1 Answer

The name of Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye) can be divided into two components: the ethnonym Türk and the abstract suffix –iye meaning "owner", "land of" or "related to" (originally derived from the Greek and Latin suffixes –ia in Tourkia (Τουρκ?α) and Turchia; and later from the corresponding Arabic suffix –iyya in Turkiyya  The first recorded use of the term "Türk" or "Türük" as an autonym is contained in the Old Turkic inscriptions of the Göktürks (Celestial Turks) of Central Asia (c. 8th century).
The English name Turkey first appeared in the late 14th century, and is derived from Medieval Latin Turchia.
The Greek cognate of this name, Tourkia (Greek: Τουρκ?α) was used by Byzantine emperor and scholar Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in his book De Administrando Imperio, though in his use, "Turks" always referred to Magyars.
Similarly, the medieval Khazar Empire, a Turkic state on the northern shores of the Black and Caspian seas, was referred to as Tourkia (Land of the Turks) in Byzantine sources. However, the Byzantines later began using this name to define the Seljuk-controlled parts of Anatolia in the centuries that followed the Battle of Manzikert in 1071.
The Arabic cognate Turkiyya  in the form Dawla al-Turkiyya (State of the Turks) was historically used as an official name for the medieval Mamluk Sultanate which covered Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Hejaz and Cyrenaica.
The Ottoman Empire was commonly referred to as Turkey or the Turkish Empire among its contemporaries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey