The Times, Wednesday, Jan 30, 1935; pg. 13; Issue 46975; col C
Editoria/Commentary
Iran or Persia?

The SHAH'S Government have decided that the official use of the ancient and famous name of Persia must cease on March 21, the Persian New Year, from which date the vernacular term "Iran" will take its place. Foreign Embassies and Legations have been notified and nervous diplomatists accredited to the Court of the Pahlevi Shah are doubtless already intoning such agreeable phrases as "le beau pays d'Iran" in preparation for the New Year Reception on which the inadvertent utterance of "that once forbidden word" would surely case a chill. But, while foreign residents in Persia will have to fall in with the new official use, the familiar to the Europeans to be discarded after twenty-five centuries of use.

 The English-speaking people in particular, among who the "Law of the Medes and the Persians" is proverbial, will not easily be persuaded to invest in Iranian carpets, to compliment their wives on the Iranian lamb woll collars of their winter coats, to promise the children a lovely Iranian kitten next summer, or the write to the nurseryman for a
fresh consignment of "Irani carias."
Nor indeed is there any reason why they should conform to Perisian usage or why their nonconformity should offend Persian susceptibilities. It is true that the name Pars, or Fars, from which "Persia" springs, is applied only to one province of that kingdom, and that the Persians who rose to power under CYRUS were only one of several related tribes. But England, after all, takes its name from only one of its Dark Age invaders; the Germans call their country Deutchland but raise to objection to the English use of the classical "Germany" or the French "Allemagne." Some recent changes in the names of cities are defensible; Christiania, for instance, was a relatively modern name disliked by Norwegians since it recalled the Danish supremacy. Petrograd and Leningrad have in turn taken the place of St. Petersburg in English usage, Leningrad assisted by the obvious impropriety of associating SAINT PETER with the Bolshevist regime. But Istanbul - itself a Greek name meaning "in town" - signifies nothing to most British readers who have heard of Constantinople from their childhood. Philologists and geographers have found special uses for the adjective Iranian, but the rest of us - being neither - will continue to stroke Persian cats and to speak of the Shah of Persia.
Iran or Persia

The Times, Thursday, Jan 31, 1935; pg. 10
To the Editor of the Times
Sir. - In communicating to you the decision of the Persian Government to have the name of "Iran" substituted abroad for "Persia," your Teheran Correspondent, whose dispatch you have published on page 11 of your to-day's issue, has omitted to mention that the Persians have from time immemorial called their country Iran, that is to say, the land of the Aryans.

What we are doing is simply to ask others to speak and write of us by our real name, by the name we have always used ourselves. Our action is not prompted by any insidious desire to lay claim to Afghanistan or any other land outside the boundaries of Persia. We want to remove the really called Iran.
As for the Imperial Bank of Persia and the Ango-Persian Oil Company, they have long been known in Persia as "Banke Chahanchai Iran" and the "Sherkate Nafte Englis va Iran." No harm will be done to their prestige and importance if they are henceforth known abroad as the "Imperial Bank of Iran" and the "Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, Limited." Yours faithfully,
HUSSEIN 'ALA (Persian Minister in London).