>>2103098
>Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, the British Minister in Tehran, wrote disdainfully in 1934 that “we have just received an absurd note” from the Iranian government requesting the use of “Iranian” instead of “Persian.” He blamed Herodotus for the original naming error and sardonically added that the request seemed to come from a desire to disown the Arab elements of the country’s history.
They were the first country to try and get Westerners to follow the naming convention that I know of though. The view at the time was they were trying to distance themselves from the Western view of the decadent Persian enemy of the West who burnt Athens.