The Saga of Georgia’s Name

For me, “Georgia” incidates two parts of the world: the state in the Deep South in the United States, and the country in the Caucasus. The former makes sense, named in honor of King George II of Great Britain. But what about the later? Georgians have never called their country Georgia, so why do we?

The people of Georgia call themselves Kartvelebi. The country is called Sakartvelo. Their language is Kartuli. These names are derived from pre-Christian times, based on the legacy of Chief Kartlos, said to be the father of all Georgians. Yet variants of “Georgia” are used throughout the world, derived from the Persian “Gurji,” which is based on the Arabic “Jurj.” Because the Roman alphabet spelling was influenced by the Greek root “geÃ…Â?rg,” some confused the name with St. George, the country’s patron saint.

It gets even more confusing if you look at ancient history. During Roman times, Europe knew Sakartvelo as Iberia, which also confused the geographers of antiquity who used the same name for the western European peninsula.

Today, the country of Sakartvelo is known as Gurjestan in Persian, Gürcistan in Turkish, Gruziya in Russian, Gurujia in Japanese, and Georgia in English.