What does the name "Egypt" mean and where does it come from?

Answer 1

In Greek mythology, Aegyptus, or Aigyptos ("supine goat") was the king of Egypt (which took its name from him), the son of Belus and father of fifty sons who were all but one murdered by the fifty daughters of Aegyptus' twin brother, Danaus.

Aegyptus commanded that his sons marry the Danaides and Danaus fled to Argos, ruled by King Pelasgus. When Aegyptus and his sons arrived to take the Danaides, Danaus gave them to spare the Argives the pain of a battle. However, he instructed his daughters to kill their husbands on their wedding night. Forty-nine followed through, but one, Hypermnestra refused because her husband, Lynceus, honored her wish to remain a virgin. Danaus was angry with his disobedient daughter and threw her to the Argive courts. Aphrodite intervened and saved her. Lynceus later killed Danaus as revenge for the death of his brothers. Lynceus and Hypermnestra then began a dynasty of Argive kings (the Danaan Dynasty). In some versions of the legend, the Danaides were punished in the underworld by being forced to carry water through a jug with holes, or a sieve, so the water always leaked out.

Answer 2

When the British colonized the area known as Egypt, two soldiers went to a bazaar to pick up a few items. After the obligitory haggling with a merchant over the price of a particular item, one of the soldiers gained what he thought was a good deal on his end. A while later, after they left the bazaar, the soldier, upon further examination of his purchase, realized that he had been had. He turned to the other soldier and said "Bloody hell! That scamp at the market - 'E GYPPED ME!!!"

Thus, this is how the name "Egypt" came to be.

Love, Jack.

Answer 3

Miṣr, the Arabic and official name for modern Egypt, is of Semitic origin directly cognate with the Hebrew מִצְרַיִם (Mitzráyim), meaning "the two straits" (a reference to the dynastic separation of upper and lower Egypt), and possibly means "a country" or "a state".[1] Miṣr in Arabic also means "a country" or "a state". The ancient name for the country, kemet, or "black land," is derived from the fertile black soils deposited by the Nile floods, distinct from the 'red land' (deshret) of the desert. This name became keme in a later stage of Coptic and appeared in early Greek as Chymeía. The English name "Egypt" came via the Latin word Aegyptus derived from the ancient Greek word Αίγυπτος (Aigyptos). According to Strabo, Αίγυπτος (Aigyptos), in ancient Greek meant "below the Aegean" (Aἰγαίου ὑπτίως, "Aegaeou uptiōs"), and was formed by the combination of the two words. It has also been suggested that the word is a corruption of the ancient Egyptian phrase hwt-k3-ptḥ (probably for *Hāwit-kāʔ-Pitáḥ") meaning "home of the Ka (Soul) of Ptah", the name of a temple of the god Ptah at Memphis.[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt