The article deals with the question of the origin of the toponym Partava (ParOava-). After analyzing the data of Achaemenid inscriptions and information from Herodotus, the author comes to the conclusion that the name of this region goes back to the Massaget language (Saka Tigrahuda). Key words: ParOava (ParOava-), Achaemenids, Massagetes, Saki tigrahauda. The toponym Paroava (ParOava-) was first recorded in Achaemenid inscriptions, where it served to designate a small area in northeastern Iran. Partava was successively part of the Achaemenid Empire, the empire of Alexander the Great and the Seleucid state, and after the Parnae conquest it became the core of the Arsacid monarchy. At the same time, there is still a debate in science about the origin of this toponym. So, I. M. Diakonov raised this name to Iransk. *pars -, *parsav - - "rib", "side", " edge "and believed that "Parthia was, apparently, the" edge" for the tribes that spoke southwestern dialects " (Dyakonov, 2008, p.100). But although the transition of the common Iranian *s to 0 is indeed characteristic of the Old Persian language [Kent, 1953, p. 33; Rastorgueva, 1990, p. 83], the existence of the form ParOava - already in the 7th century BC does not allow - contrary to R. Kent [Kent, 1953, p. 33] - to derive it from the " South- western " dialect [Grantovsky, 1961, p. 7, ed. 22; Grantovsky, 2007, p. 165]. At the same time, the toponym Partava cannot be either Median or Parthian, since in Western Iranian languages the common Iranian *s becomes s [Kent, 1953, p. 33; Rastorgueva, 1990, p. 83, 200-201]. E. A. Grantovsky believed that it is phonetically possible to construct an etymology of the name of the region and the people who inhabited it to the Indo-Iranian *Parthu-and compare it with the corresponding Indian ethnonyms [Grantovsky, 1961, p. 7]. According to S. V. Kullanda, this is unlikely from a historical point of view, since no names dating back to the Indo-Iranian *Parthu-are known in the Iranian wo ... Читать далее