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Originally Posted by ariel
... Trick question: who knows why the old name of Iran was Pars ( Persia) , but their language is Farsi? As they say on TV games “The answers will surprise you!”. Hint: it has nothing to do with complex ancient linguistics. ...
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Simplified answer. Persian/Persia are
exonyms probably first coined by the Greeks around 500 BCE to describe the inhabitants of Pars, then extended to those on the Iranian Plateau. The Romans then adopted the term Persia to describe the same area.
Farsi is an
endonym, also derived from the regional name Pars, to describe the main language of Iran.
Ian.