Middle East's greatest copywriter, or how countries in the region got their names

Most of us believe, deep in the back of our minds, that behind every country’s name there’s a learned committee that came up with it. The truth, however, is must simpler: in the Middle East, the names were born in the terrain – in the river, on the mountain, and in the mud. Let's take a brief journey into etymology. Geography is the real copywriter.

Take the classic mistake, the assumption that the Jordan River was named after the country? Au contraire. The country of Jordan is a product of the 20th century, while the name "Jordan" has been around here for thousands of years. The country simply stole the brand from the river.

And there’s no poetics here, just engineering: "Yarden" (Jordan) comes from the root Y-R-D, meaning "to descend". This river simply flows down from the north to the Dead Sea. If it were marketed today, the slogan would be: "Jordan – it does exactly what it says on the package." The country adopted the name because it sounds better than "that area near the water."

And what about Egypt? In Hebrew, the name Mizraim is derived either from the root "matzor" (siege) or "mivzar" (fortress). As if someone said: "Here we put up a wall and hope for the best." In English, it's a different story: Egypt is the Greek evolution of the name of an ancient temple.

But what about the Egyptians themselves? They actually called their land "Kemet" — the black land. This was because of the Nile, which would flood the area and leave behind rich silt that colored the earth black. The river may not have gotten credit in the official title, but it was it that colored the map.

In Iraq, the matter is completely transparent. The area used to be called "Mesopotamia," which in Greek means "between rivers." As straightforward as the instructions for Ikea furniture. The rivers, of course, are the Euphrates and the Tigris, without which the whole area would be nothing but desert. And the name "Iraq" itself? In Arabic, it brushes up against the term "riverbank." Again—the landscape gave the name, the politicians just slapped on the logo.

Also with the snowy neighbor, Lebanon, the branding was done by the weather department. The root L-B-N, "white", was given to it because of its shiny mountain peaks. An entire country named after a color, long before humans made a mess of it. 

In the Gulf, it's lazy as it gets: Bahrain simply means "two seas." The name comes in the dual form, because on such a small island—if you don't have at least two seas around you, you're considered a traffic circle. And Kuwait? "Al-Kuwait," in Arabic "the little fort." It started as a modest defense point, and today it's mostly oil fields and large bank accounts.

Even Syria is a kind of forced "restart." The name came from Assyria—the brutal empire that arose on the banks of the Tigris and ruled here thousands of years ago. The Greeks simply took the intimidating name, shifted it westward because it was convenient for them, and called the entire region "Syria." No one informed the inhabitants that their name had moved.

So next time you're being sold a political vision, remind them that it's just a description of a simple landscape. A flowing river, a white mountain, or a small fortress. The land gave the name. And the governments? They came later to plant the flag.