text: the nation iraq is ancient mesopotamia. iran is ancient persia. from where did we get the modern names? both nations are islamic, does the origin of the modern names have to do with that?  is it only a coincidence that they are the same except for the last letter? totally different ... the similarity of the names (in english) is coincidence. as pointed out, iran means land of the aryans (the race to which the persian people belong). and fyi ... mesopotamia was never a nation, it's a geographical area and was part of the ancient persia. persia included not only present-day iran, but a vast area stretching from the nile in the west to india in the east. loads of info can be found on the net, of course.