The bases of the name Cappadocia

Persians, who came from the high plateaus of Iran, obtained Greece cities one by one in the period of classical age of Greece colonialism in Anatolia and they achieved to establish a big Persian Kingdom in Anatolia. It is coincided with the name of Cappadocia firstly in Persian inscription from this period. There is a word of ‘Katpatuka’ on the inscription which is on the column that is set up in the period of Persian King I. Dareios power before Christ between the years of 522-486. This word means Cappadocia in Persian language. There are advanced views that the meaning of Katpatuka in Persian language is ‘country of beautiful horses’ and these views reflected to many resources. But there are also different views about the origin and the meaning of the word.
In ‘Giant Dictionary of Old Persian Language’, which is published by Bartholomae, there is not a word of Katpatuka. Huv-Aspa is used as ‘country has beautiful horses’ in this dictionary. According to Prof. Dr. Bilge Umar, word of Cappadocia’s origin comes from Anatolia. He stated with the examples that the name of Katpat, which forms the main body of word, is Khepat (Hepat) who is the mother goddess of Hittite and -uka which is at the end of the word is a suffix which is used a lot in that period to make up folk and nation names. Khepat-ukh or Karpatuka, as the use of Persians, means ‘Khepat folk’ or ‘country of Khepat folk.’ If it is took into consideration that in these periods countries are named with the names of head Gods this giving of name is compatible with the understanding of the period. By this approach it is stated that the first form of the word of Cappadocia has Hittite origin and means the country of mother goddess Kerpat. The word of Khepatukh later used as the form of Katpatuka by the Persian clans of Iran. Hellene society used this word as Cappadocia. Today we call this region Cappadocia.