Some interesting facts about Iran today

[rpannier]

- Around 70% of Iranians are under 40 years old
- There has been a spike in pre-Islamic Persian names given to children: Cyrus, Darius, and Anahita are as common, if not more, in many places as Hussain, Ali and Fatemeh
- The Faravahar, a Zoroastrian symbol, is often sported on jewellery, T-shirts, tattoos and bumper-stickers
- An interest in Cyrus has risen in Iran. Many urban youth will travel to south-central Iran to visit the tomb of Cyrus the Great

https://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-history/conqueror-icon-cyrus-great-who-iran-persia-persian-emperor-islam/

[Champp]

1. "Did someone mention my name?" - Cy

[Igel]

2. The regime has been resurrecting the images and ideas of empire.

Think of it as a kind of nationalism. Justification for engaging in some shady deals that extent Iranian influence. "Imperialism", if you would. You have to remember that Iran is a rump empire--its borders were set late, but its the result not of Azeris and Arabs and Balochis and others moving into a strictly Persian milieu, but of where they mixed over time and where the Persians (and Medes, lic. Kurds, for the most part) had managed to extend their empire.

Without the idea of empire, why should the ethnic mix stay glued together? And the empire, the nationalism, that counts is the official imperial nationalism, Persian. (One's tempted to point out that the old endonym for this branch of the Indo-European family was, ahem, Aryan).

Persian names are as good as Arabic names. Or perhaps better, because they're Persian.