# Where does the name "INDIAN" come from? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 25, 2001, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-name-indian-come-from/51742 "2001-01-25T16:42:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![justinh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9fc29f/32.png) [@justinh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/justinh)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2001, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-name-indian-come-from/51742/1 "2001-01-25T16:42:46Z")
I was taught that it was named by Columbus because he thought he was in INDIA. But I heard an Indian Political leader say it was from some tribe’s word meaning “children of the sun” . Any insight? ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2001, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-name-indian-come-from/51742/2 "2001-01-25T16:56:52Z")
The Indian Political Leader is in error. Now, if you’re talking about Asian Indians, that’s different. They were named after the Indus River, and “Indus” (or “Indos”) is the Greek version of “sindhi” (I, think), which just means “river.” So, the “Indus River” (if you trace its roots back far enough) is kinda redundant. ---
**Author:** ![justinh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9fc29f/32.png) [@justinh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/justinh)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2001, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-name-indian-come-from/51742/3 "2001-01-25T17:13:25Z")
But, IIRC the current thinking is that Columbus didnt really think he was in INDIA. so why would he refer to the natives as “INDIAN”? the politician was funny, he referred to his people as the INDIAN NATION but the host asked him if that was a derogatory name . But he said no it was just a revisionist attempt to degrade the people with the Columbus link, because it actually came from the mystical name . ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2001, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-name-indian-come-from/51742/4 "2001-01-25T17:19:22Z")
I thought Columbus thought he had landed in the (East) Indies, not continental India. ---
**Author:** ![DKW](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dkw/32/3118_2.png) [@DKW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DKW)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2001, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-name-indian-come-from/51742/5 "2001-01-25T17:52:03Z")
_I_ read (old Just Checking column) that it derives from the expression Columbus used for them, “gente in dios”, or people of god. Presumably this referred to his desire to convert them to Christianity. Which, IIRC, didn’t quite work out, but that’s another GQ. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2001, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-name-indian-come-from/51742/6 "2001-01-25T18:08:01Z")
Here’s some [more info](http://www.snopes2.com/message/Forum28/HTML/000038.html) (with links) to chew on. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2001, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-name-indian-come-from/51742/7 "2001-01-25T18:46:30Z")
The name _India_ first appeared in that form in ancient Greek. The Greeks got the name from Persian _Hind_ – this shows that the /h/ sound (rough breathing) was being lost from Greek pronunciation at an early date. The Persian names _Hind_ and _Hindu_ resulted because of a sound shift in Old Persian from /s/ to /h/. The original name in Sanskrit was _Sindhu_, the name for the Indus river. Note that _sindhu_ has no Indo-European etymology that means ‘river’. The word _sindhu_ came from the name of the Indus river itself, which has the same name as the land it flows through, Sindh. A Dravidian etymology has been suggested for _sindhu_: Linguistic archaeology has shown, through analysis of ancient toponyms and hydronyms, that in prehistory the Dravidian languages were spoken all the way north up the western side of India, through Maharashtra and Gujarat into Sindh (and perhaps Afghanistan and Iran as well). The Dravidian language Brahui, still spoken in Baluchistan, is a remnant of the old northern extent of Dravidian. The Proto-Dravidian root \ ***cintu** means ‘date palm’. In modern Tamil the word for date palm is _întu_ (pronounced _îndu_). Date palms grew in Sindh in ancient times and are still grown there today as a cash crop. I think this etymology looks pretty plausible, given the large number of Dravidian loanwords to early Sanskrit. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2001, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-name-indian-come-from/51742/8 "2001-01-25T19:14:52Z")
The older (somewhat acrimonious) thread is: [Indians? How Come?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=10905) The more recent (and better developed) thread is: [Why did Christoper Columbus call them “Indians”?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=43607)