Lake Sevan - Names

Names

Historical names of the lake are Gegharkuni (Armenian: Գեղարքունի), Sea of Gegham (Armenian: Գեղամա ծով Geghama tsov), Lychnitis (Greek and Latin), and (Turkic: Gökçe or Göyçə). On Russian map of 1902 the name of the lake is given as "Gokce or Sevanga". The name Sevan literally means "Black Van" referring to Lake Van. It is said that long ago, Armenians came from the areas around Lake Van to Lake Sevan. They saw that the lake was dark and almost black yet reminded them of Van, therefore the lake was called Sevan. The Old Georgian name for the lake drew from the name of its old inhabitants (i.e. before the fall of Urartu), the Èrs- it was called "Lake Ereta" by Leonti Mroveli in his Georgian Chronicles.

For a long time, the word "Sevan" was known to be connected with the monastery in the small island of the lake Sevan called "Sev Vank" ("Black Monastery") built with black tuff. And this was known to be the etymology of name Sevan. But it was obviously wrong, because the word "Sevan" was older than the monastery itself. Finally, the etymology of word "Sevan" was found in Teyseba (the cuneiform inscription by Rusa I (730—714 B.C.)). This inscription was a "birth certificate" of the term "Sevan". It was mentioned as "Suinia" or "Tsuinia". Thus, the etymology of "Sevan" is similar to Yerevan's etymology. It was named after simple geographical names, as water, river, lake, mount, etc. Later scientists found that "Suinia" or "Tsuinia" means "lake" or "basin" in Urartian.