Where does Egypt's Arabic Name Masr come from? . Egypt has many names: Hwt Ka Ptah, Ta.Mri, Kemet, and Ta.Wy. But what about the modern name? In modern Egyptian Arabic, the country is called Masr. This word appears in multiple Near Eastern languages, and it's surprisingly ancient. Around 1300 BCE, the king of the Hittites in Anatolia wrote letters to the King of Egypt, Ramesses II, and in those letters the Hittite addressed the Egyptian king as king of Mi-is-ri-i. Mi-is-ri-i seems to be the Near