The ancient Egyptian name of the country means "Black Land" and refers to fertile land along the Nile, which is the opposite of the neighboring desert, the "Red Land".
The European names Egypt, Ägypten, Égypte, Egitto, etc. come from the Latin word Aegyptus and originally from the ancient Greek word Αίγυπτος (Aigyptos). The Copts claim that they are direct descendants of the ancient Egyptian society from the time of the Pharaohs. The Greek word aigyptos arose from their name, which in German, for example, transformed into the word Ägypten. According to other theories, the word Aigyptos is a contamination of the Egyptian expression ḥwt-k3-ptḥ, which means "The seat of the soul of the god Ptah", which is also a reference to the Ptah temple in Memphis.