Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave a municipal election campaign speech in 2019 saying that Istanbul will never be called “Constantinople” again.
However, the name Istanbul was adopted from Greek. Specifically, “Istanbul” derives from the Greek phrase “Is tin poli,” which means “into the city.”
In fact, throughout the many centuries of its existence, Greeks had referred to Constantinople as simply “Polis” (City). When one was going to the Polis, they would say “Is tin Poli”—a phrase which morphed into the modern term Istanbul.
