Random Facts # 5: Istanbul Was Constantinople

People who know me know that I love Istanbul. I've been to a lot of the world's great cities, and they all have their own ups and downs, but Istanbul might be the only one that feels completely unique. A question I see asked a lot is why the name of the city is Istanbul, when throughout history it was called Constantinople. The question was popularized in the 1953 song Istanbul (Not Constantinople), which asks the question throughout without answering it. The history of the song itself is kind of interesting; it was written to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the city falling to the Ottoman Turks, and has been covered by several groups (people of my generation are most familiar with the 1990 cover by They Might Be Giants).

You Guys should have asked someone!

The city has had many names in many languages. According to the Roman writer Pliny the Elder, the original settlement that sat in the current location of the city was called Lygos. The first verifiable name of the settlement, however, was Byzantion. Nobody is 100% sure where this name comes from; it's probably Thracian in origin and may have been named after a person, but apart from that we can't be sure. In Latin, the name of the settlement became "Byzantium", the name by which the settlement was known in the Roman Empire. It's from this name we get the "Byzantine Empire", and from that, the word "byzantine", meaning overly complex or archaic.

In the Third Century CE the city was involved in a rebellion, and the Roman emperor Septimius Severus had the city razed. However, its location was too strategic to abandon, and he had it rebuilt with new fortifications. He changed the name officially to Augusta Antonina in honor of his son Antonius, who confusingly became known instead by the name Caracalla after becoming emperor in his own right.   Despite the official change, the city was still probably known as Byzantion/Byzantium (depending on if a person was speaking Greek or Latin) colloquially, and shortly after Caracalla's death the town officially reverted back to its previous name.

Sorry Septimius

Until this point, the city was of a moderate size but had never been especially influential, apart from its strategic location. However, that changed with the accession to the throne of Constantine the Great. Rome had become a troublesome capital; its internal politics were a constant distraction for the ruler of a world empire, and it was geographically too distant from the rich provinces of the east and the Empire's most troublesome frontiers in Eastern Europe and on the border with Persia. Byzantium was an excellent location for a new capital for several reasons. The settlement there was minor enough to be rebuilt to the emperor's taste without being completely remote. It was highly defensible, and sat in a strategically important location between Europe and Asia and the Black Sea and Mediterranean.

At its height the city was the largest in the world

The city was rebuilt over the course of 6 years, and was consecrated and designated the new capital on May 11, 330 (the date now considered the traditional birthday of the city). Curiously, during this early period the city was referred to by several different "official" names. New Rome was probably the most common (and the one eventually adopted by the Church), but others included the unimaginative "East Rome", "Mother Rome", and "Constantine's Rome."

Constantine gives his new city to the world.... Probably not to scale

After the Emperor's death though, the city gradually became to be known simply as Constantinople (Constantine's City or the City of Constantine). Of course, this is the modern English translation of the name of the city, and its name varied by language, in Latin it was Constantinopolis and in Greek Konstantinoupolis. It would retain this name for the rest of its life under the Byzantine Empire (as well as during the period when it was controlled by the Frankish Latin Empire).

Justinian added heavily to the city's architecture
including the Hagia Sophia

In 1453 the city fell to the Ottoman Turks under Sultan Mehmed II "The Conquerer". And the Turks... kept the name. It was changed to Kostantiniyye, the name the city had had in the Turkic and Arabic speaking worlds for centuries, but meaning the same thing. This remained the official name for the city from 1453, all the way to the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in 1923. To put in perspective how recently the city was still officially "Constantinople", here's a fun fact: this was the official name of the city the last time the Chicago Cubs won the World Series!

Istanbul during World War I

So how and when and why did the name change? Well the name "Istanbul", or at least variants of it, is actually pretty old despite its lack of official status. In Greek, there's a phrase that originally referred to various cities, στην Πόλη (To the City). This is pronounced like "Stim Boli), and overtime became contracted into a single word, basically meaning "THE City". Think of it as the way Americans often refer to New York simply as "The City" or "The Big Apple." It wasn't an official name, but it does seem to have been common in several languages, including Greek, Armenian, Arabic, and, of course, Turkish. During the Ottoman period the Turkish form of the word, İstanbul (also the modern name for the city). Yes, just in case of font issues, there is a dot over the capital I in the name of the city in the Turkish language. 

Istanbul was colloquial, but it was occasionally used "officially." For instance, the commander of the garrison for the city was known as the İstanbul ağası, or "City Chief/Lord Commander of the City". Throughout the Ottoman period the Ottomans did occasionally use this name in official capacities, but Kostantiniyye was still the official term, though often combined into long poetic descriptions for the city. The city of course had other names, such as "The Sublime Porte" (though technically this referred only to the Sultan's Palace), but Kostantiniyye was by far the most common.

When the Ottomans fell a man named Mustafa Kemal, later named Ataturk (father of the turks) became leader of the country  Okay, that's a gross oversimplification of the Turkish Revolution, but we don't have time for that here. Upon coming to power Ataturk wanted to sharply secularize and modernize his country, which had been referred to the sick man of Europe for some time and had suffered humiliating defeat after humiliating defeat. For decades up to this point, everyone in the country, regardless of ethnicity or religion, had been referring to the city as Istanbul in everyday speech. Constantinople was still used as an archaic holdover in official documents, the Ottoman postal system, etc., but nearly everyone else had dropped it. And so to simplify things, Ataturk had the name of the city officially changed. A handful of groups still used different, older names (the Greek Patriarch of the city still technically uses "New Rome"), but the Turkish government and nearly everyone else simply adopted the new name without complaint because it's what they'd been using for their entire lives anyway. 

If you're still confused, blame Ataturk

So there you have it. There's no mystery or strange answer. The city's name is just taken from "the city" and eventually became the go-to name used in everyday language. When this happened the official name was changed to fit with what everyone was already using. 

That's it for today, see you next time!