Ariana (name) Ariana (name) Ariana is a feminine Persian name, popular in many languages. Arianna and Ariane are the two most common variations. The name "Ariana" has the several possible following origins. Ariana, the Latinized form of (Greek: ἡ 'Αρειανή/Arianē), was also a general geographical term used by some Greek and Roman authors of antiquity for an extensive territory in Central Asia, east of Persia and west of India, broadly covering modern Pakistan and Afghanistan. The name of Iran (Persia) originates from the Sanskrit word Aryānā (Ariana) meaning "The Land of the Aryans". The name "Arianna" is also the Latinized form of
Balochistan either a proper name "milu-akam" (from which "tamilakam" was derived when the Indus people migrated south) or "melu-akam", meaning "high country", a possible reference to Balochistani high lands. Historian Romila Thapar also interprets "Meluḫḫa" as a proto-Dravidian term, possibly "mēlukku", and suggests the meaning "western extremity" (of the Dravidian-speaking regions in the Indian subcontinent). A literal translation into Sanskrit, "aparānta", was later used to describe the region by the Indo-Aryans. During the time of Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), the Greeks called the land "Gedrosia" and its people "Gedrosoi", terms of unknown origin. Using etymological reasoning, H. W. Bailey reconstructs