Greek(people)

Today the Greeks call themselves Hellenes (Έλληνες), though they have been known by a number of different names throughout history. The soldiers that fell at Thermopylae did so as Hellenes. During the time of Jesus, the term shifted and any person of non-Jewish faith was called Hellene. By late Antiquity, the Greeks referred to themselves as Romaioi, i.e. Romans. Western Europeans used the term Greeks and the Persians and the Turks used the term Yunans, i.e. Ionians. An interesting and unique form is kept in Georgian. In ancient times, Georgians (Colchians and Iberians) called Greeks ბერძენი berdzeni. This form derives from the Georgian word ბრძენი brdzeni - wise. According to Georgian historians, the name is connected with the notion that philosophy was born in Greece. Modern Georgians still call Greeks ბერძენი berdzeni and Greece საბერძნეთი saberdznet'i, 'Greeks' land' or literally 'land of the wise'. The onset of every historical era was accompanied by a new name, either entirely new or formerly old and forgotten, extracted from tradition or borrowed from foreigners. Each of them was significant in its own time, and all can be used interchangeably, which means that the Greeks are a polyonymous people.