Question

With which names did they call Istanbul through the history?

Answer 1

Oer the centuries the city called with different names. Its original name was Lygos, probably a Thracian word, and then Byzantium when it became a Greek trading town. The Roman Emperor Septimus Severus renamed it Augusta Antonia after his son Antonius. The Emperor Constantine established it as his new capital in the east of the Roman Empire and called it Nova Roma (New Rome) and Roma Constantinopolitana, though it was generally called Constantinopolis (the City of Constantine) after his death.

Answer 2

Over the centuries the city had a range of nicknames, the most common being simply hē Polis or "the City". Swedish Vikings who served there in the Byzantine emperors' Varangian Guard called it Miklagarðr or Miklagard meaning "the big city" in Old Norse. People both in the city and in the surrounding region referred to anything within its old walls as "εις την Πόλιν" (eis tin polin) or simply "in the city" and this phrase became "Istanbul" in Armenian and later in Turkish.

Answer 3

After the city fell to the Turks in 1453 it was still called Contantinople which became Kostantiniyye in Turkish and al-Qusṭanṭiniyah in Arabic, though in some contexts and titles the Turkish administration also referred to it as İstanbul from the Greek phrase "in the city". The new Turkish Republic was keen to standardise things, so from 1923 only İstanbul was used and all forms of the older name and nicknames were dropped.