Yep. The name was taken directly from the Bible - and besides, Hebrew words can’t begin with an “F.”
So what would be “Falluja”. Or France?
I tried to google “Falluja” in Hebrew, but didn’t come up with anything. I’m sure I spelled it wrong - there isn’t a j sound in Hebrew so there are some workarounds when dealing with foreign words that have a j, but obviously I did it wrong.
France is Tsarfat. I don’t know why.
btw, F and P are the same letter in Hebrew. Which one you use depends on the dots.
Well I really think Holland/ The Netherlands is totally different; it has no political significance today to make a distinction between the two, only possibly a slight geographical one. Holland is easier to use abroad but I’d say that’d be true for Iran rather than for Persia, right?
F can appear at the beginning of words if they’re loanwords or foreign in origin- my own last name, which is Eastern European, begins with an F. However, “Paras” appears in the Bible and is thus considered an “original” Hebrew word, to which all rules must apply.
Isn’t Holland one of the provinces of the Netherlands?
I’m not sure if it counts as politcal ,but I know a lot of Limburgers who do not like be called a Hollander, beside being the wrong province, Hollander is associated with certain aspects…like being cheap/over frugal or unspontaneous.(except when ORANJE is doing well in the euro/world championship…then it’s Hup Holland Hup)
It’s two provinces, North and South Holland.
Oh come on, I wouldn’t want to be called a Limburger for the life of me, or most of the other variants of Dutch that we have here for that matter, but there’s nothing political about that. Usage of ‘Hollander’ in English is just for simplicity. In Dutch, it is not used very often but it is used both within Holland and outside.
That’s right - it used to be one province though, way back in the day. Here’s a recentthread on this issue.
The inhabitats of most of the land between the Tigris and Indus valleys (non-inclusive) and the steppeland northeast of it belonged to cultures and spoke dialects that had a common self-designation. Unfortunately the term was adopted by language/cultural theorists and finally hijacked by a group of thoroughly Bad Guys so that it’s awkward to use any more. They called themselves Aryans. While I don’t spek any of th languages, I understand that “Iran” is an Anglicization of the vowel-shift that would mean, roughly, “Aryan-Land.” It’s always been a proper term for the region and for whatever the government ruling over it is.
“Persia” as noted gets its name from the former term for Fars province, the terms being divergent usages from the same root. It came to be synonymous with Iran because of the Achaemenids. This was a dynasty of petty kings ruling over the province of Anshan, in Fars, as tributaries under the Median Empire (itself centered more or less in Kermanshah) that: (a) unified Persia (Fars province), (b) overthrew the Median Empire, © overthrew the Neo-Babylonian (Chaldean) Empire, (d) overthrew the Lydian Empire, (e) conquered Pharaonic Egypt, and (f) menaced the Greek city-states, whose war against the Persian Empire cemented the name into place in Western consciousness. Successor states (the Arsacids, the Sassanids, the Parthians, the Ilkhans, and the Pahlavis) seemed content to let the West associate them with the Achaemenids by use of the same name, even though it was not the self-designation in Iranan tongues. It was in about 1935 that Iran said, in effect, “Hey, guys, we’ve put up with this’Persia’ kick for about 25 centuries. Don’t you think it’s about time you started calling us what we’ve always called ourselves – Iran?”
Many of my Iranian friends refer to themselves as “Persian”. I suspect to identify with the culture and not the regime …
Also, Persian girls have a reputation for being very hot but high maintenance. Just saying. 
The woman I’m currently seeing was born in Tehran and emigrated to the US with her family in 1979. Consequently, I’ve been undergoing a crash course in modern Iran and historical Persia over the last few months. I’m hardly an expert, but at least I can confirm much of what’s been said in the thread so far.
Iranians are extremely proud of their culture; if you remember the character of the father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and his assertions that “Greeks invented everything,” you have a sense of where Iranians are coming from. When the Arabs arrived with Islam, 1300 years ago (more or less), the Persians had already been largely monotheistic (Zoroastrian) for hundreds of years, so the “new” monotheism was very much old hat. Basically, ever since then, Iran has viewed itself as a formerly glorious empire now laboring under the yoke of foreign (Arab) domination. Even now, lo these many centuries later, there is still a significant undercurrent of Persian chauvinism in the culture; they’re waiting for Arab influence to ebb so they can be free to rediscover themselves.
Yes. The language, Farsi, used to be said “Parsi,” along with related terminology, but this was changed when the Arabs arrived, so the newcomers could pronounce it. You can still see remnants of the original form of the word in various traditional and archaic contexts; I commented on it while reading one of my girlfriend’s texts (with side-by-side English translation), and she confirmed the word’s evolution.
Oh, and yes, Persian women are hot, and can be high maintenance. I apparently got lucky with the woman I’m seeing now, though.
It might also be worth pointing out that that Iran has what one might call co-dominant ethnicities - Persian and Turkish. Every major ruling dynasty of Iran between 1055 and 1925 was Turkish or Mongol in origin ( a few minor regional powers like the Zand not withstanding ). Today a good quarter of Iranians speak some variety of Turkish as their first language and according to former professor of mine it is likely most Iranians have some degree of admixture in their family histories.
So one definition of Persian ( though hardly the only one ) are those Iranians that speak Farsi as their first language, as opposed to other ethnic groups like the Kurds or Azeris.
First hand knowledge or unverified rumour? We’re in GQ, here, we need accurate informations.
Indeed, we’re gonna need some cites, and probably photographic evidence at the least.
Actually, I had forgotten I had enquired about this very issue two days ago, and here you go for undeniable photographic evidences.
ETA : the first two pictures aren’t probative. But the rest…
In fact, I watched a large number of youtube videos about Iran, two days ago, and I found that this guy had the best channel. Quite a lot of beautiful pictures of Iran, each video having a theme (landscapes, monuments, etc…).
All the Persians I know are men. Dammit.
Though I briefly met the mother of one, a woman around my age. Hot.
First hand knowledge, in a look-but-don’t-touch sense - my best friend’s wife is Persian, and I’ve seen lots of her sisters, cousins and friends - many of whom are indeed hot. 
Sorry, no pics.
As for high maintenance … I plead the necessity of silence, lest my words cause trouble in the future.
And I hear those Aryans really don’t like Jews.