People living in this country, since ancient times, call it Iran, that is, the country where the Aryans live. The country was called Persia by the ancient Greeks, and after them the name was adopted by other peoples, transferring the name of the Fars region, located on the shore of the Persian Gulf, to the whole country. Once upon a time there lived nationalities who in the middle of the VI century BC. formed the Achaemenid empire. For her, and then for the later state of the Sassanids, the name Persia was fixed.
Iran was called Persia until 1935, when Reza Shah Pahlavi demanded to call the country Iran. There is a version that he was pushed to this by the Iranian ambassador to Germany, who fell under the influence of the Nazis. The Germans managed to convince him that the name Iran would emphasize the Aryan origin of the inhabitants of this country. At the same time, several years later, a number of scientists in Iran itself objected to such a decision, arguing that it would deprive the country of ties with its historical role. In 1959, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi expressed the opinion that the international community could use both names in parallel.