Orestes of Macedon in 396BC (allegedly by his regent and successor Aeropus II of Macedon), clouding the issue of whether primogeniture was the established custom or if there was a constitutional right for an assembly of the army or of the people to choose another king.
Macedonia (ancient kingdom) | Kingship and the royal court
The origins of the term seem to be rooted in the 1910s, most of its early appearances were in the writings of Bulgarian authors. Since the mid-1940s the term has appeared on maps circulated first in Yugoslavia and especially after 1991 in the independent Republic of Macedonia which envisioned Greek Macedonia (referred to as "Aegean Macedonia") as part of a "Greater Macedonia", and is regarded in Greece as a non-recognition of current European borders, including the legitimacy of Greek sovereignty over the area. During the Greek Civil War, the Greek government referred to the usage as a "new term" only recently introduced by Josip Broz Tito in Yugoslavia, implying that it considered it part of the Yugoslav campaign of laying claim to Greek Macedonia.
Aegean Macedonia | Origins of the term
The Ottoman Empire absorbed the area in the 14th century. There was no Ottoman province called Macedonia. The Balkans became part of province called Rumelia. In the early 19th century the name of Macedonia was almost forgotten in the modern-day area, but within the decades after the Greek independence (1830) it was revived by the Greek propaganda. In 1893 a revolutionary movement against Ottoman rule began, resulting in the Ilinden Uprising on 2 August 1903 (St. Elias's Day). The failure of the Ilinden Uprising caused a change in the strategy of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (then Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization) from revolutionary to institutional.
Macedonia naming dispute | Background
It is observed that much of today's Greek Macedonia was only fully Hellenised by political and military means in modern times. After the division of Macedonia in 1913, Greece carried out a policy of Hellenisation of the local population, forcing geographical and personal name changes, religious affiliation, and writings of church frescoes and graves to Greek. During the Ioannis Metaxas era, Slavic-speaking Macedonians were deported or tortured for speaking or claiming to be Macedonian, and those with money were fined. Ethnic Macedonians argue that they have a more legitimate claim to the name "Macedonia" than modern Greek Macedonians who descend from the 638,000 Greek refugees who had emigrated from Anatolia, Epirus and Thrace and settled in Greek Macedonia during the early twentieth century.
Macedonia naming dispute | Historical perspective
A second explanation derives the name from the village of Patele in Aegean Macedonia (today Agios Panteleimonas, Florina regional unit, Greece), from which people settled in Patalenitsa in the 18th century. Another possibility is a link to the Bulgarian word "pat" (път, "road"), due to Patalenitsa's position on a crossroad.
Patalenitsa | Introduction
For centuries the Macedonian tribes were organised in independent kingdoms, in what is now Central Macedonia, and their role in internal Hellenic politics was minimal, even before the rise of Athens. The Macedonians claimed to be Dorian Greeks (Argive Greeks) and there were many Ionians in the coastal regions. The rest of the region was inhabited by various Thracian and Illyrian tribes as well as mostly coastal colonies of other Greek states such as Amphipolis, Olynthos, Potidea, Stageira and many others, and to the north another tribe dwelt, called the Paeonians. During the late 6th and early 5th century BC, the region came under Persian rule until the destruction of Xerxes at Plataea.
Macedonia (Greece) | Ancient history
In the Macedonian Kingdom, and later the Macedonian Empire, the body that assisted the king with running the kingdom was called the "synedrion", literally translated as "The Congress". This tradition continued to be in use in the years of Alexander the Great and its members were hereditary. Although not democratic, the members of the Synedrion, including the king were considered equal to one another and had the right of the freedom of speech.
Boule (ancient Greece) | Kingdom of Macedonia
But the names of several of the greatest heroes (e.g. "Achilleus, Odysseus, Agamemnon, Priamos") cannot be interpreted in those terms and were seldom borne by mortals again until a taste for "heroic" names developed under the Roman empire; they have a different, unexplained origin. The system described above underwent few changes before the Roman period, though the rise of Macedonia to power earned names of that region such as "Ptolemaios, Berenike", and "Arsinoe" new popularity. Alternative names ("X also known as Y") started to appear in documents in the 2nd century BC but had been occasionally mentioned in literary sources much earlier.
Ancient Greek personal names | A brief history of Greek naming
Toponym changes in each modern prefecture are listed in,
Geographical name changes in Greece | Greek region of Macedonia
Following the Greek victory at Salamis, the Persians sent Alexander I as an envoy to Athens, hoping to strike an alliance with their erstwhile foe, yet his diplomatic mission was rebuffed. Achaemenid control over Macedonia ceased when the Persians were ultimately defeated by the Greeks and fled the Greek mainland in Europe.
History of Macedonia (ancient kingdom) | Early history and legend
There are various conjectures around the origin of the toponym: -from Potamos (river), because the city was in ancient times crossed by a canal from the ancient center of Frassineto, near Gioia del Colle; -from Puteus insanus (pit that makes folle) or from Puteus janus (in Hebrew wine), because of the ancient custom of depositing the must in the country cisterns; -from Apollo Pithunis (slayer of the snake Python) from which Pethunianum derives. This is due to the alleged presence of a sanctuary of Apollo inside a cave near Monte Laureto, a high hill in the Agro putignanese; -from Pytna, ancient center of the island of Crete, from which an ancient tribe is thought to have lived in the territory in ancient times; -from puteus (in Latin pozzo), due to the large quantity of wells present in the territory; -from an ancient noble name, Potinius, Putinius, from which the Latin form Putinianum would have derived.
Putignano | Origin of the name
The origins of the ancient Macedonian language are currently debated. It is as yet undetermined whether it was a Greek dialect which was part of or closely related to the Doric and/or Aeolic dialects, a sibling language of ancient Greek forming a "Hellenic" (i.e. Greco-Macedonian) supergroup, or an Indo-European language which was a close cousin to Greek and also related to Thracian and Phrygian languages. The scientific community generally agrees that, although some sources are available (e.g. Hesychius' lexicon, Pella curse tablet) there is no decisive evidence for supporting any of these hypotheses. The surviving public and private inscriptions found in Macedonia indicate that the written language in ancient Macedonia was Ancient Greek.
Macedonia naming dispute | Macedonian (ancient)
The city's name is said to derive from a small joke among divinity students at Western Reserve College, which in the early 19th century was in Hudson, Ohio. The students, who were called upon to preach in the small hamlet to the north, recalled Acts 16:10: "...we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them."
Macedonia, Ohio | History
The reigns of Philip II and Alexander the Great witnessed the demise of Classical Greece and the birth of Hellenistic civilization, following the spread of Greek culture to the Near East during and after Alexander's conquests. Macedonians then migrated to Egypt and parts of Asia, but the intensive colonization of foreign lands sapped the available manpower in Macedonia proper, weakening the kingdom in its fight with other Hellenistic powers and contributing to its downfall and conquest by the Romans. However, the diffusion of Greek culture and language cemented by Alexander's conquests in West Asia and North Africa served as a "precondition" for the later Roman expansion into these territories and entire basis for the Byzantine Empire, according to Errington.
Macedonia (ancient kingdom) | Legacy
Macedon took its name from the ancient Greek Kingdom of Macedon. The toponym Macedon is derived itself from the ancient Greek adjective μακεδνός ("makednós"), meaning "tall", possibly descriptive of the inhabitants of Macedon. It has the same root as the adjective μακρός ("makros"), meaning "long" or "tall" in Ancient Greek. The name is originally believed to have meant either "highlanders", "the tall ones", or "high grown men".
Macedon, New York | Etymology
According to Hammond, the Macedonians are missing from early Macedonian historical accounts because they had been living in the Orestian highlands since before the Greek Dark Ages, possibly having originated from the same (proto-Greek) population pool that produced other Greek peoples. The Macedonian tribes subsequently moved down from Orestis in the upper Haliacmon to the Pierian highlands in the lower Haliacmon because of pressure from the Molossians, a related tribe who had migrated to Orestis from Pelagonia. In their new Pierian home north of Olympus, the Macedonian tribes mingled with the proto-Dorians. This might account for traditions which placed the eponymous founder, Makedon, near Pieria and Olympus.
Ancient Macedonians | Prehistoric homeland
These expatriates were the primary source of ethnic Macedonian irredentism and the appropriation of ancient Macedonian heritage.
Macedonia (Greece) | Demographic history
Some also immigrated to Canada, Australia, and the United States. Current Greek law still forbids the reentry and restitution of property by Macedonians that are not "Greek by origin."
Macedonia (Greece) | Modern history
To the south lay Thessaly, with whose inhabitants the Macedonians had much in common, both culturally and politically, while to the west lay Epirus, with whom the Macedonians had a peaceful relationship and in the 4th century BC formed an alliance against Illyrian raids. Prior to the 4th century BC, the kingdom covered a region approximately corresponding to the western and central parts of the region of Macedonia in modern Greece. After Darius I of Persia () launched a military campaign against the Scythians in Europe in 513 BC, he left behind his general Megabazus to quell the Paeonians, Thracians, and coastal Greek city-states of the southern Balkans.
History of Macedonia (ancient kingdom) | Early history and legend
Following the loss in the Second Persian invasion of Greece in 479 BC, the Persians eventually withdrew from their European territories, including from what is today North Macedonia. Philip II of Macedon absorbed the regions of Upper Macedonia (Lynkestis and Pelagonia) and the southern part of Paeonia (Deuriopus) into the kingdom of Macedon in 356 BC. Philip's son Alexander the Great conquered the remainder of the region and incorporated it in his empire, reaching as far north as Scupi, but the city and the surrounding area remained part of Dardania.
North Macedonia | Early history
The historian Eugene Borza summarises historic controversy surrounding the naming dispute as "... one of the enduring characteristics of modern Greek life: a desperate attempt to regain a past glory, rooted in cultural accomplishments of antiquity and the religious and political might of Byzantium. An identification with the ancient Macedonians is part of that attempt", while on the other hand, the ethnic Macedonians, being "a newly emergent people in search of a past to help legitimise their precarious present" whose ethnicity developed in the twentieth century, had no history and needed one. Greeks argue that the name Macedonia is historically inseparably associated with Greek culture, ever since the ancient kingdom of Macedonia and the ancient Macedonians.
Macedonia naming dispute | Historical concerns
Macedon or Macedonia was a kingdom in ancient Greece. Macedon or Makedon may also refer to:
Macedon (disambiguation) | Introduction
The name Astraion came from the Paionian tribe called Astrai. In 148 BC the region became a Roman province. In the Roman period the city changed its name to "Tiberiopolis", which is evidenced by a marble statue base dedicated to the patron Tiberius Claudius Menon, who lived between the late 2nd and early 3rd century AD. During the reign of the Roman emperor Julian the Apostate (361–363 AD), the fifteen holy hieromartyrs of Tiberiopolis were killed. In 395, the Roman Empire split, and Macedonia fell under the Eastern Roman Empire (the Byzantine Empire). After that, Tiberiopolis became part of the province Macedonia Salutaris or Macedonia Secunda in the late 4th century.
Strumica | Ancient period
"The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" (FYROM) was a term used for this state by the main international organisations, including United Nations, European Union, NATO, IMF, WTO, IOC, World Bank, EBRD, OSCE, FIFA, and FIBA. The term was introduced in 1993 by the United Nations, following a naming dispute with Greece. Some countries used this term as a stop-gap measure, pending resolution of the naming dispute. Greece and North Macedonia each considered this name a compromise: it was opposed by some Greeks for containing the Greek self-identifying name "Macedonia", and by many in the Republic of North Macedonia for not being the short self-identifying name.
Macedonia (terminology) | Politics
The first major form of names derives from the Latin "Graecus" and "Graecia" or their equivalent forms in Greek whence the former derive themselves. These terms have fallen out of use in Greek.
Name of Greece | Graecia-derived names
The name "Dorians" is supposed to have derived from Dorus, the son of Hellen. According to one tradition, Dorus settled once in the country subsequently known as Doris; but other traditions represent them as more widely spread in earlier times. Herodotus relates (i. 56) that in the time of king Deucalion they inhabited the district of Phthiotis; that in the time of Dorus, the son of Hellen, they inhabited the country called Histiaeotis at the foot of Ossa and Olympus; that, expelled from Histiaeotis by the Cadmeians, they dwelt on Mount Pindus, and were called the Macedonian nation; and that from thence they migrated to Dryopis; and having passed from Dryopis into the Peloponnesus, they were called the Doric race.
Doris (Greece) | Origin of the name
For years Greece used it in both the abbreviated ("FYROM" or "ΠΓΔΜ") and spellout form ("Πρώην Γιουγκοσλαβική Δημοκρατία της Μακεδονίας").
Macedonia (terminology) | Politics
There is currently no satisfactory etymology for the name "Hellenes". Some scholars assert that the name of the priests of Zeus in Dodona, "Selloi" (Σελλοί; also Ἑλλοί "Helloi"), changed to "Sellanes" (by analogy with "Akarnanes") and then to "Hellanes" and "Hellenes". This theory is based on Aristotle's comments in "Meteorologica" where he places archaic Hellas in Epirus between Dodona and the Achelous river, where in his opinion the great deluge of Deucalion must have occurred. The land was inhabited by Selloi and Graeci, who later came to be known as "Hellenes". "Graeci" ("Graikoi") was a native name of a Dorian tribe in Epirus which was used by the Illyrians.
Names of the Greeks | Hellenes (Ἕλληνες)
In the 2nd century, Macedonia covered approximately the area where it is considered to be today, but the northern regions of today Republic of North Macedonia were not identified as Macedonian lands. For reasons that are still unclear, over the next eleven centuries Macedonia's location was changed significantly. The Roman province of Macedonia consisted of what is today Northern and Central Greece, much of the geographical area of the Republic of North Macedonia and southeast Albania. Simply put, the Romans created a much larger administrative area under that name than the original ancient Macedon. In late Roman times, the provincial boundaries were reorganized to form the Diocese of Macedonia, consisting of most of modern mainland Greece right across the Aegean to include Crete, southern Albania, parts of south-west Bulgaria and most of Republic of North Macedonia.
Macedonia (region) | Roman era
Thus the Armeniac theme was considerably west of Armenia; the Thracesian Theme was in Asia Minor, not in Thrace. The Macedonian dynasty of the Byzantine Empire acquired its name from its founder, Basil I the Macedonian, an Armenian by descent, who was born in the theme of Macedonia. The interior of Macedonia remained in Slavic and later Bulgarian hands until the campaigns of Basil II, which ended the existence of the Bulgarian state and extended Byzantine authority across the central and northern Balkans. Thereafter Macedonia remained under Byzantine control until the Fourth Crusade (1204). A short-lived Latin Kingdom of Thessalonica was established which survived until 1224, when it was captured by Epirus.
Macedonia (terminology) | Byzantine Macedonia