Why was Egypt called Egypt?
Immediately it should be clarified-Egypt is a country in North Africa called only by foreigners, the Egyptians themselves and residents of other Arab countries call it Misr, officially-Jumhuriyat Misr al-Arabiya (Arab Republic of Egypt).
The name Egypt came to Russian and other European languages not from ancient Egyptian, as is sometimes thought,but from ancient Greek.
The first major city that the ancient Greeks learned about at the beginning of the first Millennium BC was the ancient capital of Egypt (one of several, in different eras) – Memphis.
The city was located in the Nile Delta and was called in Egyptian at that time “Hikupta” or, according to other sources, “Aigyptos” (Memphis is also an ancient Egyptian name, but later).
After a slight change in their own way, the Greeks began to apply the name Egypt to the whole country. This is a fairly common practice in ancient times-to call the whole country by the name of the main city, let’s remember, for example, Rome.