Toponymy
The word Dagestan is of Turkic and Persian origin. Dağ means 'mountain' in Turkish, and -stan is a Persian suffix meaning 'land'. The word Dagestan therefore means 'the land of mountains'. Dagestan used to be called Kohestan 'mountainous place' in Persian and Arabized as Ghahestan. When the Persian language gradually faded in those regions and the Turkish language prevailed, the Persian koh (kuh in contemporary Persian) was replaced with its Turkic equivalent dagh. The present city transliterated as Derbent is from the Persian Darband, meaning a point on a mountain that one cannot climb further. In Persian Islamic mysticism Darband is the place where Simorgh (Shahrokh or Phoenix) lives and is the end point and farthest point of the world that man can imagine. Some areas of Dagestan were known as Albania, Avaria, and Tarkov at various times.
Read more about this topic: Republic Of Dagestan