This is really only vaguely related to the recent Staff Report on Good Samaritans, so I put it here. Is the ancient kingdom of Assyria in any way connected with the current country of Syria? Are the names from the same root, or are they the same people, or is it just a confusing coincidence?
Nope. The two terms come about from the Greek habit of forcing names into their alphabet, so that Khshourikhshiya (that’s approximate) King of Kings of Persia becomes “Xerxes.” Asshur was a city which became capital of the kingdom in northern Mesopotamia named after it (there’s no “ass” there; syllabically, it’s as-shur). Assyria was the Greco-Roman name for that kingdom. So far as I know, “Syria” first dates from Roman times, where it was used for the valley between the mountains, called “Coelesyria,” and appears to be derived from a South Semitic form approximately “Souriya.” (In Assyrian times, that area was named “Aram.”)