Morea

The name Morea for Peloponnesos first appears in the 10th century in Byzantine chroniques. Presumably it stems from the Slavic invaders of the 7th and 8th centuries, who occupied the peninsula and were at last submissed to the Byzantine Empire shortly before 1200. It means "(Land) on the Sea", Slavic "(Zemla) po more". Some scholars - mostly modern Greek - state in contrast that the form Morea derived from an allegged Middle-Greek "moreas" ("mulberry") or conjecture a rearrangement of the Greek terminus "Romea" (for "Roman Empire") to Morea. The case is still unclear.