Quick answer: On the Julian Dorey Podcast, historian Anthony Kaldellis says the word "Byzantine" comes from the ancient name of the much smaller town that stood where Constantinople, also called New Rome, was later built. Calling the whole medieval empire "Byzantine," he says, is "repurposing the archaic name of its capital city," which he compares to calling all of America "New Amsterdam." In his telling, that term "came into play in the 19th century," when "pretty much everybody in the West did it kind of simultaneously after the Crimean War."
Clip: Viral Podcast Shorts YouTube Short from the full source linked below.
Julian Dorey asks a simple naming question. "What was the term Byzantine though?" he says. "Like phonetically, where does that come from?"
Kaldellis answers from the map, not from later politics. "That is from the ancient name of the city that was on the location where Constantinople was built." Dorey follows the rename: "Oh that he changed the name to." Kaldellis agrees. "He changed it to Constantinople or New Rome."
The University of Chicago's Department of Classics identifies Kaldellis as a historian of "the east Roman empire from antiquity to the fifteenth century." That affiliation is not mentioned in the Short. The official YouTube title of the November 13, 2026, episode is “LOST History!” - The Hidden Roman Empire, The Vatican & Crusades | Anthony Kaldellis. This article stays with the name-origin exchange used in the Short and does not take up the rest of that episode.
A much smaller town, then a capital
The new capital, Kaldellis says, was not built on empty ground. "Formerly it had been a much much smaller town" whose ancient name he and Dorey render as Byzantion, or Byzantium. (The auto-captions transcribe those forms unevenly; this article uses the standard English spellings rather than the caption renderings.)
That older town name, in his account, is what later got stretched over an entire state. "When we're referring to this whole medieval empire by that name," he says, "we're just repurposing the archaic name of its capital city."
He reaches for an American comparison, then adjusts it as he goes. "It would be like calling all of America," he starts, before saying, "Washington didn't have a name, but maybe it did. I don't know." The example he lands on is clearer: "New Amsterdam is what New York used to be called. And so all of you would be New Amsterdam." He calls it "a good weird comparison."
The Short description tightens that analogy to calling all of America New Amsterdam. In the clip itself, he works his way to New Amsterdam after the aside about Washington.
A 19th-century label, in his telling
The surprise, for Dorey, is how late the label arrived. "That term came into play in the 19th century," Kaldellis says. Dorey checks the point: "Oh, it didn't even come till then." Kaldellis answers, "Yeah, it's pretty late."
Dorey wants a person behind the change. "Who who did that?" Kaldellis does not name a single coinage. "Pretty much everybody in the West did it kind of simultaneously after the Crimean War."
The Short ends there. He does not, in this segment, walk through earlier scholarly uses of the word, or say who first put "Byzantine" into a history book. This article does not add that debate. It leaves the claim as he makes it in the clip: a Western habit, in his view, that settled in during the 19th century, after the Crimean War, by taking the archaic name of the capital and applying it to the whole medieval empire.
Related reading
- Julian Dorey on a car that exploded, and a Joe Rogan episode that was still playing
- Kenneth Lacovara on the crumbling cliff and the pterosaur slab, from the Joe Rogan Experience
- William Washington at Rugeley's Mill, and the "Quaker gun"
- History on RealNameOf
FAQ
Where does Anthony Kaldellis say the word "Byzantine" comes from?
From the ancient name of the much smaller town that stood on the site where Constantinople was built. He says the city was also called New Rome.
What comparison does he use?
After first reaching for "all of America," he says New Amsterdam is what New York used to be called, "and so all of you would be New Amsterdam."
When does he say the term came into use?
In the 19th century. He tells Dorey it is "pretty late," and that "pretty much everybody in the West did it kind of simultaneously after the Crimean War."
Does the Short explain the Vatican or the Crusades?
No. Those subjects are in the full episode's title. They are not part of the name-origin clip this article follows.