Persian or Farsi?

I recently received a request for the localization of a project into “Persian”. Typically, I receive requests for “Farsi”. It seems there is quite a debate on which term is the correct term to use for the official language of Iran (and also spoken in Afghanistan and Tajikistan and other neighboring countries).

Originally know as Persia to the Western world, the country of Iran was always known as Iran in Persian (only Western culture referred to it as Persia). However, in 1935, it has been said that the suggestion to change the name from Persia to Iran was proposed by the Persian ambassador to Germany. Being that he was a Nazi sympathizer and believed that Persia would be well served being an ally to Germany, he become convinced that the country should be known by its Persian name “Iran” in Western languages. The name Iran is word that has a common etymological origin of the old word Aryan (derived from the Sanskrit "Arya" meaning "Noble").

To add to the confusion, Farsi (which is the Persian word for the Persian language) was now being used in Western languages instead of  Persian. "Farsi" (an Arabic adaptation of the word "Parsi"), is the indigenous name of the Persian language. Just as the Greek refer to their native language as “Ellinika” and the German “Deutsch”, “Farsi” or “Parsi” is how the language is referred to by native speakers.

However, after the 1979 revolution, many Persians moved to the West and began referring to their language as “Farsi” and it has been used in Western countries ever since (for the most part).

Since we never refer to Japanese as “Nihongo” in English or Spanish as “Espagnol” in English, technically, we should be referring (in English) to the official language of Iran as PERSIAN.

Personally, I've always thought it made much more sense to refer to countries and language names using the proper native pronunciation and not the English equivalent. On second thought, imagine a world where China was referred to as Zhōngguó!