The Greek name for Greece.

Why is Greece not called Hellas?

Hell-as!" It turns out that both "Greece" and "Hellas" have Greek roots, but "Greece" was adopted by the Romans (as the Latin word "Graecus"), and later adopted into English, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED says Aristotle uses "Graiko" as the name for the first inhabitants of the region.

What's the difference between Greece and Hellas?

Even today, the country is known abroad as Greece, while the Greeks call themselves “Ellines” and their country Ellada, or Hellas in English. The official name of the country is The Hellenic Republic as it is written on Greek passports; however one's ethnicity on the same documents is described as “Greek.”