The earliest references to the island of Crete come from texts from the Syrian city of Mari dating

from the 18th century BC, where the island is referred to as Kaptara.[4] This is repeated later in Neo-
Assyrian records and the Bible (Caphtor). It was known in ancient Egyptian as Keftiu or kftı͗ w,
strongly suggesting a similar Minoan name for the island.[5]
The current name "Crete" is first attested in the 15th century BC in Mycenaean Greek texts, written
in Linear B, through the words ke-re-te (*Krētes; later Greek: Κρῆτες [krɛː.tes], plural of Κρής [krɛːs])
[6]
 and ke-re-si-jo (*Krēsijos; later Greek: Κρήσιος [krέːsios],[7] "Cretan").[8][9] In Ancient Greek, the name
Crete (Κρήτη) first appears in Homer's Odyssey.[10]
In Latin, the name of the island became Creta. The original Arabic name of Crete
was Iqrīṭiš (Arabic: ‫< اقريطش‬ (της) Κρήτης), but after the Emirate of Crete's establishment of its new
capital at ‫ربض الخندق‬ Rabḍ al-Ḫandaq (modern Iraklion), both the city and the island became known
as Χάνδαξ (Chandax) or Χάνδακας (Chandakas), which gave Latin, Italian, and Venetian Candia,
from which were derived French Candie and English Candy or Candia. Under Ottoman rule,
in Ottoman Turkish, Crete was called Girit (‫)كريت‬.